Reduce. Reuse. Recycle.

Another long day here in our little town. Daddy left for a golf weekend with his buddies and wanted to walk Aine to school. My girls are a bit of mommy's girls and she was refusing to let her daddy walk her to school. Makes me feel loved, but I hate that poor daddy feels slightly put out!! In the end she went happily skipping off to school with her daddy so all was well!

Aisling was invited over to her little friend Sophie's house (I suppose I should call her her big friend Sophie, as she will always be called "Big Sophie" by Aisling, despite the fact that another girl she calls "Little Sophie" is a year older than Big Sophie and is one of Aine's good buddies... I remember listening to an argument one day in the car over which Sophie was which... life is never dull). Anyway... Sophie's mom very kindly gave us a ton of great clothes and toys for the kids. Aine is in the photo here putting together their new alphabet foam mat...she loves it!


It kind of got me to thinking about the many ways people these days are so much better about recycling and doing other thing more environmentally conscious. Don't get me wrong, we all have a long way to go, but there is definite improvement over the last few decades!

I love getting hand me downs from friends, clothes and toys get a new lease of life, and it lets us spend what money we have saved more frugally.  I never understand people who buy their children only new clothes of the best labels, they get dirty and stained from the normal life of kids the minute they put them on! That is not to say that I don't love and appreciate these gorgeous trendy clothes, lol, I just love to get them in charity shops instead of new! When the kids outgrow clothes, toys and even furniture (just gave friend Kathleen our changing table now that Aisling is potty trained!) it gives me a greater sense of satisfaction to pass these on to friends or charitable organizations than to add to landfills...

Aine's school is doing a great job with the kids teaching them to recycle. Aine was "on jobs" this week, she got to lead the class and got to bring the bread crusts out to the birds during lunch, the other girl on jobs with her did the compost with their apple cores and orange peels... It is great that they are learning so early! Both my girls help recycle at home, and help me take peelings out to our own compost bins.

All our lovely swaps we do through our internet and blogging connections help us all to reduce or recycle too! Our giveaways help us reduce, lol. (Thanks everyone for taking everything off my hands, all the patterns and magazines are gone now!) Swapping might not help us reduce, but it gives us variety without having to buy more stuff in and that has got to be good right? Look at this gorgeous fabric Karol Ann sent. I swapped her some rose fabrics for these gorgeous African ones!


As a scrap quilter, I find it hard to thrown anything but the smallest bits away...and come to think of it, I bet those cotton scraps would do fine on the compost heap instead of the bin! I even keep small pieces of batting, figuring I'll use them for either rag quilts, or other small projects eventually, or maybe even as pillow stuffing... I'm slowly trying to reduce my stash as well, and have very little yardage, mainly scraps for my projects... I love it!!  I also love that we crafters and quilters can take scraps of things and turn them into useful beautiful objects, repurposing old dresses, shirts...

Just a bunch of random thoughts I had this weekend, but somehow they all link together... It has been a long weekend alone with the girls, and not much quilting was done till today when daddy came back from his golfing weekend. I made a blitz to finish a whole row this week, and am now up to 116 blocks on the Dear Jane!! I only have 4 rows of squares left, then the quilt must come off the frame to quilt the triangles...should get to start on the triangles before Christmas at this rate! When I started my Dear Jane, I didn't have any reproduction fabrics, but through meeting wonderful people on the Dear Jane mailing list and online, I have been able to trade for most of the fabrics I used in the quilt...trading a few scraps I was generously given at the start of my journey and amassing a larger collection as I went along, I called her my Frugal Jane! I remember trading Irish thimbles and ornaments...trading siggies and scraps... Why buy more when you can share and trade? And I've continued to share what I've been given, passing scraps on to fellow and future Dear Jane quilters! Reducing and recycling some more...


I'm off to work on dad's Bend mountain quilt upstairs...if the kids ever quiet down and go off to sleep!!