One of the simple pleasures of my childhood (and now my daughters) was to root through my mums endless bags of bits of fabric, yarn, ribbon, old buttons and buckles, ancient tins of hooks and eyes and pins, some inherited from my grandmother, others collected from well loved and now discarded garments. In my mother and grandmothers day, you didn't just through something away, you took all the re-usable bits from it and saved them. My mum always says she was recycling long before it was fashionable, as were many of her generation. Sheets were made into dusters, collars and cuffs were turned, zips were taken out, all to be re-invented in the future.
I have inherited the collecting gene and over time have come to appreciate the worth of keeping bags and boxes of bits and bobs (much to middleagedads frustration) Each scrap of fabric tells a story and brings back memories and you are never short of a button or a needle and cotton. I have even come to love darning (something I scorned in my throwaway teens) There is nothing quite like the satisfaction of repairing a sock and small children are really quite impressed when you hand them back their favourite spiderman sock, as good as new!
