Why I’m reluctant to throw some things away!

Yesterday while working in the garden pulling weeds. The sun was bright, but it was getting late and the sun was lower in the west, and there was not much shade protection. I kept shifting my hat visor to try to keep from being blinded by the sun, and realized I needed a wide brimmed hat. Aha! I thought. I have an old wide brimmed straw hat (that I almost threw away at one point because it wasn’t very useful) that might work, so I went and found that. It might have served the purpose, except thanks to the loose weave, the sun was still able to get through and make it hard to see. Aha! I thought. I need to add some dark cloth that would keep out the sun. (I have a white hat with quite a wide visor, but being white and not very opaque it had a bit of the same problem in bright sun.) I was about done for the day, it would soon be dark, so I went looking for a solution to my hat problem – heading for the rag drawer, which is full of assorted old clothes, etc. I found a very old, faded, well-worn brown work T-shirt that my husband had worn out. It had already been cut across the bottom for some reason. It looked like as if I cut off about 4 more inches it just might work for my purpose. I made the cut and ran big stitches along one edge on the sewing machine, pulled the thread to gather that edge, and tried it on the hat, pinning it to the edge of the hat brim. It worked! It was just the right size! (Well, close enough.) But it was definitely ugly and needed a finishing touch.  I have an assortment of colorful decorative ribbons from my mother’s sewing things, including a bit of 1/2 inch ribbon with brown highlights that just happened to be sitting in a little basket on the shelve above the sewing machine - perfect! I stitched that on by hand, fastening down the old T-shirt in the process, and the result looks really promising – from three things that others might have thrown in the trash, or maybe to Goodwill!
So – my new garden hat for a really sunny day of working in the sun.

In the process of looking for the hat I did find 3 back packs that I don't need, and put them in the car to take to Goodwill.