Make do, Mend and Brag

One of the weirdly enjoyable pursuits I do in my, probably fortunately, spare time, is making things over into other things.

Such as ancient jeans, too big now since the drama of the last two years has rendered me a smaller version of Old Self, converted into a handy shoulder bag.



The pockets still work as pockets, the waistband keeps it shut enough not to lose items out of it, and the legs made a handy shoulder strap.

Or the donated sweaters, originally my intent being to unravel and reknit this lovely Irish yarn into other items, but they were so lovely as they were, though way too large, that I converted one into a sleeveless tunic



and the other into a coat with sleeves, wonderfully warm for this time of year

And the cotton turtleneck, garage sale find, converted into a jacket



Other yarns, scrounged, donated, thrifted, made into interesting knitted items



And there's old tablecloths, which have no use in a household with a person who has no feeling in his hands and can not tell if he's grasped the tablecloth in mistake for his fork, which can lead to an amateur disastrous version of that magic trick where the magician whips off the cloth leaving all the glasses and dishes unmoved.



But said tablecloths make very good napkins, of which we need a constant supply. The red checked ones are particularly good, since they were part of a wedding gift we received in, um, 1963...

And there's yarn, donated and thrifted and unraveled, made up into afghans, cheerful and warm. This is still in the component parts, being arranged into what will be its final shape. Sometimes it's good to see something that's not quite finished yet. At that time, at least -- it's been in use for months now.



And miniature animals, various sources, arranged in a tablescape. The bread dough kitten drinking milk was created by a seven year old. The son of this writer, in fact. Many years ago. The clay turtle was a little sample from hand dug clay for a workshop I taught kids on local native American crafts and materials.





Then there's some sort of blade, which I found in the street, beautifully rusted, which instantly suggested a sunflower for a wall sculpture



And you can always play with your food!



twice...



Spare interesting paper, harvested, found, repurposed, great word that, into artist books



I tell you, around here, nothing's safe.