Festival of Forgotten Skills

Unfortunately due to extremely inclement weather the inaugural Festival of Forgotten Skills was rescheduled for sometime in October. Hopefully we won't see a repeat of the gusting winds, horizontal and torrential rain, and did I mention the horizontal hail!!!? Thank god the organisers postponed the festival as I think if it had of gone ahead we would have all been drenched, frozen and blown away!

Coming up soon is the first ever Festival of Forgotten Skills, to be held at Glen Forrest Community Garden in Mundaring, May 21, 2016. The festival is about sharing skills and having fun without money. Sounds good to me! So I got in touch and am going to host a crochet workshop. Come along and check it out! There's heaps of other stuff you can learn too such as pruning, building a wicking bed (raised permaculture garden bed), paper making and cooking wood fired pizzas, byo tray. Plus if you have something you no longer need bring it along and share. The festival was inspired by Mark Boyle's book The Moneyless Man, in which the author lived for a year without spending money by coming up with some ingenious ways to survive.

In my crochet workshop I'm going to attempt to teach people how to make a beanie. Or at least start making one. It's the first thing I learnt to crochet and after many multiples of swear words over the years I have pretty much mastered a pattern of my own making. Of sorts. The tricky thing is trying to convey this hard won knowledge to others. The gripping of the hook, the coordination required to maneuver said hook in and out of stitches whilst grabbing and wrapping new stitches. It's a frustrating thing for a beginner. Getting the tension right too is pretty annoying for a first timer. Too tight and you can't get your hook under the stitch, too loose and it looks like a big loopy noodle. Practice is key of course. We will go slowly and do lots of basic steps a number of times, plus I will have some diagrams to hand out as people learn in many ways and having a visual aid is quite helpful.

I have taught numerous people before, at my previous job at the Tjuntjuntjara Women's Centre, in the remote indigenous community of Tjuntjuntjara, overseas in the small towns in Canada where I lived over a three year period with my husband. I used to hold Stitch n Bitch sessions at home. A fun and relaxed evening of cake, biccies, wine and craft where ladies could get their stitch on or just have a good old natter.

It's a been a couple of years between drinks though so I'm feeling a little nervous about this very public foray into teaching one of my favourite crafts to complete strangers. But whatevs, she'll be right, what's the worst that can happen!?

It begins

Welllll. I have been procrastingating about starting this blog for a bloody long time! Finally I gave myself a good kick up the arse and enrolled in a Blogging for Beginners course through the Australian Writers Centre.

The ebullient and knowledgeable Trae Flett of renowned blog site Where's My Glow? gave us tonnes of very useful information, particularly about the back end part of blogging, ie all the technical crap. Highly recommend.

So now. My first post. Basically I love crafting. I have been surrounded by it from a young age with my very talented mum knitting us all sorts of cute-as little jumpers when we were kids, whipping up curtains, jam and preserves (if that comes under crafty?? I reckon it does!!) and more. Now she is an amazing quilter, her quilts look like works of art.

A quilt I made for a friend's baby inspired by a design my mum created.

I love the self-sufficient, sustainable aspect of craft. It's so much more meaningful for me to make my own baby blanket as a gift for a friend's newly popped bub than buy some generic, expensive piece of crap. And I like to think they appreciate it more too.

Of course this blog will digress into the other aspects of my life which also include this sustainable outlook; the chooks, the garden, kitchen experiments, particularly in baking; adventures in travel and more.

But mainly it's going to be a mash-up craftiness. I don't even care if anyone reads it. At least I can extend the therapeutic aspect I find making craft brings me through also writing about it.

This is some of the first wool I have ever spun. Pink tops. Tops is woolen fleece you can get already processed.

I'm still not sure what my first actual craft post will be about. The current baby blanket I'm knitting (seriously people, cease with the breeding!!)? Some aplaca fleece I'm spinning on my wheel? Or perhaps the soft cotton face flannels I've been crocheting for a friend's gift hampers? Who knows. Better stay tuned to find out ;)