We arrived on site (my children’s old school, as it happens) at about 9.30, fought & won a brave battle with our very-recycled gazebo and were just about ready for the onslaught when the gates opened at 11 a.m. Not that it ever got exactly crowded, but there was a pleasant trickle of lovely people, all interested in what I was doing & why, throughout the lovely sunny day. I was pleased with the sales; not a magnifcent amount, but encouraging, and certainly more than I used to drag myself out of bed for on a Sunday when I was in paid employment. It was hard work preparing for it, but most of that is work that won’t have to be done again, like making a bunting banner and a display board, or at least not all at once.
I learnt some useful lessons; a treadle is too heavy, when you have to deal with everything else too. Extreme crochet is much more portable & attracts just as much interest. I need to stick to truly relevant books, and sort out what I’m doing about workshops etc, as people were asking & I didn’t have any answers prepared. The pincushions would have looked better, smarter perhaps, with ribbon ties rather than old seams. And I need to do some woven shawls for sale! We had some enquiries for long, slender woven scarves, too, so I shall investigate the possibilities of producing some of those.
In the meantime I’ve had some other ideas for things to try out; they need to be quick & easy to make, using entirely recycled materials like old jeans, so that I can keep them inexpensive. And I do need to think about & plan for Christmas, odd though that seems with a sunburnt shoulder from too much treadling in the sun!
So all in all I’m well-pleased with my first little venture into the “craft fair” scene; it confirmed that there is interest in what I’m doing & also in the things I make. But now I need to tidy up after myself & reconnect with my offspring after a week of intense concentration and absolute focus. Not to mention finishing the next shawl!
… for the Colehill Country Fair this Sunday. I’ll be there, recycling like mad, hopefully selling some of my jeans aprons and a few other bits n’ bobs, including some of my vintage craft stuff. Even a couple of human-powered sewing machines, on a try-before-you-buy basis. Looks like it will be a great day out!
An older friend had been struggling to look after her very-lovely Lutino cockatiel; although the year-old bird didn’t want for anything, my friend knew she was lonely & I think she may have been a little scared of handling her. She had even gone so far as contacting the RSPCA, who couldn’t take her but suggested an animal sanctuary elsewhere that my friend couldn’t get to. And our little Pied cockatiel fellow clearly thought that a mere 7 humans at his beck & call was not enough; although he spends a lot of time out of his cage & has lots of toys inside, as well as two budgies for avian company, he had developed some repetitive behaviours and needed something more than we were giving him. So it seemed like a good idea to take on my friend’s cockatiel too…
So we went & picked her up a couple of days ago. We put the borrowed cage next to Brambles and they squawked & whistled with excitement at each other before settling down for the night. At about lunchtime yesterday, I connected the cages. After plucking up courage, she sidled gently into his cage. He doesn’t like her coming too close, and chatters at her, but there’s no aggression from either of them and they’ll be fine once she’s settled in, but they do each need their own space until then. But I needed to return the borrowed cage, so I asked on the local Freecycle and WNWN groups whether anyone had one to spare. And got a positive reply! So many thanks to Maree, whose birds now live in a flight in their garden (as I hope ours will one day soon) tonight Brambles is in his customary corner of his cage, on his swing, and Madame Yet-to-find-a-name is in a gorgeous, huge cage next door, that’s easily big enough for the both of them when they’ve settled down together. They can hop from one cage to the other until then. I shall transfer the toys over one by one until the big cage seems like home to Brambles, and add some new ones in too.
So we have gained yet another exotic pet, which hasn’t cost us a penny. Brambles himself was Freecycled to us, two years ago; his cage was given by a friend. The budgies came from a breeder friend, and their cage from Freecycle. The toys etc. have mostly come from abandoned cages at the Tip, and been bathed in Poultry Shield before use. Their food doesn’t cost much; the only real expense they’d put us to would be vet bills, but we haven’t had to trouble our excellent vets with them yet. Long may that last!
Happy bunny here, in front of the bag that won it for me…
But I’ve let the trophy go home with my co-winner (or at least, with her husband; she’s at a Guild summer school) because it will be safer there; I’d hate to wake up from one of my creative dazes and discover that half of it was now part of one of my home-made gadgets…
…I’m really rather proud of myself! Joint recipient of the Balqama trophy in Recycled Materials… I can’t quite believe it. But I’m very happy about it anyway! And also that all three of my other entries received “Highly Commended” status. Well chuffed, surprised & delighted, in fact. And the judges kindly said they hoped I’d make more of them. I do wish I’d finished the charkha in time to show it, because as far as I remember there was nothing else like it there, but oh well, maybe next year…? And I already have some other ideas for practical handmade recycled items…
More practical recycling - one of my denim aprons...
I picked this up at our local market for 50p last weekend, under the impression that it was a giant darning mushroom. But I couldn’t help wondering what the hook was for, not to mention the groove below the hook. Something about it suggested spinning, probably the resemblance to a child’s spinning top, so I tried it out with a little mauve roving. Lo & behold, it worked, really rather well. But I haven’t a clue whether that’s what it’s intended use really was! Or how old it is, or, if it is a spindle, which tradition it came from. Ideas, please…
The entries for the Dorset Arts & Crafts Association show are now in, and I’m really looking forward to going down there with a friend tomorrow & seeing what the judges thought of my strictly non-traditional stuff. In the end I enetered my felted slippers, a denim apron, one of my crazy-patchwork bags and a broomstick crochet hat & “neckwarmer” (not long enough for a scarf – not enough yarn!) I did a little while ago. It’s my first year of entering so I’m not expecting any great plaudits but it’ll be interesting to see wht it is they’re looking for, and how (or in fact IF) I could ever achieve it.
… but my computer was. My “C” drive imploded last week and had to be replaced; we’d had a little warning but I hadn’t quite got round to archiving and preparing for the inevitable. So I was caught on the hop and had to get it professionally replaced & cloned. More expensive than the DIY option, but far cheaper than a new computer & well worthwhile, although I am now left with the job of sorting out all the rubbish that’s accumulated in my Inbox & Documents folder over the last 4-5 years, not to mention all the half-deleted games.
So my online shop still isn’t fully open, which is probably just as well as my bank have yet to divulge my business account number, which is fairly vital. But we have been recycling away in the background, as usual; I’ve just finished planting up my containers & hanging baskets, every one of which is reclaimed from the Tip. Even some of the plants have come from the same source, particularly the fuchsias; last spring I rescued 3 willow baskets full of fuchsias “past their best” which wasn’t surprising as there were up to 8 in each basket! Those that had survived were thinned out, given new soil and replanted in the baskets and elsewhere in the garden, and gave a fine show at the end of summer & up until the first frosts. Some are showing tiny leaves again already, though others seem to have given up the ghost. As they didn’t cost me a penny, it’s easy to see losing a few as part of life’s great cycle.
This year my baskets have been lined with “dag ends” from the Freecycled fleeces I’ve picked up. I haven’t felted them first, & probably should have, but they look amazing, especially the white ones. I gather that the fleece and its contents will nourish the plants, as well as holding moisture, rather than just holding the soil in place like traditional liners. Many of the plants are cuttings from last year’s rescued geraniums, though I have bought some new to give variety, and given some of the cuttings away, as well as growing some from seed.
Hanging baskets are wearing natural wool this year...
And our container kitchen garden is flourishing; some of the potatoes are flowering and will be on our plates before long. They haven’t been earthed-up but have been provided with woolly jumpers from yet more dag ends. There are lots of herbs, and a reclaimed water tank full of beans, which I hope will be well-fed by a whole fleece that was very badly matted; basically it had felted itself on the sheep’s back & wasn’t any use for spinning. I’ve planted out some of LIDL’s “living salads” in lovely wide terracotta pots, which the slugs don’t seem to have discovered yet, unlike my own lettuce seedlings. All is watered by rainwater captured from the kitchen roof in butts rescued from the Tip; we’d like a big rectangular storage tank there, but haven’t found one yet, and I refuse to pay £150-odd for a new one. You can see one last bag of well-rotted horse manure, waiting to feed the autumn crops as the summer ones get harvested & their containers are freed up.
Our container kitchen garden, on the driveway...
We’ve had guests this week and the weather was good, so evenings have been spent in the garden, toastimg marchmallows around the pot-bellied BBQ stove, fed by snippets of pallet and small offcuts gleaned from the Tip. This week I’m sure I’ve taken more down there than I’ve rescued, thanks to two of the boys swapping bedrooms and taking the opportunity to purge years of accumulated schoolwork, guitar strings (you can only re-use so many) deodorant bottles, odd shoes and outgrown holey jeans on the way. The jeans are in the pile for my next denim apron, but I parted with the rest without a backwards glance.
On the Freegan front, I’ve just polished off a plateful of Aubergine bake. Two lovely aubergines with minor dings were nestling in the bag of “unfit for humans” goodies I picked up at the market so they’ve gone into the oven peeled, sliced & layered with sliced onion, covered with a tin of chopped tomatos and a sprinkle of home-grown rosemary & topped with grated cheese and crumbs off the bread board. Scrumptious! There were also three bruised bananas which have made a banana custard for pudding (made with some of our own home-laid eggs) some watercress with little roots on which got popped into the pond and the chickens got the rest. And DH, now recovered from his bout of pneumonia, is happily constructing fences with palletwood, to keep the chickens off his new “Nispero” (loquat) and olive trees, bought with the money we haven’t spent on everyday things, so for the moment our recycling efforts are mostly outdoor – long may it last!
…it’s because I’ve been going flat out trying to get my Web Shop open. I’m not 100% there yet, but I’m very pleased to say that it is now online, at VintageCraftStuff, although there are only about 11 “products” up there so far & you can’t buy anything yet! There’s quite a lot of work left to do; everything has to be weighed & measured for the postage calculator, for example, and I have the best part of 100 books to list, not to mention everything else! But at last I feel I’m getting somewhere. I’d love to open a real shop, but rent & rates round here are too high for the sort of turnover I’d anticipate, and I don’t want to get bogged down with commuting.
Otherwise, there’s been another attack of freegan raspberries, but this time I nearly left them too long (about 10 hours) before picking them over and sadly lost over half to mould, so only ended up with 4 smallish jars of raspberry jam. Last week, I was given a big box of celery, which has kept my dehydrator busy all week and will flavour our soups throughout the winter. We enjoyed our day at the Pavilion hugely and gave away over 50 Morsbags; I came away with lots of ideas and hoping against hope that I might finally be able to do a Permaculture Design Course in the not-too-distant future; there’ll be one running locally before too long. Twice I’ve signed up for them elsewhere, only to have them cancelled when there weren’t enough students.
And I’m over the moon with my latest lovely acquisition from the Tip; I had to part with my lovely Willcox & Gibbs “Silent Automatic” treadle as I didn’t use it enough to justify the floor space it took up. But now I have a handcranked version, even earlier (mid 1880s?) which is tiny so I can keep it! They are really good with “difficult” threads; something to do with the tension mechanism, I suspect, so it is genuinely useful as well as “cute” in Jo’s opinion. I’ll post a pic tomorrow.
And the skein of scrap yarn has become a cosy fingercrochet hat, which I love & will wear. There’ll be more in the pipeline; it’s great fun to spin so I’m on the hunt for genuine scraps now!
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.
…thoroughly enjoyable day!
A recycled lifestyle... 