How ecologically virtuous I feel when rescuing half-burned candles intended for the mansion’s rubbish bin.
Then each evening, how gladdened I am to light the lanterns outside my own little cottage, radiating a warm and welcome glow for those who pass by.
Preamble:
My work on Thursdays exhibited a few varying personalities. It began with other crafts I liked dabbling in, but then morphed into more of an eco-friendly-life-simplification attitude. This early post provides a great blending of those two aspects. I don’t do much dyeing and spinning these days, but it was great fun to flirt with as you’ll see in this life-experiment while we house-sat for friends in the Dublin mountains…yeah, I’m the one with the non-eco-friendly-brown-dyed-hair…
Eco-Fibre Experiment (originally published 6 August 2006)
Do ya think there’s internet access in West Cork? I’m kinda hoping not….
Friend-And-Lodge-Owner-Lucy took her computer on holiday. I’m rather hoping she’s not blog surfing as she may be surprised to learn that what was once her kitchen is now my fibre processing plant!
So….what do you do when you have a) lots of fibre to process, b) lots of space to process it, c) a constant heating source, aka lovely oh-so-quintessentially-country-style-AGA-range, d) time and energy? By golly, you get moving! And, how do I now marry one interest (fibre) with a new interest (eco-friendliness)? Thus, today’s playtime is an experiment in processing fibre with as little environmental impact as possible….
Soaking
With a way-cool Belfast sink to use, I could do the pre-dye soak on more fibre at a time using less water and vinegar overall. Also, because of having another little sink to drain, etc., I could keep the water/vinegar bath and use that same water for after-dyeing rinse as well. Quite pleased with resourcefulness.
Grade: A-
Dyeing
Used food colouring. I know it’s not organic and doubt it’s Fair Trade. Uh oh….and what about my beautiful cochineal colouring? Is it really made from crushed beetles? Okay, not good for PETA-enthusiasts, but on the plus side, it’s natural, not artificial. Not a lot of comfort for the beetles, I realise. I’ll call that one even.
Grade: C
Cooking
Since the AGA range is on all the time, I might as well be using it to cook up the dyed wool. Wouldn’t want that heat going to waste! Only question is which oven, as there are two to put it in? Broiling oven or simmering oven? No temperature gauges. Hmmmmm…..have to hazard a guess on that one. Picked the hotter of the two ovens….every now and then a little bit of ‘brownish-hued-overdone-wool-with-a-singed-twist’, but okay overall.
Grade: B
Water Extraction
During my other dyeing sessions, all two of them, I would fling out the excess water in the washing machine spin cycle. Think…..what is ‘off-the-grid’ alternative? Eureka! Child labour! Got the kids to create homemade centrifugal force by spinning the mesh bags of wool in ever dizzying circles. Also doubles as exercise for ‘em! Multi-tasking, a mother’s dream.
Grade: A
Drying
I don’t know who invented the Sheila Maid, but I’d like to shake his or her hand! This nifty clothing air dryer (or is that air clothing dryer?) is suspended with a rope and pulley system over the ever-heating AGA and since heat rises….voilá…..instant dryer! Of course you need to have rather high ceilings to avoid the cartoon-inspired-banging-of-head-incident.
Grade: B+
Extra points for added benefit of doubling as ‘twist-set-hanger’.
Spinning
As it’s run by foot power and sitting in the glass-enclosed conservatory for maximum lighting, I can spin until it gets dark (or my leg loses all sense of feeling!)
Grade: A
Well, I have to admit, not a bad overall grade for my eco-fibre experiment. But, how about sustainability (an important concept for eco-philes, as I’m learning…)? Well, as I see it, the options are:
Yep, you guessed it…..d).
The only thing worse than hearing about the economy is talking about the economy, but wait, this is a happy tale—in a minimalist-free-form sort of way…
Mulch.
The economy.
Then, a necessity.
Now, a luxury.
Bags of mulch?
Lots to buy.
Expensive.
Ouch.
Free bulk mulch?
Lots of trips.
Laborious.
Truck-less.
Tree trimmers.
How ‘bout it, lads?
Gratis.
Delivered.
Risky?
Yep.
Beggars, not choosers.
A garden experiment.
And stumbling into a new project.
Warning: Artsy Fartsy Disclaimer Ahead
I’m no artist. And that’s not me being self-deprecating. That’s fact. I can’t draw particularly well. Don’t fancy painting. Nope. About the only thing I can do is color inside the lines…some of the time.
I didn’t plan on doing this yesterday. I have warps to be wound. But it can be the most insignificant thing that spurs one on to do something new. For me, it’s this ugly house sign.
It’s time for it to go…far, far away.
Sitting in the shed have been a few slate tiles, given to us in Ireland. Hmm….that might make a nice little cottage sign. Well, an Irish roofing tile demands Irish lettering.
So with downloadable fonts, printer, exacto knife, white crayon, paint, a tiny brush and a moderately steady hand, we have a new house sign. And I love it.
do you think every kitchen in the 1950s had one of these?
I really like these stools. So practical, they seemed to occupy every vintage kitchen in America. This one, too, is about 50 years old, or so my neighbor professed as he chucked it into his trash pile. Being a skip (read ‘dumpster’) rat by nature, I clamped onto it, bartering a few homemade cookies in exchange. Okay, I’m sure I could have had it for free but the cookie offering seemed a neighborly thing to do, right?
A bit of steel wool, water and elbow grease, with a future splash of paint—cream and black as originally intended—and my kitchen soon will be sporting a new step stool. That would be a ‘nice-and-isn’t-it-lovely’ story if it ended there. But as irony would have it, let’s back up a few hours that same day…
Coffee morning with Bt takes me to a breakfast shop at a crossroads somewhere in Maryland. The front porch, decorated with the essential-warm-and-inviting-autumn-harvest-décor sports a sage green vintage kitchen stool.
‘How cool,’ I say, ‘I love these things!’ And we proceed to reminisce about our grandmothers’ kitchens and the like. ‘I haven’t seen one of these in donkey’s years! One of these days I’m going to have to hunt one down, because I’d really like to have one in my kitchen.’ And so I ramble on and on.
A few hours later find me walking the children home from school and as we pass the neighbor’s rubbish pile, voila…a vintage kitchen stool like I haven’t seen in yonks staring back at me. (Anthropomorphically, I realize that stools don’t have eyes and therefore can’t ‘stare,’ but still…)
And there you have it, another little serendipity in this season of thankfulness.
I had a bright idea…well, it seemed bright at the time…I’m not so sure now.
Preface:
There is one small change to make in this space, as I realized during my mini-break. A simpler way to life places different emphasis on crafting, fitting it into the bigger picture of life. So, what used to be ‘Craft on Thursday’ is now broader in scope as ‘Simplify on Thursday’. But that wasn’t my ‘bright idea’…
Hang On…A Regression Digression Before We Begin:
Avoca Café do lovely scones. My favourite…sun-dried tomato and cheddar cheese. Add a bit of cream cheese and a dollop of tomato chutney…yum! Was thrilled to find the recipe in one of their tasty cookbooks. (You realize I understand that it is not the actual cookbook that is tasty, but rather the outcome of the recipes, right?) Of late, or at least I should say toward the end of our time in Dublin, Avoca had also started to add heaps of healthiness to these scones…poppy seeds, sunflower seeds, and pumpkin seeds. And so the (ahem) ‘seed of an idea’ began to germinate in my head.
During jack-o-lantern-carving time, I was inspired to save the pumpkin seeds. To be honest, I do this every year. I muck out the pumpkins, decide I will be frightfully frugal and save the seeds for a bit of healthy snacking. A splash of oil, a pinch of salt, a bit of baking and presto, nutritious nibbles, right? Except, no one eats them. Not even me. You see, the thought of savory pumpkin seeds sounds better than they actually taste.
However, I vowed to overcome the let’s-just-chuck-‘em-in-the-compost-bin inevitability. This year would be different. After mucking and sorting the slippery little devils, I dried them in a warm oven sans oil and salt. This year (heh, heh) I would use them in a recipe that I already love…those Avoca savory scones. How simple! How economical! How prudent!
Hmm…I gotta confess what I didn’t count on was the time it would take to shell those pesky pips. So what’s the outcome for me? What might cost $3.99/pound will at this rate cost—taking into consideration the state minimum wage of about US$7.00/hour—about US$75.00 for approximately 7 ounces of seeds.
Sigh…frugality doesn’t always come cheap now, does it?
Three-and-a-half of the scariest words ever spoken.
The slippery slope began when Lovely-Olga-At-Knit-Happens had yarn leftovers. As with all knitters sporting a frugal disposition I, of course, piped up with an ‘Ooh, I’ll lend a hand and take it.’ Doubling as a sometimes weaver, small quantities of knitting yarn, can add a nice little something in a weaving project.
Sorting through the new acquisition eerily similar to the children on Christmas Day, I was thrown into a spasm of where-am-I-going-to-put-this-itis. Out came the storage boxes, and so, as they say, one thing invariably led to another.
Hmm…things might fit better if I properly roll some of these tangled skeins, right?
Ohhh…wouldn’t it look nice if I made all my partial yarn into lovely little cakes?
Squee…while I’m at it, why don’t I take the time to re-organize my work cabinet?
Laaa….I really need to be efficient with my space, living in such a small cottage!
Out came the rationalization skis for the downward slide.
No wide angle lens for the weaving cones or the rest of it…
As you would expect, the entire front room was in chaotic disarray when our newly met neighbour came to collect her little boy from playtime with Son-Alex. Even that embarrassment wasn’t enough to stop the feverish sorting, shifting and rolling every bit of fibre in the house. Yep, still in the throes of cake winding, but at least we can see the floor again. As you would expect, some once-loved-yet-forgotten yarns have been rediscovered and brought to the top of the pile again—a good reason to do this, right?
And you’ll know why I’m chuffed today!
Giving Credit Where Credit Is Due Introduction:
So, it was Holly’s suggestion to look on the website. Yep, I’d forgotten about it, even after Sara had shown us on her blog more than a year ago what cute products they have! Squee!
Anyway, I opened the package and there was this—
And along with it came this—
And inside of it was this—
And on the back of it was this—
And with many more of these—
Warning, Effusive Gushing Ahead:
I just love this website—a London company who loves to print (so they say)! I just upload my .jpgs, crop ‘em, add the text I want, and they’ll put them on lotsa stuff, including these little mini calling cards. So now I can share some of my favourite blog pics with just about anyone I meet (for a pretty reasonable cost, I must say). Yippee!
Moo.com.
Of course I have no idea what ‘moo’ has to do with anything, but no matter, I’m over the moo-n about it!
If (Time+Energy) = 0, then use Money…If (Money) = 0, then use (Time+Energy)
It was not long after our wedding that my mother-in-law first shared this universal truth—
Every individual has three commodities: money, energy and time; and most everything we do will be a trade-off to balance these three resources.
Simply put, when I don’t have time (or energy) to bake things from scratch, I have to use my money to purchase those items at the supermarket. And when I don’t have the money to buy a certain item from the shop, then I will either a) do without or b) use my other two resources, time and energy, to create it.
Back then, we were young…and idealistic…and poor.
Now, we are older…a little more realistic…and live in an expensive city where we still have to watch our pennies. So, Craft On Thursday means more practical pursuits these days.
Now, in our little cottage is a sunroom.
And in that sunroom is a futon.
And on that futon is a cushion.
And that cushion is coverless.
Which makes that cushion boring.
So, not having the money to dash out and buy cushion covers, it then becomes a matter of using my other commodities today.
A bit of fabric squirreled away for such an occasion.
Some recycled buttons.
A scrap of bias tape.
Some simply sewn (relatively) straight lines and here, the finished product.
Since I had more time after making just one, why not use a little more energy to zizz up some other dull coverless-cushions?
Because sometimes black and white bring out the colour in a project.
I know we haven’t lived in the cottage very long, but I was tired of waking up to this view.
Blank.
Boring.
Taking advantage of a rainy afternoon, I took a few of these…
…using a bit of this…
…spread across the dining room table.
‘Where’s the colour?’ asked the Kiddies.
‘There isn’t any,’ I replied.
‘You mean you did this on purpose?’ they responded.
‘Yes,’ I replied.
‘Why on earth don’t you want colour?’ they demanded.
‘Because sometimes the colour of a story is in its subject, not on the paper,’ I replied.
Now, each morning I wake up to this colourfully black and white tale.
So, while the rest of the world queues up for the new iPhone, I am marveling at another little product for Mac users…and it’s free!
I am horrible at keeping up with the latest software.
That is what my husband is for.
Tuned in and wired up, that’s what he is.
Every now and again something will catch his eye that I might like.
But this sat in my email for so long, he forgot he had suggested it.
Books.
For highly compulsive book owners, like me.
Sure, Ravelry has a place to catalog knitting books, but what about all the other delicious works on my shelf?
This freeware allows Mac users to create a library of books. For me, the lists reflect categories like: cookbooks, craft books, knitting books, self-sufficiency books, L.M. Montgomery books, Kate Douglas Wiggin books, etc.
Sure, other software does that, but here’s the cool part…
See the field for ISBN numbers?
You can click the little camera icon and up comes iSight, a bar code scanner. Yep, the idea is that you can hold the book up to the camera on your MacBook and it will read the ISBN bar code. Click the ‘Quick Fill’ button and all the details about the book will fill in…even a copy of the cover!
How absolutely-time-savingly-cool is that?!?
Now, realistically, I had some difficulty getting the iSight to work each time, especially on glossy books covers…which most of my knitting books seem to have. But, alternatively, you can type in the ISBN, click ‘Quick Fill,’ and presto, it will do the same.
Caveat Ahead:
The program will only fill in the book details if they are on record at Amazon or ISBNdb.com, but the good news is that there are other sources for the Quick Fill feature that are downloadable. Antique books are still catalogued the good ol’-fashioned way, though, typing each line. Sigh.
I must say, though, this made quick work of sorting through many stacks of books!
It’s mesmerizing.
And habit-forming.
It elicits squeals of delight when the correct information magically appears.
Ack! Must…stop…family…needs…dinner.
Ah sure, just one more entry…