Monday Message

"The revelation to produce and store food may be as essential to our temporal welfare today as boarding the ark was to the people in the days of Noah." (President Ezra Taft Benson)

I picked this quote since this week at the thrift store I got this ark. Anyone who knows me well, knows I love Noah's ark.

It is about ten inches high.

Have you ever paused to think of how much work it was to get all the storage ready to put on that ark? They just couldn't roll up to Costco and then to tend all the animals. I think it is a lot to store for a family let alone all that.

Skills are necessary for living more frugally...

You can see I am using the pattern that fits me and laying it over a dress that was way, way too big for me. It was given to me with three others. I'm just trying this one first.

I wanted to place the pattern on so that I could keep the neck ribbing, hem, and sleeve ribbing. This should make a fast sew when I get to it next week.

If I did not have some sewing skills, I wouldn't even be able to do this. So I am glad I have some sewing skills, plus this is a skill I am wanting to build on as well.

This amount of knit fabric would be pricey for me. So keep your eyes out for large articles of clothing that would have lots of fabric you could use. Even a grown-up t-shirt could be made into smaller t-shirts or underwear. So before you get rid of your clothes think about what you can make out of them.

I picked up this pattern as well. It was marked 50 cents this week but as I am a senior, and this was on their senior discount day, it was less. But my concern was this store used to have two big boxes of patterns... now they only had not quite ten patterns and that's it. Maybe they are doing a clear-out. When they do that they shift them to another store but at this store it did not look like that. Usually there would be empty shelves throughout the store but that wasn't so. Let me know in the comments if you are seeing patterns at your thrift stores. I am very thankful I have saved my patterns over the years.  Still, I have used the clothes I have and like that I have made patterns from them.

So I urge you to build your sewing skills.

I have been shifting a few things about in my living room, just a few things...

I moved my chair and spinning wheel to trade places with each other.

Here is the chair. I wanted to be able to have the little loom closer and easier to use by the chair where I use it. Right now it has rug mugs going on it.

The spinning wheel is where the chair use to be.

I am almost done with this spin project I have going on the wheel.

I also have been weaving...

First, I needed to get a better pad for the seat.

Boy, has that made all the difference!

I am almost done with the first of three dish towels.

They all have the same colors but they are switched around. This one has more periwinkle in it, the next has more pumpkin, and the third will have more green.

This is a skill I am working on to further develop.

I used up a bucket of flour so now I need to load it, re-date it, and put it to the back of the others. Rotation is very important!

I got my buckets free to begin with years ago from bakeries and then they went to charging a dollar a piece. Still, you could purchase buckets like them from Lowes BUT ask them for FOOD GRADE BUCKETS as they carry both kinds and to store food in them, they must be food grade.

Yes, you can store flour for five years in a cool and dry environment. Remember not to place them on concrete. I put wood between the concrete and the bucket, otherwise moisture sucks into it.

Since I have talked looms, I thought you might want to play a game called can you spot a cat...

Missy says to keep working on your skills, you will need to know how to use them to live more frugally.

Tippy Longstockings says that whatever skills you have, build on them and keep working on your storage like with the bucket of flour - maintain what you have and build on it too.