The Dishcloth Files…

thriftwizardLeave a comment
I've been busy...

Life has been astonishingly busy for the past few months. My feet haven’t touched the ground since the end of exam time; I blew a fuse and booked a holiday to Spain to recover, which was most unsustainable but a wonderful, relaxing break in a beautiful, unspoilt spot with crystal-clear water & lots of much-needed sunshine. And cheaper than the area we normally go to, where our relatives live, too. Now we’ve survived the trauma of A level results (they both did really, really well) and are preparing to send two of the Offspring out into the world, whilst “Real Life” continues to whirl past at breakneck speed. And I’ve discovered dishcloths!

I signed up for a dishcloth swap on one of my favourite forums (Creative Living – originally a wild seedling that popped up from HF-W’s River Cottage site) and started looking on Ravelry for suitable (free) crochet patterns. Needless to say, there are hundreds to choose from; I now have a complete file full of intriguing little patterns awaiting a spare moment or two… I picked one that particularly appealed, grabbed a ball of charity shop yarn that I was virtually certain was cotton, and started hooking. About an hour later, I realised that I’d forgotten to translate it from American to English (we call different stitches by the same names) but it was so nearly finished that I just carried on. The resulting item was both pretty & practical and hardly took any time or concentration; an ideal stick-it-in-your-pocket-for-quiet-moments project, in effect. So I hunted up another couple of balls of cotton, one recycled from an unpicked beach bag and one left over from another project, and made a different one, then another – I’m hooked, in more ways than one!

Dishcloths are soooo simple. They only take a couple of hours and they’re an ideal project for using up odd scraps. Each one can be different and you can afford to experiment, as on that scale it only takes a moment to put any glaring incongruities right. It doesn’t matter if they don’t lie flat or aren’t completely regular in shape. And they’re useful too, which makes them a decently thoughtful little gift for anyone who doesn’t like aimless clutter, or already has quite enough of it, like us. I picked up a couple of cones of almost-certainly-cotton yarn at the Dorset Scrapstore (which I’m just about to pick the expert brains over on Ravelry for a proper ID for) and carried on…

There are probably 1001 other things I should be doing or sorting out, but these are keeping my fingers busy, using up oddments, and probably keeping my blood pressure down too. In other words, dishcloths are a  practical recycler’s dream…

And there's more where these came from...

My name’s Angie and I’m an addict…

thriftwizardLeave a comment

“Oh dear… Prepare to do your own washing and cook your own tea for a few weeks. Mum’s been to the car boot sale…”

There are times when you’re brought face to face with your weaknesses, and I well know that one of mine is a total, slavish addiction to 1970s handicraft magazines, the “Golden Hands” series in particular. So you can imagine my delight when I spotted the familiar logo through the sides of a battered plastic box at the car boot sale. “How much are the mags?” I enquired, trying to sound casual, flicking through a couple on the top. “Ooooh, I don’t know…” the vendor muttered, turning to her husband and spreading her hands. “What would you think – about one pound for the box?” “What, for all of them?!” I gasped, all pretence at disinterest shattered. “Yes, all of them – and you could take this fabric, too. Please…” They were having a loft conversion and just needed shot of everything that had been up there. She was clearly someone who had been a more-than-competent creative dabbler in the past; I think she was pleased to find someone who still valued them.

Well, I can’t believe my luck. In that box, as well as some of the standard GHs, there are all 15 of the sequel magazine, “GH New Guide”, 81 of the 98 issues of the GH Encyclopedia of Crafts and one issue of GH Monthly – I already have a few more of those. I have hunted down over the years, & now own, a full set of the standard series, so those will end up in my shop, but I didn’t have any of the Encyclopedias & now I only have 17 left to find! But better still, there was one issue of something called “Fashion Maker – the GH encyclopedia of patterns for everything you will ever want to make” which I’d no idea existed. It came in 98 parts, so there are 97 of those left to hunt for, provided they printed the whole set – that should keep me happily occupied for ages!

The reason I love these magazines so much is that they actually tell you how to do things from the bottom up. Some of the projects are dated, but most of them can be modernised extremely easily and to great effect, with a little imagination. Modern craft mags, or at least those easily available on the high street, sadly have a tendency to be 90% product placement & adverts, 10% patterns & techniques, and though I do crack & buy them sometimes, I’m nearly always disappointed & wish I’d saved my money for supplies instead. But good basic designs & techniques remain the same; the colours & the necklines (not to mention the hairstyles!) may have changed, but many of the patterns from 35 years ago would look perfectly at home at any gathering of Ravellers today. And I’ve got a whole host of new ideas & projects to tackle already, although I’ve only looked inside a few of them so far.

So I’m well-chuffed. But I’m finding it remarkably easy to lose all track of time whilst gloating over my unexpected treasures; in the immortal words of Baloo in Disney’s version of The Jungle Book, I’m gone, man, solid gone…

I may be gone for some time...

If at first you don’t succeed – don’t panic!

thriftwizardLeave a comment

It’s been a hectic few weeks, ferrying offspring around to exams, job interviews etc. And I had a Guild challenge looming, and everything that possibly could go wrong with it, did.

Last summer, I took on the challenge of a 200g bag of Polworth fleece, “do with it what you will!” The person distributing it said when I took it, “It’s  the last bag; I’m afraid it’s a bit ropey, but I’m sure you’ll do something interesting with it…” which made me want to do something exceptionally fine with it! Knowing that Polworth is a very, very fine fleece, I thought I’d be very, very gentle with it, then spin some delicate laceweight, crochet something floaty but functional and let the fleece speak for itself. But I didn’t have time to tackle it until about November, when I popped it into a rainwater bath, as recommended by some older Guild members, outside in the garden. You can imagine my horror when I checked it about a month later and found it had gone green…

“Fermented Suint” as this method of cleaning fleece is called, needs warmth, and it wasn’t warm. You also need to exclude light (I’d used a glass lid) or algae will develop. Oooops.

So I washed it in nice, gentle washing liquid, rinsed it three times, the last time in rainwater, and left it to dry before carding it, whereupon luckily the green tips mostly broke right off.  But then I discovered it was full of neps, tiny short bits of wool, that leave bumps in your yarn if you don’t get them out. I’d been given some money for my birthday & Christmas, so I decided to invest in a set of woolcombs, which are the only real way of getting debris out of your fleece. But sadly they are only available made to order, and the winter was very cold, so the maker was unable to get out into his workshop, and I didn’t get the combs until the beginning of May – too late for the challenge fleece.

In the meantime, the fleece had somehow become horribly sticky. I now know that sometimes it takes more than one wash to clear lanolin out of a fleece that’s been stored for some time, as I gather this one had been. But I didn’t then; what to do with this horrible, sticky, lumpy mess? I decided, what the heck, go with the flow, and ordered some more neps, multicoloured ones, to card into it and make a novelty yarn. With great difficulty and a lot of swearing, I eventually produced a lumpy, chunky yarn that I then “wrapped” with some thin commercial multi-coloured machine-knitting yarn to hold it all together. I only had a week left… but when I washed the yarn to felt it slightly and set the twist, some of the stickiness dissolved. So I washed it a second time, and ended up with something soft enough that I felt I could actually work with. Almost enough to make a scarf, perhaps?

After an interlude of spinning up some midnight-black Hebridean to team it with, then finding that as it was the last of last year’s it wasn’t soft enough to wear around my neck, I picked some soft brown yarn I’d spun for a weaving project that had turned out a tad too chunky. Out with my trusty giant double-ended crochet hooks, which are a wonderfully fast way of making things, and a day later I have a finished, wearable scarf, with a whole 48 hours to spare… I even quite like it, and will wear it with pride!

When it all went wrong, I just wanted to throw the fleece away and forget all about it. But I felt I couldn’t, and now I’m glad, because I have learnt several lessons on the way. Which is what challenges are all about, I suppose!

6' scarf made with Guild challenge fleece - eventually!

Are you sitting comfortably? Then I’ll begin…

thriftwizardLeave a comment

It’s been quite a long time since I was able to sit comfortably, in fact. Not going on about my operation again; but the fact that our old computer chair has actually been caput for quite some time, But somehow you get used to thing as they are, and put up with it, long past the point where you know you should do something about it, even when it’s actually causing you quite some discomfort… there’s a metaphor for our consumer/industrial society in there somewhere! And probably all kinds of other dilemmas, too. But it takes a catalyst; either the collapse of the old, or something falling at your feet that’s so obviously much better, to force you to do something about it. I did consider buying a new kneeler just before my op., but never got round to it as there were so many other things clamouring for my attention.

And that’s exactly what has happened. A couple of days ago, I smuggled a bootload of stained, holey, tatty clothing off to the Tip. I felt a little uncomfortable disposing of it the easy way, but I’ve got enough rags just now, and more than enough fabric, so it’s gone off to be professionally recycled. As you do, or I do, at any rate, I had a quick look at other people’s now-surplus-to-requirements offerings, and there, towards the back, was a decent, sturdy kneeling chair. I know they don’t suit everyone, but they do suit me; my back has been deeply grateful for the whole idea ever since I first had one at work, back when I was expecting no. 1 son. So the princely sum of £2 duly changed hands, and the chair came back with me.

Now it’s under my knees as I type, and suddenly I’m no longer slumped uncomfortably in front of the screen, but alert and upright again. Although it’s a bog-standard black office kneeler, rather than the pretty little wooden one we had last, that was too small for any of us (and I’m not exactly tall) the whole room looks bigger, lighter & tidier without the grimy, tatty, broken offering we’d been putting up with, without ever really noticing how decrepit & uncomfortable it had become. It’s still here, and I can’t help noticing that no-one has sat on it for any length of time since I moved it out from under the desk, so it will go on its way tomorrow. Hopefully it will be recycled into something longer-lived & more pleasing to the eye next time!
Now there’s still a systems analyst lurking somewhere at the back of my mind, even after all these years. I don’t know how I’d managed to forget that something as basic & fundamental as the way that I sit has a huge knock-on effect on how I feel and how much I can get done. And that it’s the chair that dictates how I sit, no matter how good my intentions of sitting upright under any conditions, just as the fit of your shoes dictates how you walk – or not.

 

Which kind of leads me to a dichotomy; sometimes utilising whatever turns up for any given job isn’t the best idea. Just as I wasted a lot of electricity trying to use wildly-inappropriate Freecycled cookers when our old one finally broke down beyond repair, I’ve wasted a lot of my own muscle-power, and probably a few headaches too, counteracting the effect of a chair that was a bad “fit” for me, and probably everyone else here too. So I need to use my powers of discrimination a little more, and accept that sometimes I will have to buy new, or wait until the absolutely-right thing for the job turns up. And the chair that I’m kneeling on right now is proof that sometimes, it does, but the fact that I don’t have any trainers and I seem to be putting on weight means that sometimes, it doesn’t…

Sometimes less is more…

thriftwizardLeave a comment

…and perhaps this week has been proof of that, on the recycling front. I have only managed two forays, thanks to my still-recovering hip and other commitments; one to the Tip and one to a nearby car boot sale. But both outings were well worthwhile.

At the tip, I found some oddments of textiles needed to complete a couple of projects I heve on the go, including a fair few metres of curtain fabric still on the roll, ideal for Morsbagging. Also a complete game of Absolute Balderdash – that’ll keep us happy for a few evenings!

At the car boot sale (outside Wimborne Market on a Saturday morning) the first thing my eyes alighted on was pure treasure; an apple press. I know I already have one, but I’d been racking my brains to think of a way to raise some money for TTWimborne to buy a fruit press. Obviously, for public use, we’ll need a bigger one, and will have to fundraise; however, I’d just found out we have been allowed a stall at the Minster Fair on the Minster Green during the Folk Festival this year. What could be better than raffling (or some kind of contest, if they have stern rules about games of chance) a household-sized apple press? I know from experience how hard they are to come by and how many people would love one  – hopefully they’ll think risking a pound for a ticket is a good investment, especially as that pound will be going towards a bigger one for community use, so if they don’t win, they will at least have that to look forward to!

Then at one of the house clearance stalls, I found a bag containing several pairs of bamboo knitting needles & other oddments. He wanted several ££s, which half of me thought was too much, but it was still early in the morning’s trading & he didn’t look to be in bargaining mode, so I paid up. When I got home, I found to my delight that most the the bamboo needles were still in their packets, and thus saleable from my own stall or web shop, AND there were three sets of circular metal needles, also still in their wrappings, AND a box full of Simanco fashion cams, AND oodles of old lace snippets! I shall be uploading them (and lots of other things too) early on this week, whenever I’m not planting up my hanging baskets or front garden.

On Tuesday, Wimborne played host to Steph Bradley, who is walking the length & breadth of England telling & gathering Transition Tales. I met her at Canford Bridge and gave her lunch & a chance to rest her feet a bit before meandering through Wimborne to meet up with Tom from the Gaunt’s House community, where she was staying the night – read about it from Steph’s viewpoint here. And what a lovely, sparkly entertaining lady she is!

And last but not least, the chicken saga continues; I have had two broodies sitting for 6+ weeks. I didn’t think they’d stay put at first because it was so cold, so I didn’t arrange any hybrid chicks for them. But they sat it out, and just over four weeks ago, I was at a friend’s house who keeps a cock bird, so I begged some hopefully-fertile eggs from her and popped them under. But sadly, one of the broodies at least was turfed off the nest by someone looking for a space to lay in sometime in the first few days, and when I candled the eggs at 7 days development, two were obviously clear. I couldn’t see much in the other two because they were blue eggs, but one did look a bit darker – maybe it had a thicker shell? Anyway, day 21 came & went with no hatchlings, then day 22, day 23, etc. I was a bit worried that they’d starve, so on day 27, the first day I had any spare time, I rang round the local breeders, located one (Race Farm Poultry – thank you, Shelley!) with day-olds, and went & bought 4 best-guess-female pure breed chicks for them.

I left the warm box peeping in the shed for an hour, to get the girls used to the idea of impending motherhood, then slipped two chicks under each broody, removing the “blank” eggs, all but one. That evening, I went to take the last egg away, so that Nutmeg would be free to bring her chicks out the  next day. But horrors! There was only half a shell – oh no, I thought, it’s burst & the chicks will get infected & die! But there was no foul smell… I lifted Nutmeg up slightly, and there were altogether too many legs… THREE chicks! The last egg had hatched, at 27 days. Maybe the little sturdy, stripey chick inside needed to hear the other chicks cheeping around it before it found the strength to break out? Or maybe it incubated really slowly because  of the cold weather in the first couple of weeks? Who knows… but it’s a lovely healthy chick all the same.

The Silkin, Nutmeg & surprise legbarX chick...

How can I reconcile myself…

thriftwizard4 Comments

… to having become bionic? There’s nothing recycled about my new hip; it’s all-new titanium, ceramic & plastic grafted onto my somewhat-protesting femur & pevis. I think basically I am going to have to think of it that by replacing a worn-out part with something new to keep me on the road, I myself have become recycled.

So my opportunities for recycling-in-action have been somewhat limited for the last 7 weeks, though I’ve spent a lot of time sitting in my very-comfortable leather-effect ergonomic chair with matching footstool, gleaned from the Tip for a fiver when I realised we had nothing the right height for me to sit on after the op. So I’ve spent the time learning new skills & practising old ones, unashamedly using new materials – some bought-in pre-prepared handpainted wool tops, for example, to take part in the first round of the Ravelry UK Spinners Scraps Swap. But I did dye my own for Round 3… I also invested in some garden twine; I bought a book called “Quick Crochet, Huge Hooks” secondhand from a fellow-Raveller, and it sparked a little bit of inventiveness on my part. I looked at one project & thought, “That’d be even quicker & easier in double-ended Tunisian…”   Three hours later I had this:

String bag made from garden twine

But I forgot how they stretch, and made both the bag & the handle a bit too long (doesn’t matter, I can always wear it cross-ways anyway, better for my back) so I sat down for a further 2 hours & 10 minutes & refined the idea a bit further to to this:

A smaller, more manageable version of same...

 …which is a little more manageable. I’ll get round to posting the pattern shortly, whilst you go & research “double-ended Tunisian crochet” on YouTube & work out how you’re going to make or get hold of a 15 x 50 cm hook…! I bought mine from Mike Williams realising that it was going to be a worthwhile investment, but now I think I might have a go at “bodging” one up for rough projects like this. I’ve picked up a windfallen good straight cherry-plum stick to try with , so watch this space!

“Recessionistas…”

thriftwizardLeave a comment

Elder daughter & I volunteer at one of our local charity shops, and we can’t help noticing that things have changed somewhat over the last year. Despite all the news reports to the effect that charity shops are hard-hit by the recession, we’ve been having to turn away donations; sometimes the back of the shop is too full to take any more in safely. And what we’re taking into the till has skyrocketed…

This time last year, we were lucky to take £30 on a Monday afternoon, the day we both volunteer. But yesterday we took £189, and today, when she’s also there but I’m not, another £120. Some of that may be caused by the fact that our shop has  been revamped into half-bookshop, our local secondhand bookshop having folded after refusing to have any truck with online sales. But most of the difference as far as I can see, has been in the type of shoppers; suddenly many of our customers are very well-dressed, and spend time browsing & trying things on, rather than dashing in, picking up the first item in their requested size or style and dashing out again. People are coming in in groups, clearly going round all of the charity shops in town together, laughing, chattering & encouraging each other, rather than slinking in & out, terrified the neighbours will spot them. And they’re happy to spend say £7.99 on something fashionable, vintage or classic in good condition, and often buy more than one item. I’ve just come across the word “Recessionistas” – thank you, Tringle – and that describes them perfectly.

Seems to me that this is a very positive thing. For so many years, it’s been considered very infra dig to be caught wearing or owning anything secondhand; I know at least one member of my own family feels that I’m letting society & the economy down dreadfully by not buying everything brand new, and making everything even worse by cheerily admitting it.  But clearly, whether driven by necessity or not, people are beginning to get over the “everything has to be new” idea and are starting to enjoy creative recycling again.

Come to think of it, that means I have competition!

TTW meeting this Thursday, CLaRC, 7-9 pm, everyone…

News flash…

thriftwizard1 Comment

Just a quick post to say that I have finally managed to condense & articulate my assorted New Year’s resolutions, thusly:

I have decided to opt out of the Human Race, and join in with the Human Dance!

“Race” implies something that’s competitive by definition; there’s only one winner and lots of losers, and even if I were somehow the winner, I wouldn’t want to be responsible for creating a lot of losers.  It has to be done at breakneck speed and you don’t get time to stop & admire the view, though racing can be fun in its own right. But even if you’re racing as a team, there’s usually a certain amount of jockeying for the top spot – it’s a competitive activity from start to finish.

But  dancing is nearly always a cooperative affair; it can be a slow, stately Pavanne, a lunatic but hugely-enjoyable Fandango, a jolly Strip The Willow or an elegant pas-de-deux. You can’t exactly win at dancing, either – or lose – though I’ll accept that some dances and dancers are better to watch than others. But watching isn’t what it’s all about… 

Anyone can dance, in any mood, anywhere, alone or in company, even in a wheelchair, as one disabled friend points out;  you can dance with just one eyebrow and a wicked grin. In our Western society, we tend to see it as the preserve of the young, and worry that we’ll look ridiculous if we join in, but that’s the “race” mentality taking over; in other societies dancing is for everyone, and so it should be. Dance is an attitude of mind, and so is racing – and most of the time, dancing is much more fun!

Never mind the homemade, Kirsty…

thriftwizardLeave a comment

…we’ve had a recycled Christmas!

Well, mostly. We ate off reclaimed plates (Midsummer’s Stonehenge, from the Tip, and J&G Meakin’s Wayside, some still from our wedding but mostly acquired secondhand on Wimborne Market), drank from reclaimed lead-crystal glasses, and pulled crackers made from loo roll inners & covered with some lovely red sparkly wrapping paper we found blowing around outside the recycling centre.  The hats were made from saved wrapping paper. Next year I’ll aim to use entirely recycled cracker presents as well, but at least the jokes were well-used… I’d forgotten napkins, so stamped up some kitchen roll (normally rationed like gold-dust around here) with cheery poinsettias & holly leaves.

And when it came to present time, we’d agreed in advance with my brother that all presents should cost a maximum of £5, and have been bought in a charity shop or homemade. Which was a roaring success with all concerned, and somehow 100 times more in the true spirit of Christmas than any amount of expensive tat.

Our tree decorations were all homemade, re-used, or from various swaps I’ve taken part in over the years. But I did crack & buy some new lights, because it appears that LED lights genuinely use less electricity to run, and our old fairylights gave up the ghost last year. Hopefully they will give us many year’s pleasure, whether in fashion or out. All of our room decorations are either entirely natural – and from our own garden – rescued, homemade or re-used for many years. And our cake was decorated with dried fruit, angels & a tree from several years back, the ribbon my younger daughter wore as an angel in her playgroup Nativity (she’s 14 now) and bits of no. 1 son’s old shirt…

I already have some ideas for next Christmas – I feel a new challenge coming on – but I’ll have to start earlier next year…

The fruit was good, anyway...

Christmas is on the horizon…

thriftwizardLeave a comment
Made with fabric, trim & thread from the Scrapstore

…and I’ve been busy with my usual round of Christmas swaps & challenges. I always end up swearing never to sign up for any ever again, but every September Christmas seems so far away & I think I’ll have plenty of time…  

I’m especially happy that I’ve managed to do most of them without having to buy anything new; everything in the stocking above came from the Dorset Scrapstore. But I may have got a bit carried away with decluttering in summer (stop laughing in the back row there, please!) as when I’d finally come up with an idea for the decoration swap, I discovered I’d gone & Freecycled my remaining polystyrene balls & actually had to go out & buy some. But my idea of covering them with “homespun” fabrics cut from check shirts gleaned from the Tip & embellishing with trims & scraps rescued from a discarded workbox worked very well; so well in fact that I then had to go out & buy some more so that we could make some for ourselves, by popular request! I used the cuff ends of the sleeves for this & have plenty left to make a “country” rag quilt, but will happily pick up any more check shirts I come across because more ideas are trickling into my head, now I’ve got the bit between my teeth & my metaphors well & truly mangled…

Festive baubles made with scraps of discarded shirt & trim...