turning corners

Sophrosyne (n) a healthy state of mind, characterized by self control, moderation, and a deep awareness of one’s true self, and resulting in true happiness

I read this on facebook, such a lovely thing to come across…

Centering down to do more of what I want/ what is mine to contribute right now means giving up some of the many other exciting and sparkling possibilities available…there is a happy balance between total simplicity and sufficient resources to sustain an artist in many media. Finding a new main medium/ expression for my art has lead to acquiring a lot of materials that all appeal, but are not necessarily viable [certainly not in my bijou flat!]

Like most artists, I have a tendency to stockpile materials, and as an upcycling artist, the number of POSSIBLE uses I can think of for an individual bit of…tat… are distressingly many. At the height of an argument with an ex he told me I was like a disco mirror ball, to which I replied, ‘Yes, how wonderful, all those facets!’  He  shouted: IT WAS AN INSULT!

Nerts to that!

By nature I have been much more of a juggler and a marathon tasker/ up with the rocket, down with the stick/ all or nothing person and it is a revelation to become seasonal and patient, an ‘enough is as good as a feast’ person. It has grown on me gradually, first of all through agoraphobia, then Daoism, gardening, living with someone with bi-polar, but now mainly having to make a balance that will keep me able to make art at least sometimes in a day/week. Pacing is so central to my management of the pain and fatigue and  weakness of fibromyalgia, and it involves moderation, never one of my strong points till now.

Lately I have had help tackling the studio, and great progress has been made, yay!

I give to a lot of projects, so friends give to me, knowing I can channel things, but it can be very tempting, all that eyecandy! Sorting through boxes always brings a feast of ideas to mind: the trick is enjoying the ideas and letting them go, materials and all!

I am becoming increasingly comfortable with knowing a number of projects ahead and rotating between them – after a lot of work on Wasting Waste, I’ve had a spell of gardening and pink Wool against Weapons knitting, and now I want to work on something else, still for Peace Week, but a different installation, probably the ivy rootballs. I’m going on holiday on Monday [the sea, the sea!] and when I come back it would be great to have WW sorted and stored, easily accessible but not on every surface!

So I’m very pleased some more sorting happened today:

 

Zero-waste projects are 1) making strong fabric carriers for the Foodbanks to give food away in, I had a few left over from the ones I made for the Fixers stall and clearing out my work-in-progress/UFO crate has added more.

2) putting all my threads and snippets into the same place so I can make embellishers for the guerilla gardening pouches. I have some see through plastic storage jars that seem just the thing.

I bought some more see through plastic (shoe) boxes and David, who was helping, gave me some ziplock freezer bags he was clearing out, so I am sifting and sorting, and I suspect there will be a lot of boxes of those, but then, they are very handy, so this shouldn’t be a problem, hmm?

Having sorted out the pieces of the duvet cover I am almost ready to finish quilting, I was able to put unwanted cloth into the smaller shoe boxes and colour code it. This liberated a 20litre crate for Wasting Waste yarn stash, which liberated an 80litre crate  for Diversity is our Strength, which liberated the travelling bag so I can pack to go on holiday on Monday! Oh my!

I hardly ever buy fabric anymore, maybe a particular keynote colour, as I am working through the stash acquired by a few years of visiting remainder sales and friends’ clearouts…it does take having access to a large collection of fabric to acquire the huge variety of snippets I love to work with though. This is where SOPHROSYNE comes back in…I seem to have hit the point where I can balance letting go of some plans [making embellished/complex cloth floor cushions, making clothes, printing cloth] and taking on others [guerilla articulture.]

Knowing and accepting what I can do within the limits of fibromyalgia is not a straightforward thing: but then, life is never straightforward, right? Some things suit my face though – the audacity of street art, the gifting and salvage side of what I make and how I choose to share it, these are much more mainstream than they were, more impactful as I can now share them through Facebook groups. I like to be playful in my making, but I am very serious about how stepping out of expectations of what contribution (among others) people with disabling conditions can make to the idea of worth in the community. People living outside the ratrace are necessary to the w/holistics of communities, we model being and doing, not having and buying. Artists/creatives of all kinds can encourage others to think out of the box and work with what we have to make what is needed:

 

Finally though, it comes back to living with what works for me, knowing what works for me and enjoying that. Definitely a corner turned.

 

landspirit gardening: raised bed, raised awarenesses

Exciting times in the garden!

and now:

– which made my day yesterday and will be such a joy over the summer!

There were a lot of stages – Spade and Sparrow did the heavy clearing

and left it to overwinter and settle. All I’ve managed to organise since has been replacing the cardboard mulch and a little pruning back. I had a couple of ‘seeing’ sessions where I took time to sit and think about what I wanted, but also what the land wants – this is why I call my approach landspirit rather than permaculture, though I use permaculture techniques. Being still and seeing what happens in a space is really important if you want

to work with the existing patterns and bring out the best in a situation.

The new bed is very central, at a crossroads between different kinds of leisure, growing food, growing flowers, badminton, with paths on two sides used by us and the posties, a slabbed area for the bbq and container garden, access to the carpark, access to the drying yard…

Something I feel the whole garden lacks is a good place to sit and chat. This is a lot to do with being in a city, people stealing garden furniture and not wanting to encourage the sex workers already using our garden and yard…Lots of houses on our street have electronic gates and I get why, but the truth is the more we use the garden, the less others will.

The constant difficulties and obstacles to getting the raised bed in motion had made me question if it should happen at all (the phrase ‘pushing the river’ came to mind 🙂 ) but every time I am in the   garden and feel the joy of its return to colour and

bounty (wildlife and harvest and enjoyment) I feel sure it wants more human presence, not less.. more domestic everydayness anyway!

This is the kind of thing that you either get or you don’t!  And the truth is, you can be a great steward of the land without feeling this. But some extra layer of ‘happening’ tends to occur when listening to the spirit of place, some bonuses come in as though on rails when I engage this process. I feel very convinced by it, because after a lot of work turning round my derelict and poisoned allotment, I saw the results, bushels of healthy fruit and veg, herbs for tea and scent or strewing, bees galore, the pollination rates of the allotmenteers near me shot up… Even the old guys had to concede my ‘messy’ ways worked 😉

Coming back to the garden here, there needs to be an acknowledgement of the transition from kitchen garden to purely ornamental/badminton lawn. The rockery is huge, as long as a tennis court and a couple of metres wide at the narrow end. It has beautiful mature trees and lovely rocks with fossils in and interesting marbled chunks and then a lovely array in July of foxgloves, feverfew, spirea, liquorice agastaches and flowering stonecrops, with alkanet and lush foliages… So looking from my rollator along the curving length of the bed towards the drive, seeing only logs on the raised bed edges would jar.

Instead we went on an expedition rounding up materials from all corners to make a bed that can be a heart centre. Ben suggested pulling some of the rocks lost under ivy from the super dry shady bank that is the front boundary, David found a huuuge sandstone boulder on the edge of the drive and I found big chunky pieces of tree trunk in the wood pile.

David then worked really hard, digging postholes and a channel to support yorkstone slabs on their sides, wedging and shuffling rocks, logs and slabs until it all looked really harmonious. I had suggested that the biggest log, which gets used as a seat on bbq nights became the edge of the bed nearest the slabbed area, and that the boulder made the corner between the rockery and the badminton lawn, and the upright slabs next to it echoed the path, but David had lots of fun choosing where to mingle rocks and tree trunks and big branches 😉 Yes, he ached all over when he stopped!

Called back to view progress I was so touched: a big seawashed chunk of chalk we had used as the top of a miniature quoit in the garden in Hucknall has been put at one corner and the copper, steel and stone mobile that hung near it were fitted in to the corner! So lovely of David to think of this! I put an amethyst and some hyacinths (Andy’s favourites) there too. They had emptied compost from the bin round the corner and the empty container garden over the cardboard and horse manure, so with a bit more topping up, I’ll be all ready to plant 🙂

There will be rose bushes and hyssop for the bees in the centre and then beans, squash and tomatoes roundabout, though I might sneak beetroot and lettuce in to catch crop 🙂

Being able to dream gardens again is so satisfying! And with all that sorted I feel more connected and committed to tending the rockery, which has been possible but not an attractive option when it meant walking past all the  looming ‘beyond my strength’ reminders. It has been a gap, a lost friend even…I feel gardening to be an integral part of my life, my healing, my politics, my art, being at home in the world, a place where the balance finds itself and energy flows… paying attention to my changed capabilities means I have to listen even harder now. Working  with neighbours who have never worked this way before was a challenge! This garden that is a woodland edge in a city needs to be a place where we can play to all our strengths, and yesterday, we did 🙂

fibre tagging

So these are the bedizeners I have been making over the last week, about 3 dozen, which makes a feast of colour and tiny details that get quite overpowering when they’re all laid out on my photography ‘tray’ (an A2 corkboard with black handmade paper laid on top.)

By the way, laying them out is a good idea if you want to keep an eye on colour balance – it doesn’t really matter, as I will be tying these to railings and trees individually, but if they were all being hung from one tree, just like decorating a Christmas tree, total randomness can look less than pleasing!

I discovered I had made nearly everything in shades of blue (leftovers from all the watery blocks on the chiropractor’s quilt) or purple and oranges (C& G Machine Embroidery colour palette) so I stretched myself and deliberately made some pink and green ones, and some black and greys.

I’ve also made hearts, some from complex cloth, which is where you lay out scraps of cloth and stitch them to a backing cloth, (like quilting without the wadding we assume for modern quilting.) I use ribbons, lace, leftover fabric, sweet wrappers, anything that will hold up to the task I intend the cloth to manage.

The slitheriest and most swearingest part was stitching silk taffeta ribbon to satin blanket ribbon…I set myself a target of 100 metres of thread in an ornamental stitch and by the end I was getting the hang of not twisting the ribbon as it unrolled…  😉

I then arm-knitted massive chain from this (like fingerknitting, but huuuge!) and as everything is so slippery, the next stage is stitching hearts to the links to keep them in position…

Of course, the ‘more is more’ school of embellishment means that some at least of these complex cloth hearts are being edged with beads and sequins, photos of that stage to follow 😉

Another set of hearts are knitted and some have a crochet edging. As my hands hurt horribly if I knit more than 2 a day of these small hearts, my lovely Mahjongettes have stepped into the breach. Gold star goes to Elizabeth, who has taken yarn home with her to do more (I so owe her cake!) and the moss stitch hearts are hers, with edging by PoetrySue. Eleanor stuck to garter stitch and had fun mixing ribbons in and making faces over my texture yarns. The results are very pleasing!

And of course, all those ribbons and threads and glittery bits and rustly wrappers are very attractive to Nonie…

waste not, want not: sewing room snippets

I’ve had the loveliest evening, listening to a favourite band with interesting lyrics, while making miniature bunting/ yarn tags/ fibre art tags.

Now, I’m using tags in the graffiti sense, a street artist leaving art that has a strong flavour /signature/ handle that others recognise. These are the first pieces of dozens, maybe hundreds I will be making for an event next month in London.

However, they are very easy and pleasing to do, and you can adapt the technique to make your own festive bunting/ tree decorations/ or even tags for gifts to crafty friends. The best thing is, they CAN be made entirely from leftovers, in fact, they are richer and more interesting if they are! Just like a patchwork quilt where you can look back and see a favourite shirt, summer dress, band Tshirt…twice the happiness!

How do I acquire all these snippets? Basically, whenever I make anything, instead of sweeping the snips and trimmings into the bin, I save them in a clear plastic bag. At a sew or knit event, I’ve been known to sweep up everyone’s snips! Some of  Truly Hooked’s yarn trimmings are in this batch, I am not a great one for pink 😉

Then, when I need a variety of materials and really don’t want to cut into a block of fabric, out come the bags. Seeing what I have available, pulling out particularly appealing pieces and mixing and matching makes the wheels start turning, and then I might seek out some larger remnants or a particular yarn…It’s a really great way to gently ease back into making if you’re unsure what to do next or feeling blocked or downhearted, the variety of colours and textures is like a salve to bruised feelings 😉

So, what have we here? Chopped off bits of felting, leftover machine cords, trimming edges on something in yellow gingham (I am sooo drawing a blank on what THAT was!!) a couple of inches of rust ribbon, a bit of rainbow chiffon with automatic stitch patterns to embellish…hmmm….

Punchinello (the plastic foil sequins are punched out of) can be torn in half, if you start at a corner and work slowly, and then it’s much more bendy, which helps. You can see a seam edge from a charity shop blouse lovely Robyn gifted me, mmm, patterned kingfisher/ teal shiny satin! by cutting very close to the seam I got the most remnant for use, but also created an interesting ‘string’. There is a theory of proportions, called the Golden Mean, the human eye likes things to be divided by thirds, so because the white stitching makes a third of the strip, it looks very pleasing. Otherwise I could make it work by having one third and two thirds of a piece of fabric either side of an interesting line of stitching. Sometimes you can make something jump out by breaking this rule, it snags the eye, it all depends what effect you want whether it’s ‘right’ or not!

Because I have lots of interesting snippets, I can work quite fast, the trouble I have is not getting out everything in the studio 😉  oh, i have a button somewhere that would be just right, or where is that ladder yarn I was using the other day? Staaaaaaaaaaap! Challenging myself to work as much as possible from the one bag really helps 😉

Making a series is good, I get quicker and quicker and then I can string them together by stitching them onto a machine cord or a piece of braid or a ribbon and voila! I have bunting 🙂 Well worth a try, and good fun to do when you are going on holiday and can’t take much with you. Coming to a tree or a railing near you soon, yours or mine?

Complex cloth is good for using up leftover scraps or strips of fabric and ribbon. I used Thorntons choccie wrappers, they are plastic/foil and I need to make some waterproof embellishers too. Cut a 6″ or 20cm square of backing cloth, I used umbrella fabric someone gave me. Pin the wrappers along the fold line so you can stitch anchors in the strong sections – put the needle down first, then sew slowly, with strong thread, using a wider zigzag so the strain is spread across the fragile plastic/foil. Unpin everything, and pick a pattern stitch you like and can curve with, in a contrasting colour. Again, needle down first, start slowly and set the pattern stitch to be wider than usual. Draw lines of stitch to please you, but also anchor your scraps. This is easy for quilters, but just keep it simple and slow, and even beginners can get it right 🙂

Now cut out the shape of your bunting – draw on the back if it helps – and save the scraps! This is a double winning technique!

Here are my hearts, and you can see a pile of scraps to the side – they can be used in the tags or as dolly bunting or as spacers between bigger bunting shapes 🙂

Again, very simple, very pleasing, and a great way to make something fromwhat would otherwise go in the bin, to landfill. Zero waste rocks!

waste not, want not: dates on food, food on plates 1

Food waste is a huge problem nowadays, all the way through the chain, from animals eating prime proteins to make weaker proteins and ruining rainforest/ prairie/ pampas etc  while they do it, to the overflowing bins emptied into smelly bin lorries going off to landfills that belch as much methane as the animals at the other end…(stern reminder: POSITIVE, OPTIMISTIC outlook please! adjusts headset and continues 😉 )

If you eat meat, you probably like it and don’t want to change that aspect of your diet, but do be aware there are plenty of reasons and recipes to be meatfree at least once a week! And you’re not a CARNIVORE, you’re an OMNIVORE (eat everything!) unless you’re a vampire (eek! run away!) so the rest of this post might still give you useful tips 😉

General waste: there is so much an average person can do to streamline their buying/ eating/ waste management, from loose to detailed planning of meals for the week, pantry inventory (sharpen a pencil or fire up your psion spread sheets, all welcome here!) home production of herbs, the wonderfoods known as sprouts, fruit and veg grown in containers or mixed in your borders, cottage style, and your own compost (which if you follow my instructions will NOT smell 😉

I grew up in a family where pantry inventory was taken for granted, it was a 20 minute round trip to the corner shop and an hour to the town centre and back, so keeping an eye on levels was automatic for my mother. The women on both sides of my family were good cooks and on my father’s side were in catering, so I took in a lot of information I now realise I am very lucky to have – which I am really pleased to share with you too 😉

WHICH BEST BEFORE DATES MATTER:

MEAT, FISH, AND ALL PRODUCTS CONTAINING THEM unless it has been smoked or salted or dehydrated. Basically if it has been preserved using a method an in-tune indigenous/First Nationer would use, it’ll be fine. Freezing is fine, if you are sure the meat has never gone above -7, you can go past the date, the flavour will just be a bit less, but make sure you are cooking it in a stew and boil it thoroughly. Last dead flesh advice! Apart from, avoid it, it’s the biggest risk for bringing food poisoning into your home, there’s a reason for kosher rules/halal etc, they’re about staying alive in a hot climate when eating high risk items…meat attracts flies and flies spread germs, I put my cat’s dish in the fridge between feeds in the summer and still get flies, a problem I’ve never had before, grrr, something about the evergreen forest out the kitchen window…

DAIRY AND EGGS

EGGS If you’re not sure, salt and water test: mix 2 tablespoons of salt in a pint of COLD water and gently place the egg in, the further it sinks, the better, if it FLOATS, discard it, it’s old and potentially growing salmonella, yuck…

CHEESE/YOGHURT/MILK smell test first: if milk smells sickly, it will make you sick, pour it down the outside drain/toilet and you’ll likely see curds (gag). If cheese or yoghurt have pink or green on them, eek! PINK will make you ill, chuck it now, preferably in a sealed nappy bag! BLUE/GREEN this should be a flow chart! is it stilton or gorgonzola? enjoy! (but far away from me, heave…) is it cheap cheddar? cut the white and blue off and use the rest in something TODAY where it is baked or boiled – eg macaroni cheese. Is it dark green/blue? Out now…

When food dates came in, people were expected to still know how to use their own senses to check for signs of danger. With compensation culture, the dates are being made shorter and shorter until some common sense is beginning to rebel at the mountain of waste made by people who don’t know any better and sling the lot.

Try not to use perfume or smoke before you cook or gather ingredients, smell is your best friend for fresh or chilled food – of it smells wrong, it probably is, eg if it smells of fish (but isn’t!) it has a particular bacteria whose name I forget, but you don’t want inside you, take my word for it, please!

Wash fresh fruit and veg slowly (it’s enjoyable, honest!) and you will spot bruised or infested areas – eg butterfly eggs on cabbage leaves, those grubs that like berries will float out upside down and you can put them all in the compost bin where they are your friends!

CANNED/ JARRED FOODS:

these are the ones where the dates are normally a nonsense….

Anything preserved in a pint of vinegar is going to keep 5 years, maybe 10. It may lose some texture or be less tasty, but it isn’t going to hurt you. Make stew/ broth/ casserole and enjoy the tang! It will make your stew keep on top of the stove without refrigeration for five days unless you live in a sauna.

Anything stored in vegetable oil is going to keep a long time, eg garlic, olives, ginger etc. Again, it may lose a little flavour or texture, so check it and adjust amounts, but it is unlikely to hurt you, but if it smells the least bit fishy, out, otherwise, in that stewpot 😉

Anything stored in brine (salty water) is going to be ok for ages past the date most companies give it, though it may go a bit soft. Sluice the beans/sweetcorn /whatever and then stand in cold water over night, drain and use in a boiled soup/stew.

Anything preserved in enough sugar is going to keep for 3 to 20 years.What is enough? Anything marked low sugar is NOT enough, unless it has vinegar or salt in it too, eg fruit compote might have raspberry vinegar in. Jam can keep for several years, if it has no mould, it’s fine. If homemade jam has mould on the top wafer, the waxed circle was put in upside down, the jars were not sterilised, or air got in. Mostly, you can scrape it out, pour the good jam into a bowl and test it by taste. You can now make wine from it 😉 or make an old fashioned steam pudding or make a fruit cake by the boiling method, or add the jam instead of sugar to a cake and bake it, make jammy tarts, porridge, dodgers…or a glaze for nut roast…lots of things as long as it involves heating the jam till it bubbles.

DRIED FOODS

Um, this may seem obvious, but I’ll say it, as a young friend genuinely didn’t know: sugar and salt cannot ‘go off’. Honey maybe just might after several years if there was a lot of comb left in, but dried sugar, kept dry, will last to feed the post apocalypse roaches. Salt can get wet and dry again and be ok, er particularly if is is sea salt 😉 Sugar and salt are the mainstays of food preservation without big equipment, eg de-hydrators, freezers, and the move to low sugar and low salt foods instead of portion control has made for some odd dilemmas and waste problems.

First Nations people around the world (including europeans!) found out very fast that coating things in honey kept them really well, and that sweet enough fruit pounded into bison or deer/elk etc with lard, made pemmican, a dried meat that kept for  a few months, saving the chore of daily hunting in hardscrabble springs.

Fruit/ herbal teas – if it looks and smells ok, it is!

Dried fruit will keep years beyond the bb4date, if it looks ok, it is ok. If it looks a bit dry (currants do this a lot)  soak the fruit in an appropriate fruit tea for 10minutes before cooking, eg apple rings, soak in raspberry tea and bake in a victoria sponge, oh, nom, currants/sultanas  in darjeeling/any brown/black tea or bilberry/elderberry, ever since I learnt to make Irish brack cake I do this anyway, fruit cakes and breads should be juicy not chewy…

Dried vegetables and de-hydrated vegetables (different processes) will keep a long way past the bb4 dates. Again, if it looks ok, it is ok. Beans and pulses are great proteins and therefore attract critturs, even more if they are organic, so keep them in plastic-ware or better yet jars or old biscuit tins. Plastic can be a problem in humid spaces or Edinburgh tenement flats (hiya Em! waves!!) If in any doubt, pour the rice/ wheat/ beans/ broth mix into a mixing bowl and stir. If anything looks nibbled, examine it and if necessary, sling it – mice droppings will give you nasty illnesses, so anything chewed needs to go out, and scrub your pantry and create better storage, set traps, get a cat etc 😉  Cats were revered in Egypt because they kept the granaries – the wealth of the Pharaohs – safe 🙂

Anything with enough ascorbic acid will keep a way past the date. Basically it’s vitamin C, but I just found out the name translates from Latin as no-scurvy…cool! Scurvy is vitamin deficiency that long distance sailors used to get if they didn’t take barrels of pickled limes with them – preserving saves lives, not just jams! 😉 Sorry, I used to be a professional jam maker and still get very annoyed when people dismiss jam as a luxury confection, not a lifesaving food that gave people the strength to farm in the hungry gap of maximum tilling and sowing, and minimum fresh and stored food available. But I digress 😉

Ascorbic acid is used loads in flours and food mixes, vacuum packed tortillas etc and it keeps them fresh and tends to see off the flour weevils – people still throw flour out a day over the date because it USED to get weevils…it can still, if it is organic/ super rustic, but it’s always worth checking. Open  the packet, and pour it through a sieve into a mixing bowl. It may have clumped with age, but if nothing’s wriggling, it’s ok! It may have lost its mojo, so add a bit of baking powder, half what the recipe calls for, and all will be well 😉

However if anything with flour in MAY have got wet or worse, been kept in a damp place, chuck it. It will have the wrong moulds in and you can get nasty fatigue conditions etc from it, so if the paper looks stained, out with it. Another digression – use anti-bax on your showerhead every couple of months for the same reason  http://www.nhs.uk/news/2009/09September/Pages/Showerheadsandlungdisease.aspx

In the next installment I’ll explain good storage, good cleaning/ hygiene and give some handy use it up recipes 😉

Meanwhile a link back to the perfect anti-waste foods: sprouted alfalfa seeds are amazing, I place my excellent vitamin and mineral levels (the doctor was politely surprised 😉 ) on their shoulders, and anyone with fatigue issues who got this far, they are so EASY!!! better than salad and no chopping/messing, oh joy!

waste not, want not 1: sprouting seeds, growing potatoes

waste not, want not: 20 things to do with a Tshirt

Not all of the ideas in this are mine, so there are a few links in this post – be warned, you may end up spending a couple of hours wombling round thrifty idea-mines 😉

Before you cut a Tshirt up, look closely at it. Is it faded/dull or truly worn out? If the colour is off, but the surface has no pills, holes or anti-perspirant stains, maybe you could dye it? If you seem to accumulate band/ charity/ slogan tees in white that goes scrubby, this may be enough. Home dying is easy if you have a washing machine, and if you have a large pan and use things like onionskins, you can try stovetop dying 😉

These projects are suitable for second-lifing most states of Tshirt:

T shirt to tote: https://singingbirdartist.wordpress.com/2013/07/29/waste-not-want-not-3-tshirts-to-bags-1/

T shirt to gym kit or shoe bag: cut the neck and sleeves off, and any stained area under the arms, run a line of stitching around the edge and then fold it in, making a deep hem/tube at least 2″/5cm deep. Cut the sleeves into a long  spiralling strip and crochet/plait it to make it stronger, then use it as the draw string. To ease the string through the tube, put a safety pin through one end of the string so you can feel it as you tug it through 😉

in the garden: ‘beefsteak’ tomato and pumpkin slings, soft garden ties

for pets: make knotted bundles for dog pull toys, crocheted snakes for cats

make pet beds from your old Tshirts, they find the smell comforting if you need to take them to stay elsewhere, particularly the vets to stay overnight, it really helps them stay calm

round the house: band/message Tees can make  cushion covers for sofa or hard kitchen chairs/ memory quilts for bed or sofa

homemade dryer sheets: http://www.wisebread.com/make-your-own-eco-friendly-dryer-sheets

decorations/ bunting: any fabric will do for bunting, and you can always cut the motifs/words etc out to make a feature of them, or cut shapes, or make tassels to hang between every few triangles.

garlands: make crochet/ fingerknitting chains from the yarn and then ‘chain the chain’ to make chunky/ fluffy garlands. If you twist different colours together and tie with contrasting colours you can really make something from nothing 😉 I’ll do a tutorial on this when I have someone to photograph me!

draught excluders for the doors/windows – make long sausages from the sleeves and across the torso, stitch the neck together and stuff with rolled up scrubby shirts or plastic bags or newspapers

hand warmers/ heat pads: make little pouches and fill them with raw rice and a drop of aromatherapy oil, microwave for a minute to make soothing pads for sore hands, make larger neck pouches etc

baby wipes: keep a stack of squares to hand and mop off the baby as necessary, chuck in the washer, repeat 😉

make yarn.: cut the hem off a clean T shirt and spiral up and across so that you make one very long thread for as long as you can, perhaps 2cm/a scant inch across. As the pieces get shorter, wind them in a separate ball to use in rugs

what to do with the yarn:

knit pot holders and mugrugs/coasters/hot mats for pans/oven ware on the table

crochet it into simple chains and stitch it in a spiral to make round mats – use strong waxed thread and a really sharp needle!

hooky/proggy/clippy rugs – these are very traditional in the mining areas of Britain, and are a great way to use old fabric and hessian sacks. Clippy rugs can use a scrap of fabric the size of your thumb and made with T shirt fabric are super soft and cosy bedside rugs.

this is a Yorkshire version ( I know the Northumbrian style, where the hooks and proggers were made of bullet casings, filched from Vickers Armstrong munitions 😉 though I also had a hook with a metal door knob as the handle, but a dolly peg, with one leg cut off and everything sanded down smooth is fine and much more child safe.)

Make sure you use ‘soft’ hessian, or for a really easy run, use rug canvas, particularly if you want to avoid overworking your hands and wrists.

An interesting story I was told in a community rug making workshop was that in one old man’s family on Christmas Eve, the new rug went in front of the fire, every rug moved round the house, and the oldest and shabbiest went on the compost heap to keep the compost turning over quicker in the winter 😉 Also, your name was in a queue at the coop to get the next sugar sack, as they were the best size for a big rug 🙂

weave rugs on a hula hoop/frame:

http://www.flaxandtwine.com/2012/02/woven-finger-knitting-hula-hoop-rug-diy.html#comment-form

which I’m adapting to suit what I have 😉 I’m sure Anne of flax and twine would be happy with that 😉 she uses one Tshirt for the spokes, but you can use a lot of Tees if you cut them into yarn 😉

And after all that, I’m now off to lie in a darkened room 😉

fixers banner update: Fix it!

After  much ironing, picking up and removing of the furry one, and very little pinning (hurrah!) due to the nature of the components, I thought I was ready to start sewing.

But then I couldn’t find my embroidery hoops…a vague memory of lending them to someone hovers uncertainly… so I had to wait until Suella brought round her 18″/45cm hoop, the biggest I’ve ever used, but great for this project.

The shower curtain hooks were mindblowingly difficult to attach and Nonie had them out by the next day…whitelipped silence!! That cat leads a charmed life and has me wrapped round her every paw…see the “oooh, look, it bounced” pose ?

Inspiration struck and I reached for  the remnants box and made an easy T from the leftovers of a football kitbag I made out of a charity shop pillowcase for a little Hartlepool fan. The ice lolly sticks can wait for another section – I need to drill holes to make them easy to attach, an ideal thing to ask someone to do at the Fixers stall on Saturday 😉

Instead out came the giant straws I saved from the Nottingham Contemporary Class visit to the Asiana bubble tea cafe (I had iced coffee, a close second to the best iced coffee I ever had, which was in North Korea in 1989, when I was speaking at the World Festival for Youth and Students, I had one everyday – 35p, when a packet of 20 Korean cigs was 27p!! ooh, and worth every penny 🙂 )

That zip is indeed the spare zip from the tutorial on how to 100% upcycle a pair of trousers, if you spotted it.

As you can see, the weight is very uneven and the stitching on the back is not as neat as I would like it to be…so I have added a reinforcing panel, which hides some ugliness and helps with the drag as it has extra quilting lines to be added – I chose a ‘new leaf’ satin stitch automatic pattern.

I should have ironed it all again, you can see the hoop mark, but ironing is one of those things that has me in bed for two days, so instead I’ve hung it on a noticeboard to let the creases drop out 😉

I added the extra dot on the i, because the stitched one didn’t seem to show…but now it does, so I think it’ll have to come off…I’m no perfectionist, but I do have some standards 🙂

zero waste week 2013: bookbag tutorial

How to make a book bag from a trouser leg:

Cut leg off above the knee (unless the trousers are from someone 6′ or more, then cut at or just below the knee 😉 )

Choose how you will make the strap – I have leftover curtain tops with tape to use up, but you could cut lengths from the upper leg, use rufflette tape or an old belt.

 

Curtain tape is wide, and this is a narrow bag, so I have cut the tape in half so one curtain top will make straps for two bags.

Curtain tape is also scratchy, so I’m lining it with some leftovers from random plank quilting. First attach the lining with pins, then a running/lock stitch seam, so it will be easy to edge.

 

I use a zigzag on widest stitch, half length for the first round, then close to a quarter stitch gap, and I take the chance to use up odds and ends of bobbins and reels to make

a mixture of colours 😉 by running the zigzag to/just over the edge of the fabric, it creates a buttonhole edging that prevents fraying, but also looks attractive 🙂

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Turn the leg inside out –  according to which side you like best! – and fold the base edge down to make the reinforced base, this is probably 3″/10cm, but if it is a very wide leg, may be 5″/ 15cm. On a narrow leg the base is the knee, on a wide leg the base is the ankle – cut away any torn bits, that grunge look typically walks through the hems.

How can you tell the right amount?

When you hold the base turn in and make a straight line across the base, you have a capital I but with top and bottom straights at right angles and it meets without bunching…adjust till it feels right for you 🙂

If you need to take tucks, then do it just after a seam, it will show less and your sewing machine foot will still be high.

I go round twice, to make sure the stitching is as strong as the cloth, and if the edge looks likely to fray, then make an extra zigzag row over the raw edge.

Now put the two folded edges together and stitch with triple stitch or 3 times running stitch, again, this is for strength.

Turn the leg inside out and fold the top over if it needs it – some ankles will look fine at this point, so don’t bother with those.

Position the straps an inch away from the side seams – this saves a lot of stress on your sewing machine, and makes the bag hang better on your body, I’m always surprised

factory made bags don’t do this…

Finishing touches: sew a large button on, remembering to wrap the thread round the ‘stem’ holding the button – saves a ton of wear and should be done on every button that gets worked a lot. I sewed a loop of pretty cord on instead of making a buttonhole (confessions, my buttonholes are dogs dinners, to my shame! 😉 ) but a piece of shoe lace or string is fine.

And now you have a super simple bag that will hold books, bottles, heavy marketing without a problem 🙂

VARIATIONS:

for a messenger bag, cut one side above the knee, and the other another 4 – 6 “/12 -17cm above. Hem it and sew the button where the edge falls on the bag, and the loop on the edge of the flap.

for a sports kit bag, cut two trouser legs open and stitch as a blunt triangle, with the straps attached at neck and base of bag, to go over the shoulder.

Zero Waste Week 2013: Alfalfa and Cropping Compost

This is a repost from June about double cropping your summer compost heap by growing potatoes in it, and the ultimate zero waste food, sprouted seeds.

I recently had some tests at the doctors to do with mineral levels, and the doctor asked what my secret is, because my levels are so good 😉

I think eating alfalfa (the mother of all foods) and drinking smoothies that are 1/3 blended fresh fruit and 2/3 chilled herb teas (organic ginger and mandarin is a favourite 😉 ) keep my levels really high…having fibromyalgia, I can’t take any exercise as such, but I have a lot of experience from having worked in vegetarian catering, so I do make good food and then freeze it for the days I can barely stand.

I also swear by sitting out in the sun and getting my hands in soil every week – the probiotics in soil are really, really good for mental and physical wellbeing, there was a report in the Lancet a couple of years ago on a study showing health improvements for a range of illnesses by simple gardening therapy.

I really like my new doctor, he is very supportive, and we laughed at the results, because apparently no one has results this good – so WHY am I ill? The mysteries of fibro, eh?

Vegans, be aware I mention using egg shells to grow cress in to engage the littl’uns – of course there are alternatives, draw a face on a soya-yoghurt pot instead 😉

waste not, want not 1: sprouting seeds, growing potatoes

Zero Waste Week 2013 – an upcycled banner for Nottingham Fixers

So Greg from Fixers thought I “might like to make an upcycled banner for Fixers”… and though I have plenty of other things to do, it appealed, so I agreed, subject to the group giving me the wording and leaving the rest to me. Leaflet/ flyer by committee was sufficiently teeth grinding to make me set that boundary 😉 The group has a board they put up at the stall, which I like, it uses a bicycle chain for the e and duct tape for the x, so I plan to build on that style, using what I have to hand. 5 minutes gathering produced this:

– yes, he did ask the right person 😉 there is plenty more where this came from….it’s not that I hoard, but I can just see too many uses for things to throw them away 😉 I was given the gutterhooks by the Making Waves project who were given loads and asked me for ideas – I explained they’re used in greenhouses, but have snowflakes on, cos people use them to hang xmas cards on 😉 and suggested some uses in their garden and workshop room, and was given a packet from the mountain as a thank you…

So funky lettering on… mmm…what have I got lurking…and how big is it going to be…out with the squared paper:

The middle fix it! will be in brighter colours to make it jump out and bring eyes down to the stall.

It looks very plain, but remember each letter is an assemblage of buttons, hooks, screws, or an ethernet cable or some other funky thang…

The stall top is 3m x 1.5m (10′ x 5′) and luckily I have 2 curtains and a deconstructed duvet cover that will give me 3m x 1.3m and some fabric for ties. The duvet cover was home made by the way and lasted over ten years, but got holes in the top from someone dropping a lighted cigarette on it!! Eek! Being very dense cotton it didn’t flare up, but I cut it back into its blocks and cut out the holes in the top, washed it and put it away, for, as it turns out, this project 😉 The steel blue suits the off navy really well and is a good dark background, both fabrics are strong and can take the unusual drag of the lettering being done this way. The whole thing could have been a patchwork quilt, that’s an 80litre tub in the picture (I’m not sure if that’s what they expected) but that, my friends, is an enormous amount of work compared to this…I have plenty of fabric in my upcycled strips (left over from cutting for my ‘random plank’ duvet cover ( yes, to replace the other!) but will aim to use more unusual things where I can, I want it to be a talking point, as I notice some people come up to the stall and don’t quite know what to say, so it could be an ice-breaker… 😉