Working with leftovers

[David LaPell]

I picked up a copy of the book Wildwood Wisdom recently and was going through it and found a section titled "blanket mittens" and it said how Native Americans and other people at one time used to take worn out blankets and make simple mittens with them. I had an old worn out green wool blanket that was pretty rough in spots and I already made a small gun case and used some scraps for a cheek piece on a gun, so I took some more of what was left and cut out a pattern and then used some green yarn to sew them together. They're not the prettiest things in the world, but they work pretty well all things considered, I wore them outside the other day when it was in the 20's and they kept my hands fairly toasty. They're not Thinsulate, but I can see how this worked at one time.

[Pipefitter]

Years ago I did pretty much the same thing with an old mink coat, warm soft and fuzzy on the inside, and mostly waterproof on the outside.

[Inthealders]

Great idea. More than that though, I think these ideas are worthy of their own home forum. I have accumulated a dozen or so "new uses" like this and the theme goes beyond clothing so maybe a new forum titled "selfsufficient living" in the tradition of our father of selfsufficient lifestyle, HD Thoreau.