Monthly Clothing Purchases - November 2025

It has been a little quieter on the clothing purchase front this month. I've not been looking to buy clothes really, as I don't need much, save maybe a few sweaters made from natural materials, but I rarely see these in charity shops these days.

Having said this, I did find a sweater in the charity shop this month. It is from Hobbs and is part wool, part cotton. It cost £4 and is in pretty good condition. I may need to do a little debobbling on it, but nothing more. Here's a picture:

I think this will be good for wearing over a dress or with a long sleeved t-shirt underneath. It is handwash only, but I want to wash it as little as possible, if I can.

The next item I bought this month was a denim shirt for OH to give me for Xmas. It was from Primark and cost £16. It's 90% cotton and quite oversized. I'll maybe post a picture of it when I receive it at Xmas.

Another item I bought this month, was this Seasalt dress for £6 from a local charity shop. It is a bit oversized on me, but it is part linen, part viscose and I liked the print on it, so I figured that it was too nice quality to pass up. I will probably wear it under a large sweater or sweater vest, so the fact that it is oversized won't be as noticeable, as a consequence.

I did also go thrifting with LB to try to spend what remained on a Charity Shop gift card, but I couldn't find anything I wanted to buy, so at least this didn't add to my clothing purchases this month. 

I made one more clothing purchase of a 100% plain cotton black T-shirt for the gym, which cost £4 from the men's section in the charity shop. I just need to turn up the sleeves and stitch them in place and then wash it before I wear it.

It's been a good month for not buying too many items of clothing. I spent £14 on items and another £16 on a gift for OH to give me for Xmas, so just £30 this month, which isn't too bad and means my spending is still reducing, if only slightly. I just hope I can continue to keep spending to a minimum going forward. Thrifting will always be a temptation for me though, I just have to keep it under control.

An Interesting and More Social Week - W/E 30th November 2025

This week got off to a very busy start, as I had quite a lot going on on Monday. I headed out a bit earlier to do the weekly shop. I can't honestly say that I kept it within budget, as most of the cost of the shop will be coming from next month's budget, as I ran out of money again before the end of the month. It's becoming the norm of late, but I just have to roll with it and hope that once Xmas is out of the way, things will calm down and I'll manage to stay in budget.

I was back home by 1.30pm, but then had to get ready and go out by 3pm. I was meeting a couple of friends for an early supper. I hadn't seen them since July, so there was quite a bit of news to catch up on. It was lovely to see them. We were all organised and exchanged Xmas cards, which saved us all on postage. I couldn't have a drink though, as I'd booked myself onto a 3 week dance course, that I was due to attend later that evening.

The course is a Jazz Solo/Charleston course, which is being taught over the next three Mondays. It wasn't very expensive at £28 for 3 classes. I've really missed doing dance and haven't done anything since before Lockdown, when all the classes I used to attend closed down. The solo classes never resumed, post Covid, so when I saw this course, being run by a different dance school, I jumped at the chance to go along. I thought that I would probably be the oldest person on the course, but there were quite a lot of mature students, which made me feel much less self conscious about my age this time around.

I was a few minutes late to the class, as I had to take 2 buses from the restaurant and just missed one as we left, so had to wait a while for another to come along. The class itself was really good though and the teacher was excellent and really broke the different steps down for ease. I really enjoyed it and was home by 9.15pm, glad to just chill for the rest of the evening.

On Tuesday, I had a bit of a lie in and read for an hour in bed before getting up and heading out to a class at the gym. The regular teacher was back from her holiday this week. I spent the remainder of the day trying to do some work on LB's pouffe, but I didn't really get very far. It's a bit trickier than I thought.

Wednesday, started with another lie in reading, before getting up, showering and heading down for breakfast. LB had already gone into work. The Panto has started and she's getting shifts again. I took myself out for a walk in the morning, but it wasn't as long as I normally take. I only did 6,000 steps, but it's better than nothing.

When I got back, the Budget was on the radio. I was relieved that nothing drastically affected us as a family, but we will be paying more tax in some areas, such as paying tax per mile for car journeys, as we have a hybrid car. Our mileage isn't high. We maybe use the car twice per week, most weeks, driving 40 miles or so in total per week, plus visits up north to family a few times per year. I do wonder if they are planning to bring this in for all cars eventually, if it is successful for electric/hybrid cars. It would probably take something like this to reduce traffic on the roads these days, which seems to get ridiculously busy.

I spent the afternoon doing some sewing. I didn't feel like continuing with the pouffe, I needed a break from it, so I got started on a new festive project that I had put aside to do if I got the time. I'll make a separate post about this. I also did a bit of work on another craft project using fabric scraps, that I've been doing over the last week, which I'll include in the same post.

In the evening, OH and I watched a great film on Netflix, called The Holdovers starring Paul Giamatti, in which he plays a boarding school teacher who is required to stay at school over the Xmas holidays, to look after students who can't go back home for Xmas. It was a film that came out last Xmas and I wanted to see it then, but didn't. It was great to catch it on Netflix this year and it made me feel a bit festive. 

Talking of feeling festive, our local council are providing free film viewings for over 55's this Xmas at our local small independent cinema on Friday mornings.  I've booked a ticket for a couple of films, one of which is a 1951 version of A Christmas Carol with Alistair Simms and the other a James Stewart film set in Budapest. It will be nice to go along and see a film and they throw in a free cup of tea and biscuit. Even better.

On Thursday, I went to the gym in the morning and then spent the afternoon working on the festive project again. In the evening, OH and I had arranged to go to our local mall, the main reason being for me to pick up an order from John Lewis. I bought a gift for LB's birthday in January in their Black Friday sale. (A sewing machine!) 

We decided to have supper out and do a little Xmas shopping, as there was something I needed to get for LB that I could only get there.  We then had a drink in the bar, before picking LB up from work at the theatre nearby.  My Xmas shopping is now mostly all done, which is a relief. I just need to buy a bottle of wine for OH and that's it.

Friday, I was out all day. I started out attending a coffee morning at a cafe in an area where we used to live many years ago, in our first rented flat together. It was a bit of a trip down memory lane for me.  The cafe is part of a community led project and is heavily subsidised. I was shocked when I was charged just £1 for a cup of tea. I don't think I've paid that little for a drink in a cafe in years. Anyway, the group I was meeting with were there in quite a large number and I got chatting to quite a few people and had a nice sociable couple of hours.

When I left, I decided to walk all the way home, which was probably 2-3 miles. I took a detour to a lovely little shopping street full of independent shops, where a flower market is held every Sunday. I stopped off to get a brie and cranberry bagel for lunch in one of the shops and then walked on to our local city farm, where I explored the gardens. I hadn't been here in years, since I did a gardening course there probably 15 years ago. 

I visited a few charity shops en route and bought just one item that I actually needed, before eventually getting home at about 4.30pm, so I made a real day out of it. I enjoyed it. I need to get out more and make the most of what is on our doorstep here in London and it was nice to get to know new people a little.

When I got home, I spent the evening doing a bit more work on LB's pouffe and then did some financial reckoning, as it's near enough the end of the month and I don't intend spending anymore money between now and December 1st, if I can help it.

Saturday morning, I had to drag myself out of bed to go to the gym, as I'd slept really badly and was exhausted. OH came along, which helped to motivate me to go.

I spent the afternoon sewing. I finished the festive project, i.e. fabric paper chains, making another 9 links and stitching on all of the velcro, so it's now ready to hang. I also did a bit of work on LB's pouffe and also started another small project with some of the denim waistbands from the jeans I cut up. I'm trying hard to use as much of the jeans fabric and features as possible. This small project was to make a basket, possibly for threads and bits of scraps from sewing. It is being completely sewn by hand.

OH, meanwhile, spent the afternoon re-roofing, repairing and creosoting our little wood/coal shed. We've had this shed for over 20 years and it should now hopefully last a bit longer still. Here's a picture:

In the evening, OH got all of the Xmas decorations out of the loft and I went through and took out all the Xmas mugs, crockery, kitchen linens to put them straight to use. Putting up the decorations will have to wait until next week, once I've had a tidy around. It's exciting though.

On Sunday, we had a canine visitor again, next door's dog Toby came to stay for the day. OH went out to a cycle race, so it was just LB and I at home. I took Toby on a long walk, which I think we both enjoyed. I do miss having a dog and he's such a sweetie.

When we got back, I spent the rest of the afternoon finishing the thread/scrap basket. I added a few pockets to hold the sewing tools I use most. It will just help to keep everything tidy and together in one place.  I intend to line it with a plastic bag that I will fill with chopped up scraps and then replace it with another bag when it's full. I'm pretty happy with the outcome, I think it's cute. Here's a couple of pictures:

I just need to hang a little pin/needle cushion to one of the belt loops or the button on the back and it's good to go. I'm hoping it will help keep the kitchen table a bit tidier, as I do most of my sewing there these days.

Recent and Festive Makes

I've been dabbling lately in a new to me craft. If you've been following my blog for any length of time, you will know that I'm always looking for new and inspiring ways to use up fabric scraps and I saw this idea on an Instagram post that happened to pop up in my feed. It was to create a bowl made from fabric scraps. I immediately thought this looked quite simple and easy to make, so I gave it a try.

The first step was to cover the bottowm of a bowl with cling film and then PVA and then stick the fabric scraps to it, coating it with more PVA.  The first layer of fabric scraps needed to be face down, as this would become the inside of the bowl. Here's a picture of the bowl at this stage:

Once this dried, which took approximately 24 hours, I could then apply a second layer.  For this layer I just used plain fabric, just to thicken the bowl and give it more strength. I used the cotton pocket bags from the jeans I'd been cutting up for this, and it worked well enough. Once this dried, it was time to apply the top layer, which would be the outside of the bowl and these fabric scraps needed to be face up.

When this was dry, I took the fabric bowl off the metal bowl and the cling film. To do this I cut away the cling film and lifted the bowl out with it, before peeling it off. For some reason, the inside layer of fabric was covered with what looked like a thin layer of plastic. I'm not sure if this came from the cling film, or was the initial PVA I used drying to a shiny finish. The later PVA I used dried matt, so I decided to add a second layer of scrap fabric to the inside of the bowl to cover this. To be honest, it was also good for making the bowl a bit thicker and stronger too, and I preferred the fabrics I used latterly too.

Once completely dry, here's a picture of the resulting bowl:

I'm going to use this to store the balls of fabric yarn I made to use for weaving. 

I enjoyed making it and I liked the results. You can, of course, use any bowl, of any size to do this and you could make it from one fabric, rather than lots of different scraps. I love the fact that it is constructed completely from fabric (and PVA).

In addition to the above make, I also started a festive sewing project recently, to make some fabric 'paper' chains. I've been meaning to do this for a few years, but have never got around to it. I have a stack of Xmas fabrics and wanted to make some kind of decor with it. Here's a picture of the stack of fabrics I chose for this make:

I mainly chose red, white and green Xmas prints. I created a template from cardboard and then proceeded to cut several pieces from each fabric, using the template.

Using just the fabric on it's own made the links of the chain a bit too flimsy, so I needed to iron interfacing onto the back of each strip to make the links a bit stronger, before I proceeded to link them. I added velcro to each link for closure, as this way they could be stored flat and not get squashed or take up too much space.

Here's a picture of what I've made of the chain so far:

I'm really happy with it. I still need to make a few more links to make it long enough to hang where I want to put it, and the velcro needs stitching as it is just pinned in place in this photo, but it's coming along nicely and I love the bright and cheerful Xmas prints. I'll post another picture when I've got it up in situ next month.

I had a couple of smallish pieces of two of the fabrics left, so I decided to use them up and make them into drawstring gift bags for wrapping gifts this Xmas. They just need some ribbon threading through at the top and they'll be good to go.

A few inexpensive things, that I enjoyed making from fabric I already had in my stash and that should be useful this festive season and beyond.

Allotment and Garden Jobs and a Day Out Thrifting With LB - W/E 23rd November 2025

I managed to almost keep within the budget of £90 for grocery shopping this week, save that I threw a couple of Xmas items in my basket at my last stop in B&M. I used my last £4 off a £40 spend at Tesco this week, so I've got no more vouchers now for the rest of the month. They have really helped me with the budget this month.

With just one grocery shop left in November,  I think I'll probably go over budget by a few pounds, if I'm honest, as I have a meal out with friends planned for next week. I always count this as part of the food budget, which might seem strange, but the money is being spent on food and it's a pretty rare event these days.

I picked up a click and collect order for some new Morris & Co towels from TKMaxx whilst I was out shopping. I decided to order these online, as they are really good value from this store and I saved probably nearly £20 on buying them elsewhere. Quite a lot of our towels are getting a bit old now, so I'm gradually trying to replace them and I now have 3 different sets of these. I love the designs, this one is Sunflowers and they feel quite luxe to use. It wasn't a planned expenditure, but I don't regret it, as they don't always have them in stock, so when they do it's good to be able to get hold of them at a good price.

Tuesday, was a busy day. I attended a class at the gym in the morning and then at 1pm, OH and I had to go to the allotment, to load all of the rubbish from the shed demolition into a hire van and take it all to the tip. Another plot holder came to help us, which was good, as it made it slightly quicker. The van was full to the hilt. We couldn't get another single thing in there. As we were taking a van to the tip, we had to book a drop off slot, to prevent trade waste coming in. It took a couple of hours all told, but it was a job well done. I took a picture of the area we cleared on this visit. I forgot to post one on my last post about this:

OH now just needs to level the pavers ready for the new shed to be erected. He managed to rescue some roofing felt from the old shed to re-roof our little shed in the garden at home, which was good, as this saved him having to buy a whole roll of the stuff and should keep our little shed, that we use for coal and kindling, in use a bit longer.

We did the right thing taking all of the rubbish to the tip on Tuesday, as on Wednesday it was raining all day. Had we left it, the debris would have been very wet and messy and it would have made the job a lot harder and dirtier.

LB and I had arranged to go thrifting on Wednesday, but I saw an instagram post on my phone informing me that one of the shops we were going to visit was closed, so due to that and the awful weather, we decided to postpone the trip until Friday.

Instead of going out, I decided to have a day at home sewing and doing other odd jobs. I managed to finish another couple of small projects and then spent the rest of the afternoon making more fabric yarn for my next weaving project. I'd already cut the strips of fabric and just wanted to get them run up into yarn. I've got a few more left to do, but I needed to change the colour of the cotton in the machine, so I stopped at that point as it was getting a bit late. 

A new PVC cover for our small greenhouse came on Wednesday. I'd ordered it on eBay, as our current one, which we haven't had that long is leaking badly. It was damaged by the strong sunlight over the summer months and everything inside is getting very wet and soggy. 

In the evening, OH and I watched the first episode of series 2 of Landman on Paramount. 

On Thursday, I didn't go to the gym in the morning. I had a twinge in my shoulder and I didn't want to exacerbate it by going to the gym. Instead, I went for an 8500 step walk. It was quite cold, but refreshing to get out in the fresh air.

 

When I got home, I had some lunch and then spent an hour or two making more fabric yarn. I then decided to sort out the greenhouse and put the new cover on. The inside of the greenhouse was a soggy, mouldy mess on account of water getting in. It wasn't a particularly nice job to have to do, but it needed doing. We'd been throwing lots of stuff in there all year, on account of the building work next door and having to move stuff from the side return, so it felt very satisfying to re-organise it and make it water tight for the winter. It also needed a few joints replacing, as they'd broken, but luckily I'd bought a mixed bag from the charity shop for £2 earlier in the year and it was a life saver, as it contained just the joints I needed. The job was done in a couple of hours, luckily before it got dark. Here's a picture of the greenhouse with it's new cover on:

It still looks a bit of a mess, but it's a lot drier, repaired, I've evicted all the snails, swept it out and it is now water tight. I'll go through everything again in the spring, wash the dirty plant pots and trays and put them away. Hopefully, OH will  build the side return greenhouse next year and everything will get transferrred into there. For now, it serves a purpose and it will be fine.

On Thursday evening, I ventured out to attend a talk by a theatre costume designer, being held fairly locally, a short bus ride away. I had a nice evening and the talk was very interesting. There are more talks that I may potentially attend in the future, which might be interesting. It was good to get out and do something different.

Friday morning, I got up and ready, as LB and I were heading out thrifting today in another part of the borough, where there are a couple of shops where I can spend the £8 that remains on my Charity Shop giftcard. It was a nice excuse to spend some time out and about together before LB gets busy at work again.

LB took a while to surface, so I continued sewing some fabric yarn until she was ready to go out. Once she was ready, we headed out. 

First stop was a Poundland store that was closing down. We decided to go in and have a look. I bought a couple of cans of de-icer for 20p each, and bought these three sets of bio seed pots and a pack of seed labels, which I'm going to gift to OH for Xmas. These totalled £1.10. Bargain. Combined with some seeds, they'll make a nice little extra gift.

I bought a few other food bits, but only spent £4.30 in total. It was sad for the staff that the store was closing, but I was very happy with my bargains.

We then visited a few charity shops, a couple of which I could spend my voucher in. Unfortunately, as is usually the case when you've got the money there waiting to be spent, despite spending over an hour in one particlularly large thrift store, I didn't find anything I wanted to buy. Well, I found a couple of items I wanted to buy, but they were too small for me, so that made the decision for me. I felt very restrained coming home with my Charity Gift card balance still intact. I'll just have to spend it another day.

We stopped off in a lovely garden bar for a drink before catching the bus home. We had a lovely afternoon out together. It was perishingly cold though, so we were happy to get home and get warm again.

On Saturday morning, OH came to the gym with me for the over 50's free session which was nice. When we got home, his friend had dropped off their dog Bruce, as he'd agreed to look after him for the day whilst they went out. It was nice to have another canine companion for a day and he was no trouble.

OH took him for a walk and then took him to the allotment whilst he levelled the patio area ready for the shed to be erected. Hopefully, now that is done, OH will get a break from working on the shed, as it will be erected by the company they're buying it from and then other plot holders can sort out treating the timber once it's up.

It was another miserable and rainy day here on Saturday, so I spent the rest of the day sewing, making fabric yarn and working on LB's pouffe. I've now managed to finish one of the six sides of the pouffe and am now contemplating how I'm going to sew the others. The one I've done is made of hexagons, but I'm doing each side in a different patchwork style.

On Sunday, I woke up quite late and had a leisurely breakfast. I spent most of the day stitching with denim or mining the different bits of fabric from the various pairs of jeans that I'd bought to make LB's pouffe. I made another of the six sides of the pouffe. Two down, four to go. I'm making the four sides 11" x 18 ", as she only needs it to put her feet on under her computer desk, so I don't want to make it too high.  The remaining two sides will be 18" square.   I'll probably put a zip in the bottom, so that the stuffing can be taken out and the cover washed. I started on a third side piece, but it's not going as well as I'd hoped, so it may not end up as part of the project.

After supper, OH and I watched another episode of Landmen.  A quiet day at home for me today, which was fine by me as I had a busy start to next week.

Recent Sewing/Other Makes - November

After going away at the beginning of November, it took me until mid month before I got my sewing mojo back proper. I did manage to continue work on a second gilet, which involved a lot of hand sewing and by the middle of the month I had finished this.  

This gilet is reversible, but I will probably wear the gingham side for the most part. I'm happy with the outcome, but I did find the cotton wadding harder to work with than synthetic wadding. It felt stiffer and a lot tougher to sew through.

I forgot when I used the gingham check fabric to make this item, that the fabric had previously been very lightly used as a table cloth and had a very small pea sized stain on it. I didn't notice the stain until after I'd cut all the pieces out and I didn't have enough fabric to re-cut the piece. As a consequence, I sewed a small bee patch over the stain to hide it, which looks fine to me, it adds a little bit of interest. I was going to put a pocket over it, but decided that I didn't want pockets on the front. I sewed one to the inside instead.

Here's a couple of pictures of the finished item:

I did complete a new small project this month. It was something that came to mind when I saw how scruffy my small hot water bottle covers had got. I use them very regularly in the colder months, so they've seen some life. Here's a couple of pictures to illustrate:

I decided to make a pattern for some new covers. I used an envelope design, similar to the one used for the cream cover. I had some fairisle wool fabric in my stash, that I'd cut from some felted sweaters years ago and hadn't found a use for, so I decided to use them for this project. I think they turned out quite cute:

I didn't attach velcro for closure, but I may do at some point. I've now used the blue one a few times and it's fine without the velcro. I'm just hoping that no moths get to them. They should be super cosy to use this winter and are a definite upgrade. The old covers were chopped up to make stuffing for a new project I'm working on this month.

The main new sewing project I have worked on this month, was a patchwork denim pouffe for LB, as a gift for Xmas. Here's a picture of how it's coming along:

I'm hoping to have it finished in time. I'm trying to clear the deck of other projects, so that I can focus on this one and get it finished.

As part of clearing the decks, I completed this non-sewing make, although part of it did involve sewing to bind it and make the strips of fabric yarn.

This small mat was my first attempt at weaving with fabric yarn, that I made from unused fabric scraps. It was woven on my small children's loom. This mat was the biggest thing I could make on the loom, it only being small. It's a very simple design, as I wanted to keep it simple on my first attempt. I bound the edges with some fabric that I cut off a blouse I shortened.

I'm going to use it to put under my sewing machine when I'm sewing at the kitchen table, as the noise can be quite loud, so hopefully this will soften it. I was pretty happy with the result. I would like to make a larger loom and make a larger sized floor mat or rug, but I need to find the right sized frame to create a loom. It's a possible project for the future.

My focus for the remainder of November and December will now be to finish the pouffe for LB and maybe make some Xmas fabric chain garlands and fabric wraps. I'm keeping my list short, so that I make sure to focus on priorities and not get too distracted, but I probably will anyway.

Alterations Big and Small

I've been doing a few more alterations in recent weeks. They have ranged in size. Probably the smallest alteration was just cutting a bit of fabric off some sleeves of a dress that I bought on Vinted. I bought the new dress, after already having the same dress in a different colour (black) and having altered the sleeves on the first one. The original sleeves were three quarter, which is a length I really dont like and they had a button closure, which made them feel tight. I just sat one dress on top of the other to cut the sleeves off to the same length, which I knew worked for me and them hemmed them. I did forget to take a before picture, but here's the after picture:

I absolutely love these dresses, the cut is the most flattering I've found and I love wearing the black one. I'm now looking forward to wearing this one.

The next smallest alteration was to shorten a blouse I bought from the charity shop.  I didn't find the length flattering on me and it would have needed to be tucked in. To prevent the need to tuck it in, I just shortened it, so that it sat at a length that could be worn with trousers or skirts without tucking. You may ask why not take it back, and I thought about it, but it is a good quality COS blouse and I really liked the sleeves and neckline. Hopefully, this way it will work for me.

Before:

Please excuse the creases, it's been sat in a basket next to the kitchen table for days. You can see that I've put pins in where I want the new hem to be.

After:

Another alteration I did, was to add some contrasting sleeves to a top. The sleeves had come from a dress that I had cut down to a skirt. I kept them because I thought I might be able to use the fabric, but I decided to use the whole of the sleeves instead. The sleeves came from this dress:

I simply attached them to a t-shirt. This alteration took way longer than I thought it would as I originally attached it to a different t-shirt, but when I tried it on, that t-shirt was too tight and I didn't like the look. It was a pretty old t-shirt that I'd had for probably 15 years, so it didn't matter so much that I then cut it up for dishcloths and fabric yarn. The second t-shirt I used, that I have duplicates of, worked much better, as it was a bit looser. I wasn't sure if this was going to work and the armholes were larger than the opening of the sleeve, but I managed to gather it a bit under the arm where it's less noticable and I quite like the end result. I had to shorten the t-shirt too, as after attaching the sleeves, I realised there were a few holes in the front of the t-shirt, made by a belt, so I needed to cut these off and re-hem.  I could now wear this with the skirt I made out of the dress, or with something else.

Here's a picture of the finished t-shirt:

Finally, and definitely the biggest alteration I've done recently, was to a pair of Topshop Moto denim dungarees, that I bought from the charity shop last year sometime. To be honest, they were a bit snug when I bought them, but I was still losing weight at the time. However, I didn't really lose any more and so they never quite fitted how I had hoped and I've put weight back on since, so I didn't have a hope of them fitting or looking nice on.

Anyway, I saw a lot of denim dungaree bibs attached to flowy skirts on Pinterest and I quite liked the look, so I thought I'd chop the bib off and attach a skirt to it. I was going to use a multicoloured fabric from my stash originally to make the skirt, but then I found I had various black offcuts from previous alterations that I thought would do the job perfectly if I tiered them.

I had to do quite a bit of unpicking on the bottom of the bibs as there were too many layers of denim to be able to sew the fabric on, but once that was done, it made it much easier to slot the lighter fabric in and stitch it in place.  

The bottom two layers were what I'd cut off a dress that was too short, when I cut it down to make a top instead. They were already gathered and I just needed to stitch them on to the other tiers. The top tiers were harder to get right, as there wasn't quite enough fabric to gather them and they didn't look great once stitched on. I decided to sew a couple of the dungaree pockets on the front to distract from this and I prefer how they look now.

Anyway, I'm not 100% happy with the outcome, but I'm much more likely to wear this as a dress, as opposed to the original dungarees, which were not at all flattering. I may alter it again to get it more how I want it, but the idea was a good one in principal.

I have been using some of the remainder of the denim from the dungarees, to make a denim pouffe for LB and I'm intending to use the rest in other projects, so hopefully there won't be much waste from this alteration.

I have to say that lately, I'm finding that I almost enjoy altering things more than making them, so I'm sure there'll be more posts like this to come.

Still Busy And A Nasty End to the Week - W/E 16th November 2025 - Part 2

The second half of the week started with a session at the gym on Thursday morning. I didn't get there until 11am, but I had a good work out and then headed home for lunch.

I was happy to potter at home in the afternoon. I needed to put away some laundry, put on a load to wash and then hang it out, tidy up the kitchen, which was a bit messy and then tidy upstairs a bit, where things were starting to build up in clutter hot spots.

OH was out most of the day at a professional development day, so it was just LB and myself at home. Later in the afternoon/evening, I did more hand stitching on the gilet. I almost finished it. It just needed the pockets sewing on and the ties.  I did some of it whilst watching this week's Celebrity Race Across the World, which was good.

Friday, was a completely free day for me. I wanted to go for a walk but it was quite rainy all day, so I didn't make it out. Instead, I stayed home and worked on some sewing projects, trying to finish a couple of the ones I'm currently working on. 

A couple of the projects were alterations and I did some work on these, although I didn't finish them, as they ended up being more difficult than I thought. I did manage to finish making the gilet, which felt good, so at least one project got completed.  I also started and completed a new small project, making a couple of  items that I created a pattern for the other day. I'll post about these and the gilet in a separate monthly sewing post.

On Saturday morning, I didn't get to the gym first thing, as I was late getting up and just wasn't feeling it. I was also due at the allotment at 11am, to help dismantle the shed and clear up lots of rubbish around it, ready to take to the tip and for a new shed to be erected.  OH headed down there first and I followed and hour later taking our nextdoor neighbour's dog with me, as we were looking after him again for the day.

By the time I got down there, the shed was already down and OH and a couple of other plotholders were clearing up the detritus. It was going well until a man from the flats next door came out shouting at us about the banging. He got pretty abusive and made threats of physical violence, which wasn't nice. We ended up locking ourselves into the site, in case he got any ideas about carrying out some of the threats he was making.

Anyway, after he'd gone we carried on and within 3 hours we'd completely cleared the area ready for OH to go back another day and level it before the erection of the new shed. He'll probably do that some time next week. Here's a photo of the cleared area:

As usual, I forgot to take a before picture. OH and I will be taking all the rubbish to the tip, once we've booked a slot and hired a van, another job for next week. A couple of the plotholders have recently left, so there are a couple of plots up for grabs, but I don't know if they've got anyone interested in them.

Once we'd done everything we could at the site, we came home for lunch. I needed to do a bit of banking and pay some bills in the afternoon. I then spent the rest of the afternoon lying on the sofa with next doors' dog watching Steel Magnolias, which was lovely.

On Sunday, I got up very slowly. I'd had a late night, as I'd decided to stay up and watch Bridget Jones - Edge of Reason, which was on the TV. I do like these films. They remind me of a particular time in my life.  Anyway, as a consequence, I slept in and had a very leisurely morning reading in bed. 

OH came back from a cycle ride with bad news. His phone had accidentally fallen out of his pocket whilst on a ride and he'd lost it. We hoped that he might be able to track it and go back for it, but on trying to do so, he quickly became aware that someone had picked it up and was moving with it. He immediately started to contact his credit card companies, as he uses telephone banking apps on his phone and one card had already been used, which he subsequently blocked/cancelled. What could have been a quite simple matter of retrieving his phone, had it fallen into the hands of somebody honest, became a lost afternoon of trying to secure his cards, the data on his phone and his sim. 

We are not sure whether information has been mined from his phone, possibly to be utilised for unscrupulous purposes, only time will tell. He then had to go out to the local mall to purchase a new phone and sim. Herein lies a cautionary tale about telephone banking, one which has always been a concern of mine, hence I don't use it and after this, I am unlikely to, ever, no matter the inconvenience of having to carry cards. Sadly, there are so many unscrupulous and down right dishonest people out there who are happy to prey/capitalise on a moment of absent mindedness or an accidental loss as in this case. Such parasites are everywhere and can cause enormous inconvenience and potential financial loss.

Whilst he was out, I did some sewing to calm my anxiety about the whole situation and continued with a bit of weaving too, whilst I contemplated the state of the world that we now inhabit.

Not a good end to the week, but such is life sometimes.