A Little Weekend Sewing

Being a curvy woman, my pants always wear out in the thighs only, and the rest of the pants are still in great shape. It's super annoying to have to buy new jeans every few months after a little wear and tear.

After 4 pairs of pants piled up of my recycle or mend pile, I finally decided to give it shot. First step, acquire iron-on patches. You can find these fairly easily at craft or department stores. I got a multi-pack at Target: with 8 patches of varying colors of denim and khaki that can be cut to size, it's only pennies per patch.

Trim the patch to cover the holes, and iron on. Follow the directions on the package: mine was high-heat, no steam.

You could stop there, but iron-on stick tends to wear off after a couple washes. We can easily reinforce the patch by sewing back on forth over the edges.

Minimally noticeable from the outside - at least, less noticeable than skin showing through. ;)

Now, if it was for somewhere less scandalous, like the knees, you could try visible mending. There are several styles including the Japanese embroidery "sashiko" and patchwork "boro". Examples:

(Image from womanwithwingsblog.blogspot.com)

(Image from honestlywtf.com)

After an hour of work, I repaired 4 pairs of pants. Here's hoping I can now double the life of the pants, saving my self potentially $100s per year.

Potatoes v2

So my 2nd potato plant was ready for harvesting, 5 weeks later than the 1st plant, and yielded 13 ounces of baby potatoes.

And boy, what beauties they are! There are still several super tiny potatoes but the larger ones are almost small russet sized!

My full harvest from this plant:

And one of the larger potatoes in my hand for scale:

Lesson learned: keep the plants alive for as long as possible for full sized potatoes. I still have one plant left, a red potato I planted in June: I'm looking forward to seeing how my red potatoes fare in a couple months.

Real world savings? 13 oz potatoes for $0.00. 

 

Skip the Travel Toiletries

I've previously written about hotel mini toiletries, and how some great hotels are participating in recycling of the minis. Recycling is an ok end solution for waste, but what if we take it a step back and don't create the waste in the first place?

On a business trip last week, I was excited to see the the hotel didn't have minis. Instead, they had refillable standard size bottles with pumps. No packaging waste, and no waste of half-used product.

Additionally, many hotels have signage similar to: "We're interested in saving water. If you are willing to reuse your towel, hang it up in a certain way." Have you found those to be effective? T and I will routinely hang our towels and find them replaced anyway.

This hotel took it a step further: if you refuse housekeeping for the night, they give you a $5.00 credit to use at the hotel. This housekeeping refusal saves the water and energy for the fresh linens, but I also like that the direction is clearer than "hanging your towel a certain way", and the small incentive to encourage guests to participate.

Kudos to Tempe Mission Palms hotel for exploring sustainable programs. What are some cool alternatives you've seen hotels offer?