For the love of scrubs

8pm, Thursday evening.  We open our doors, walk onto the street and clap for the NHS.  It's not that special now but still it's an opportunity to check into a collective effort.  A nod at our neighbours, maybe a quick conversation over the wall, across the balcony, to the other side of the street. It's little enough, but it's something.

This is a curious time when the most constructive thing we can do is not to do anything. Don't go out, don't embrace, don't linger, don't loiter, don't let your dog run free. Our compliance would seem to be working and we trust the virus is being somewhat contained. The success of our efforts translates into trends: a plateauing out of the pandemic, indicated by fewer cases, a dip in the daily tally of deaths.

Like many of us, I struggle with that daily toll. Numbers in thousands overwhelm the imagination and deceased celebrities who once would have merited a week of archived material, are mentioned, their achievements logged and then forgotten.  It is an empty field in County Antrim, now requisitioned and cordoned off, which chills.

In my street, as elsewhere, a Covid 19 Mutual Support Aid group has been set up, where contacts, services and bananas are shared. At the same time,  many of my social media groups have descended into bickering about the benefits of wearing face masks and avoiding sweaty joggers.  Our household is privileged in that we have a garden, a park nearby and a dog to exercise daily, a useful pretext for leaving the house. On our walks, we forage safely in rediscovered corner shops, hunting down strong white flour and gathering caster sugar.  We know how to bake, brew and make jam.  We get by.

Lucky us.  But it's hardly enough, this invisible compliance. I want to be seen to do something, other than depositing a few cans into the local foodbank. Cruelly, reaching out to the needy and vulnerable puts them and us at risk.  Self-isolation is lonely.

So I want to tell you about a movement.  Like many movements, it is currently under the radar (or if you like under the 5G mast) and it is momentous.  All over the country, women alone in their houses are making things. They are crocheting pairs of hearts to place in the hands of the bereaved families and to rest in peace.  They are revisiting stashes of buttons to make bands which alleviate the soreness caused by wearing masks.

I'm doing my bit as well.  With friends, I have made and delivered over thirty laundry bags to the North Middlesex Hospital and Whittington Hospital for nurses to store, transport and wash their uniforms without fear of cross-contamination..   I like to see my little bag as an interface between work and home, where potentially harmful clothing is separated out and dealt with, keeping the healthcare worker and their family safe.

In a quiet, somewhat introverted way, I have enjoyed the meditative act of creating these bags, imagining the grateful recipient, considering the wear and tear to fabric being washed at 60 degrees.  (You don't want the material to shrink or the colours to run.)  I have constructed these bags with French seams to avoid raw edges, and finished each one with a little heart.

So yet again, I find myself one of many, but this time I feel I'm doing something useful  I am channelling my spirit of Dunkerque.

 If you too are interested in getting involved, there are links to the projects mentioned above.

Meet your makers!

We now have 21+ local artisans who make, design and craft their wares. And they really are local - our sock maker and mosaic artist live in the road next to the centre; the Wasteladystudio duo live opposite. 

Others we had to find.  We hiked up the hill to Stroud Market where we met one of our potters, a knitter and a maker of vegan skin care products.  We trekked through ancient woods to find our honey maker in Muswell Hill, picking up a quilter on the way! Many of our makers do wonderful things in the community, providing cakes for a fundraiser at Mind or helping Hornsey School pupils create a sustainable garden.  Other makers came to us; talented and experimental, they wanted to share their work in this exciting new venture.

I hope you will come too and support our community of amazing makers.

A full list of stalls with appropriate links is given below.

Ceramics from Fiona and Nigel, glassware from Hilary and mosaics from Rachel: 
Cushions, bags and quilts from Anita, Helene and Zuz
Jams, chutney from Dick and honey from Manola
Cards and prints from Jane, Alison and Anne

Gift wrapped cakes and cupcakes from Cake2theoccasion 
Hand made dolls from Stewart and hand painted dolls from Calamushkas
Knitted socks from John and knitted scarves from Simon
Handmade jewellery from Jackie and Joyce
Bughouses from Briggsbughouses and terrariums from Enchanted Terrarium
Sustainable living: fair trade goods from Poppy and Friends of the Earth; vegan skin care from Mama Aroma Tierra  and plastic free and upcycled pieces from WasteladyStudio

This is a not for profit event to support our local community of makers.  There will also be a festive cafe and a lantern making activity for all ages. A donation will be made to Haringey Winter Night Shelter.

Why I don't buy from Amazon

I try to live a sustainable life. I have made a pledge not to fly; I eat meat only at the weekend; I try to avoid single use plastic; I don't buy from Amazon. Most of these demand a degree of abstinence, a sacrifice, a conscious consideration of the choices I make.

Except for giving up Amazon, nah, that's easy.  Because although they purport to be a worthy, well-intentioned company, they are not.  Let's have a look at some of their claims.

Amazon is a great place to work

You've seen the advert.  Employees enthuse about flexible working hours, the career opportunities, the camaraderie of cakes every Friday.  Sure there are targets, but everyone has targets, don't they?

The Amazon website explains the advantages of working four ten hours shifts with three days off every week: 'fast delivery for our customers' and 'another day for free time and social activities.'

When journalist James Bloodworth worked undercover at Amazon, he discovered that no-one he met managed to achieve the nine months' employment threshold to gain permanent status. Most were 'released' due to black marks allocated because of taking time off, or declining overtime, or being late back from lunch, or just not meeting targets.

Bloodworth was employed as a picker: walking round the Amazon fulfilment centre, the size of four football pitches, he would clock up ten to fourteen miles a day No wonder that home at last, he would try to rest his 'heavy legs supporting suppurating feet which over the course of the day had puffed up half a size bigger.'

A modern version of the Robert Frost poem might read:

The aisles are endless, dark and deep
But I have targets to meet
And miles to walk before I sleep
And miles to walk before I sleep.

Amazon uses its money to do great things

Jez Bezos is the richest person in the world. He has recently donated $98.5 million to organisations that support homeless families in the USA, amounts which range from $1.25 million to $5 million. The day the new gifts were announced, Bezos stated an intention to donate 56,702 shares of Amazon stock, worth just under $99 million to non profits.  

I'm guessing that means the amount he donated was non-taxable. Amazon's record for paying tax is heinous.  And as Jeremy Corbyn tweeted at the time, $98.5 million is just 0.09% of his net worth.  Not so great, then.

Amazon is a great way to research a product

The consumer group Which? found 97% of its members used Amazon reviews when buying a product. They also found 30% of them were disappointed by the end result, despite the good reviews.  Which? recommends a sceptical approach: if a product receives numerous 5* rave reviews, using the same glowing phrases, all posted on the same day, there's just a chance they are false.

Amazon also buries 1* reviews in bundles of better reviews: the TV adaptation of Dirty Dancing (1* on Rotten Tomatoes) combined with the film version garnered 4.5* revews from over 1000 Amazon customers.  Reviews for authors with the same name are lumped together because after all, 'Jane Eyre' and 'Wuthering Heights' are more or less the same book...

Amazon offer you great choice

It is very hard to make a purchase online without using Amazon.  Search for a book online and you have to wade through lists of  links to Amazon.  Hunt for a CD on an independent music website and you will be directed to.. Amazon.  Join in a jolly Secret Santa at work, click on our wish list and it takes you to... Amazon.

You may think you are an autonomous being when you follow a whim and elect to buy the latest gadget.  You're not.  Amazon know you bought one just like it in the last three years.  The gadget is waiting for you, waiting for you to make that click.

Amazon is so convenient

Remember how Amazon justified those ten hour shifts: they ensure 'fast delivery for our customers.  'Every one of us who want a product next day, in two hours, this afternoon , who cancels an order because it takes two days to get to you,  is complicit in those long hours and demanding working conditions.

Our desire to have things in the 'here and now' has far-reaching consequences. While the latest game may have made its way from half way across the world  to a UK warehouse, the last mile to your house is the trickiest.  Did you know that an average package is dropped 17 times before it reaches its purchasers? Parcels in half empty vans skid around or are crushed under the weight of other gods.  No surprise that electronic device you ordered doesn't work so well. This explains the excessive use of cardboard and plastic packing (which by the way is not recyclable), all of which adds to Amazon's overall carbon footprint, equivalent to 44.4 m tons of carbon dioxide.

It make no commercial sense to transport a small number of parcels, so drivers have to deliver 200 a day in vans, packed to the rafters.  They park in cycle lanes or on double lines, or double park to load and unload the contents.  The infrastructure of cities cannot cope with this army of delivery vans and we look on helpless, stuck in traffic jams, or worse breathe in the fumes.  One solution to this problem is 'beds and sheds' complexes with their own delivery systems and underground rail links shunting hundreds of packages every hour: one of these exists already. Dystopian.

So essentially, Amazon saves time and money

Does it? To recommend you now go and buy your Christmas presents for family and friends and Secret Santa gifts for colleagues at your local makers' market (especially ours!) might seem a bit hopeful..

And yet and yet, the twelve minutes saved by clicking online can be channelled into walking to the shops, saying hello to neighbours you meet on the way, browsing a few stalls, having a cup of tea, browsing a few more stalls, buying something that catches your eye. It might take longer than 12 minutes but it sounds like time well spent to me.

Hornsey Vale Makers' Market

Makers' Market or Craft Fair/Fayre?

 

Knitters at Brixton Makers' Market

Mention a ‘craft fair’ and what comes to mind?

Stalls, of course. A delightful place to visit. Tea and cake. Scarves and earrings, all the stuff you find in a National Trust gift shop.  Essentially a day out, to browse a few stalls, buy something nice for a friend’s birthday and take a chance on the weather. 

The heritage setting is key: look how the Channel 5 show, The Wonderful  World of Crafting chooses a charming place for each programme: https://www.channel5.com/show/the-wonderful-world-of-crafting/

From a business point of view, craft fairs are a great way to make money. The fee for the stall can be used to fund other projects and support worthy causes, and as long as the organisers attract enough punters, the stall holders should be happy.  The more stall holders, the greater the profit; the more stallholders, the greater the attraction, the more people come, the greater the takings.   Everybody happy.

The Makers’ Market I have in mind is somewhat different. Linguistically, with a bit of alliteration, it puts the makers at the centre of the event  This is to encourage conversation with the seller about their craft, the origins of the materials they use, and their passion for making.  A maker is always happy when they sell on the day, but they are particularly delighted when they engage with a customer and take on a commission. Co-production of this nature is less wasteful of energy, time and materials; no-one wants a pile of unsold items...  And how great to own a piece of work, made to your requirements from someone you know!

So for our Makers’ Market, yes, there will be tea and cakes (and mulled wine too).  The setting is Hornsey Vale Community Centre, whose architecture is more 70s than heritage, but which is convenient for Crouch End and the W3 and W5 bus routes.  There will be a range of interesting items for sale, lovely gifts for Christmas and beyond.  The majority of our stallholders will have made the items they sell.  They will have sourced their materials, decided on a design, and spent hours, working on their creation. 

Come and talk to them!

The Makers Market is not for profit event at Hornsey Vale Community Centre, on Sunday 8 December, 3-6 pm.  If you would like to sell at this event, please email me at: Wasteladyn8@gmail.com and I will send you further details.

A Vintage Life - Ways to Avoid Single Use Plastic

One billion elephants! 

Or 8.3 billion tonnes. That's how much plastic has been produced when the plastics industry really took off in the fifties. Of that amount, 9% has been recycled, 12% has been incinerated and the remaining 79%?  Well, you've seen the pictures on TV...

In the fifties, our grandparents reeling from war-time shortages and post-war rationing, kept everything.  (I know that from having taken over a year to clear my mother's house.)  They bought their groceries and meat from small independent shopkeepers who wrapped their purchases in paper.  They sat down to eat at the family table and had two sets of cutlery: one for everyday, one for best. They had tea parties for special occasions with tea-sets and tea-pots and tea leaves. 

They tucked handkerchiefs in sleeves or pockets and gave pretty embroidered sets as presents.  At the same time, they embraced this new extraordinary material which could be used to store food safely and they loved the affordable jewellery that sparkled and gleamed and looked like real thing: amber, pearl, ivory and coral.

A random selection of beads from my mother's jewellery box

Thanks to their careful curation of these precious things, many of them are still around. So can revisiting the past, help us reduce our plastic waste and create own plastic free legacy?  Here's some ideas.

1) Use tea leaves (and tea-pots!)  Almost all teabags contain a plastic sealant, polypropylene, to stop them disintegrating.  Contrary to popular belief, they won't biodegrade in your compost.

J G Meakin Studio teapot and vintage tea caddies

2) Use handkerchiefs.  Tissues are 100% paper but they can't be recycled or flushed away and they come in plastic wrapping (even the boxes).

3) Bring your own cutlery (and napkin) to work.) Each year in the UK we get through 16.5 billion pieces of disposable cutlery and we are among the biggest users of straws on the planet: 42 billion per year.

4) Use soap and shampoo bars and display them on pretty vintage ceramic dishes.  These are Poole, made in the sixties, hand painted, each with their individual maker's mark.

Hand painted Pool pottery from the s 60with vintage soaps

70s Tupperware in various sizes

5) Use Tupperware.  You can take it to your friendly local shopkeeper and producer and avoid plastic bags and food trays. An estimated 2.26 million tonnes of plastic packaging is produced in the UK each year, of which three fifths ends up being dumped)


6) Avoid clingfilm. In the UK we love cling film, 1.2 million metres every year, to be exact; that's an annual 44m per household.  Switch to beeswax wraps.

50s fabric turned into beeswax wraps

Beeswax wraps are a brilliant way to wrap food stuff (although avoid meat) and can be shaped into pockets and boxes. My beeswax wraps are !00% vintage cotton infused with a blend of beeswax, anti-bacterial jojoba oil and pine resin (to make the wraps cling). In future I plan to use beeswax from local beekeepers. 

The wraps can be wiped or rinsed in lukewarm water; they should last at least a year and can be refreshed by putting them into a warm oven for a few minutes.  Once they finally reach their end of life, simply put them in the compost.

WasteladyN8 Studios

At WasteladyN8 Studios, the material comes first.

Every sample, off cut, discard, charity shop reject, discontinued line, junkshop find, however bent and battered, biffed and buffeted, frayed and friable, is interesting to us. We squirrel, and hoard horribly.

Every find is a project.  Before we stash, we explore possibilities: it is not what to do with the material, but what not to do with it.  The best way to use a resource is to experiment with it, but what if, there is no more of it to be had? 

No matter - limitation inspires creativity. Everything we produce has been crafted, not just in its execution, but also in the thinking behind it.  The outcome is an item, that is unique, a one-off, never to be repeated, because the material we have used no longer exists.

Small purses made from Donegal tweed offcuts - material no longer available!

The wasteladyn8 blog is not just a showcase of items we have made.  It is also a discussion of the journey towards the finished product, the twists and turns and glorious dead ends we encounter.  It is about finding material and rediscovering it.

Brooches made from Paul Smith silk samples, sold at a pop-up shop.