thriftcrafts

A chance to learn…

thriftwizard1 Comment

Some time last year I posted a comment over on “Casaubon’s Book” to the effect that I needed to learn to spin and also to machine-knit. The spinning I cracked fairly soon afterwards, and have enjoyed so much that I’m saving very hard to add a brand-new (handmade) spinning wheel to my stable of workshop tools, now that I have a clear idea of what kind of spinning I like best and what features will be most useful. But the machine-knitting was proving a little harder to get to grips with. I tried contacting the nearest machine-knitting group I could find online, but they’re 30 miles away, which is too far to go on a regular basis, and they didn’t know of anyone closer.

But on Saturday, on my way back from the monthly Weavers, Spinners & Dyers Guild meeting, my elderly Louet wheel fell over in the back of the car and smashed an already-cracked demijohn that was awaiting its final trip to the Tip. So I popped it straight down there whilst the engine was still warm. And there sat a battered box containing a Singer Designer 2 knitting machine… naturally it had to come home with me. It’s so much less complicated than any of the other full-size machines I’ve seen that at first I thought half of it was missing. But the instruction book listed the parts, and there they all were. And this machine is extremely simple; it’s probably not very versatile, but who cares? I can work it! It’s just one step up from my Simpleframe knitter; basically the same, a bit bigger, with a carriage!  No complicated tension devices or impossibly-intricate storage cases which you can never shut again, just a bed, a counter, a carriage and a few straightforward weights, combs and hooks. I’d made a scarf out of scrap yarn within a couple of hours of getting it out of the box…

Now I know I will eventually be able to master those great complicated beasties up in my loft (a Passap and a Toyota, with hundreds of bits and manuals and pattern books) as I’m beginning to understand what’s going on and how. But in the meantime, I have a tool with which I can churn out simple scarves & jumpers that I can embellish with other techniques, and maybe one day I can use it to help other people in the same position.

I never cease to be amazed how things work out…

Wrong planet…

thriftwizardLeave a comment
??? Why are people so proud of not having the time or patience to learn how to do things ???
Shawl made on the Simpleframe knitter, using Noro's Ganki Abaka yarn
Shawl made on the Simpleframe knitter, using Noro's Ganki Abaka yarn

I’ve recently rescued a small 1980s handheld, handpowered knitting machine from the tip, luckily complete with instructions. I’m no good with two needles (I’m always dropping one needle, or the stitches, or the cat that inevitably attached itself to the ball of wool. Or my glass…) but this little beastie has genuinely made the whole ghastly process easier, and I mastered the basic stitch within a couple of hours. It’s small enough to take into work with me and as the place runs down there’s nothing much else for me to do, so I was sitting knitting a lacy shawl (for a Christmas present) in the office this morning. And one by one, my remaining tenants trotted in and said, “Ooooh, aren’t you good? I wouldn’t have the patience to do that/learn to do that…” Bless their cotton socks, they say this every time I take any kind of project in, and they’re not the only ones. And there’s definitely a little element of “I’m too busy/important/got better things to do with my time…” with some of them. As the tenants are all OAPs, mostly this something better consists of sitting in a traffic jam outside our local Shopping Experience, queueing for somewhere to park before battling through the crowds to buy something identical to everyone else’s for 100 times what some poor slave-child was actually paid to make it…

I do know that many people of that age group see having to make your own stuff as a sign of poverty & failure. As a result of which there’s an entire generation growing up who can’t make anything for themselves because their parents & grandparents looked down on people who could & did. This includes skills as basic as cookery; most of my friends think I’m “good” (or possibly just daft) for cooking nearly everything from scratch. And craft is just an activity for tiny children, before they get on with the real business of formal learning, aged 4…

I’ve just been round our local market’s “craft” hall and was dismayed to find it nearly all just “handmade” (i.e. embellishments stuck haphazardly onto blanks) cards, with two shining exceptions, a woodturner and two ladies who were spinning their own wool & trying to sell nice chunky knitted & handwoven items. People were happily snapping up the cards, squawking, “Oooh look! This one looks just like one you’d buy in a shop!” and paying well over the odds for them, but hardly anyone was even looking at the lovely, inexpensive handmade wooden & woollen stuff.

I think I’m on the wrong planet sometimes…

Bagged!

thriftwizardLeave a comment
Bagging at the Priests House...
Blissful – bagging in the sunshine…

Well, that was good fun! Jo & I set up our stall in the glorious garden of the Priest’s House Museum, on our one & only sunny summer’s day, and bagged to our hearts’ content. We gave away 30+ bags and made another 14, with assistance from various members of the public, as you can see. In fact, pleased as people were to be given a free, sturdy re-usable shopping bag made from reclaimed fabric, the machines themselves attracted a lot of interest and several people couldn’t resist having a go themselves. Which was exactly what I’d hoped for… I’ve offered to do another upcoming event down in Bournemouth, and been accepted with alacrity. So I’m cautiously hoping that this will prove to be a good way of catching people’s interest and getting the message across that something that has no value to you as it is shouldn’t just be thrown into landfill… Maybe you yourself can re-use it, with a bit of imagination, but if you can’t, someone else somewhere almost certainly can!

"Who, me?" Butter wouldn't melt in Tinkerbelle's mouth... but a sausage might!
Butter wouldn't melt in Tinkerbelle's mouth - but a sausage might...

Half the family are away in Wales at the moment so last night’s supper was cooked on the potbellied BBQ. Apart from realising that we need some kind of a guard around it to keep the assorted livestock from immolating themselves trying to get at our food, this was a great success; sausages and burgers cooked to perfection, followed by windfall apples baked under the tree they’d been growing on a few hours earlier. Sadly, though, finding an unopened packet of fondue forks at the Tip yesterday meant that toasted marshmallows were inevitable, and my skirt seems alarmingly tight this morning…

And Freecycle triumphs over Ebay, yet again. I missed out on an industrial sewing machine on Ebay at the weekend; I need one for the tough bits of my quilted bags as my dear old Jones zigzag is in serious danger of shaking itself to pieces every time I make one. I just forgot about bidding and it sold well within my upper limit. Kickself-worthy… but DH took the boys to the Bournemouth Air Show, and picked up two Freecycled machines en route. Blow me down, one turned out to be an early Singer 15, which is undoubtedly some kind of light industrial sub-model, built for strength rather than speed like the other two that have passed through my hands. Sometimes I marvel at how these things work out; I didn’t have to spend any money at all, the item I needed has found its way into my hands for free instead of being dumped! Many thanks to Tara, the donor, who nearly threw it out thinking no-one would want it as it isn’t exactly pretty, and DH for fetching it.

Just goes to show; one person’s “clutter” is another person’s opportunity…