Reading Time: 8 minutes‘Regenerative’ is word that is cropping up more lately. Yes, despite our lives becoming more tech-filled by the day, it seems there’s a band of people who hanker after the ‘stuff’ in their lives to be made of more natural materials; less corporate, branded and remote. Is this you too? I’ve thought much about regenerative […]
Craft Skills
Alternative Economy, Meaningful Work and Autonomy
Reading Time: 12 minutesIt seems that lockdowns (for better or worse) have helped the alternative economy draw in new converts. But, it may only be because I seek out an alternative economy that I notice it. We were well into the ‘pandemic’ before I realised how much life had changed. Life changes: as we all know, and it […]
Herdwick and Swaledale Yarn, Local Cloth, Local Landscape
Reading Time: 3 minutesHerdwick and Swaledale Yarn; local yarn for local cloth. Actually this isn’t local yarn to me, but it’s locally distinctive yarn. It’s shorn from sheep able to weather windy hilltops and cold winters of northern England. With their slightly kempy (hairy) woolly coat, they produce a durable, hardy yarn that’s more likely to make it into […]
What’s the Softest British Wool? Could It Be Ryeland?
Reading Time: 10 minutesAs I drove up the track, I saw Helen. She waved at me from behind a full-sized skip bag of, what could be, the softest British wool – Ryeland wool. Fifteen Ryeland fleeces in a big sack. We exchanged talk about the journey over, then she said ‘I decided I might as well add in […]
Do We Need to Revive Traditional Knowledge to Live Well for the Future?
Reading Time: 4 minutesThe best of the past for the future. That’s what I want to focus on this year.
When I started this blog, I never thought of it as relating to my working life. But, as time goes on I’ve found it sneaking in. I’m a cross between an archaeologist and an ecologist, and so I’ve found the phrases ‘ancient knowledge, passed down through generations’ slipping in.
Refootable Socks and a Mending Culture revival
Reading Time: 6 minutesI’ve just finished knitting a pair of refootable socks. The prompt to do this came from thinking through ways of knitting no nylon Socks. I wrote about sock knitting tricks that help you to avoid knitting with wool that contains nylon, yet make a reasonably durable sock. Most sock knitting yarns now contain nylon (plastic!) […]
