This week I am back with a short thematic episode to tie in with Zero Waste Week 2017. As this year’s campaign touches upon making, I thought I would share some of the ways that waste features in and even fuels my making.
The podcasts will shortly also be available iTunes, PlayerFM and other podcast catchers.
As always, I can be found on Instagram and Ravelry. There is also a Ravelry Group for the Mrs M’s Curiosity Cabinet podcast.
Before launching into the cunning art of waste minimisation, there are a couple of practical update.
With regards to my no-nylon sock experiment, Alice Elsworth of Whistlebare Farm contacted me to warn against using the Yeavering Bell blend for socks but as she is interested in my experiment, she sent me a skein of their Cuthbert Sock yarn to include in my study.
I also want to thank everybody for their feedback on last episode, with its focus on affordability, and remind you of the giveaway that is running in the Ravelry group for a skein of Daughter of a Shepherd Hebridean 4-ply and tote bag.
I have been an ambassador for the Zero Waste Week, a campaign that harnesses the power of online community both to encourage waste avoidance and remind those who are discretely doing their bit to minimise waste day in day out that we are not walking this path alone. As this year’s campaign touches upon making, I thought I would explore some of the ways that waste consciousness affects my making, particularly as this ties in well with the issue of affordability which I raised last week. If you want to know more about the campaign, click on the logo below or check out @myzerowaste, #zerowasteweek and #zerowasteweek2017 on Instagram and Twitter.
As I register waste as inefficient resource usage, I mention some of the simple things I do in my dressmaking to avoid waste, from the toile making through fabric sourcing to finishing. I also explain how the following Japanese saying inspires which scraps of fabric I keep.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BRTJHERjP3o/
I also share some of the ways that waste has helped unlock my dormant creative side by providing access to free materials with which to experiment.
Even onion skins are treated as a precious resource rather than waste
Dabbling with patchwork quilting thanks to waste
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Music: Springish by Gillicuddy on FreeMusicArchive and shared under Creative Commons Attribution license.
even if I have a piece of fabric too small to wrap 3 beans in, it still gets saved, I keep a little bowl on my sewing table and loose thread snippests get put in there, and when it gets full they are emptied into a bag, along with those tiny pieces of fabric and then just snipped up even smaller to make the best ever stuffing….I use this for cushions (they plump up a treat), toy stuffing, and also to stuff pin cushions (nothing annoys me more than putting a pin into something and having it shoot right through and jabbing me because it’s only been lightly stuffed with synthetic cloudy stuffing…..pieces of blanket left over form my hot water bottles and christmas stockings are blanket stitiched for needle case inserts and postcard sized pieces of calico or quilting muslin are tea dyed and used as little linings for needle cases….Nanny used to save all her old pairs of tights and when they could no longer be darned she would chop them up for cushions but also to make draught excluders.