A recycled lifestyle…

…in more ways than one. It’s not every day that I fall down from the loft…

I should have known better; it’s not the first time that that ladder has slipped on the bathroom floor. I’d hurtled up there before work, to look for some knitting machine parts (which weren’t there anyway) and on the way down, the ladder just slipped away underneath me. Luckily I still had one hand on the side of the trap, which braked my precipitous plummet, and somehow I fell clear of the fallen ladder, so only ended up with a sprained ankle and some right royal bruising where it can’t be seen. But methinks it’s time for a proper loft ladder; it’s not as if they cost very much, and I might not be so lucky next time.

I had to close the shop for a couple of days & keep my foot up to keep the swelling down. But that gave me a little time to play with some of the resources that have come my way lately, that I’d been saving up for a “rainy day”… some pretty 50s wallpaper that had survived reasonably intact by lining someone’s drawers, a couple of old maps (an outdated Michelin map and a tatty old National Geographic wall chart from 1952) some A5 waste offcuts of paper & card from my landlord’s printing press, some strong linen thread that I know won’t sell, and a lovely book on bookbinding that I treated myself to back in the summer. Add some big needles, some strong glue, some scraps of lace & ribbon, and I came up with these:

…a series of little notebook/journals handmade, and hopefully decently-bound, made entirely from reclaimed resources – well, apart from the glue. I shall try selling them at the next Boscombe Vintage Market, and perhaps on Etsy afterwards as well as in the shop.

So all’s well that ends well!