the green gal

Come and get it

Who doesn't love a giveaway?! As part of my celebrations in anticipation of launching the green gables, my little handmade goods business, I'm giving you the chance to win a bunch of stuff.

The stash giveaway consists of four pieces of cotton fabric, one larger piece of upholstery weight fabric, a little ball of turquoise wool, two turquoise feathers (as seen here) lengths of green, red and turquoise ribbon, six self-cover buttons, navy and purple embroidery thread and a collection of buttons. And if you can figure out a way to use every item in one project I'll be really impressed!

I will happily post it to anywhere in the world so wherever you're sitting on the planet, do enter. Simply tell me your favourite colour (yep, it's really that simple) in a comment below. I will choose a winner randomly after midnight GMT on Monday 14 June. Good luck!

The Challenge

So, I've decided it's high time I set myself a new challenge. A proper one that will take a decent amount of effort and last a while. 

When I was nine years old I gave up sweets for Lent without telling anyone. I wanted to see if I could go without for six weeks and by keeping it secret I didn't have the added help of my mum keeping a beady eye on me. After the allotted period I emerged on Easter Sunday brandishing a carrier bag half full of confectionery, having stored it under my bed. My family were suitably impressed and my mother insisted I took the bag into school to show and tell, and probably so that I'd have to share the stash and so not OD on sugar.

Three plus years ago I turned veggie. The main reasons being health and environmental benefits and animal welfare concerns, but a little part of me also wanted to see if I had the willpower to do it. After all, crispy duck pancakes and bacon sandwiches were two of my favourite meaty meals. But nearly four years on I'm as committed as I always have been and have every intention of staying meat-free forever.

So, I have will power and previous record directing it at abstaining from various foodstuffs. My latest challenge doesn't involve food but clothing instead.

For one year I will not buy a single new item of clothing. Starting today (although I could have got going a while ago as I haven't been stocking up on new threads) I won't buy a single new item of clothing. Instead I will make do and mend items I already own, buy secondhand or (I'm the most nervous about this one) make my own.

Some might say I could go further and eschew the purchase of all clothing for a year but I'm not about winning rosettes for extreme behaviour. To totally rule out taking ownership of a new or not-new item of clothing isn't particularly practical or realistic. After all, even cave folk made themselves a new loin cloth/toga/whatever you call their garb from leftover animal skin from time to time.

Plus, by boycotting all clothes I may turn off readers and be dismissed as too idealistic. I'd like to take this opportunity to show others, as well as myself, that buying £3 outfits from Primark, just because you can, or changing your wardrobe every season isn't needed to look and feel good about yourself. When it comes down to it, most of our purchases are suggested and decided by someone sitting in an office a long way away and their highly-skilled marketing company. And then there's the labour used to make the cheap clothes so many love. However much we might not want to believe it, no high street store is guilt-free of using cheap labour – people who work incredibly long hours in harsh conditions and don't even take home a decent enough wage to live on at the end of the day. We can't keep buying and binning clothes and not think there's a catch.

Over the next year I'm going to find out just how well I can be dressed without the use of virgin clothing. Hopefully it will benefit my wallet and the local charity shops I support, it will mean I don't contribute to the misery of many garment workers, plus improve my sewing skills and leave a few items out of landfill. 

Now, where did I put that pattern for handmade knickers…

Handmade is heartmade…

…is my new mantra, so, fittingly, this…

… was given to me today by my dear friend Kirsty and sums up a lovely afternoon spent learning how to crochet this…

 

…small and imperfectly formed, but crochet none the less, and followed by…

 
…multi-coloured eggs from local chickens for my dinner!

Hope you all had an equally satisfying day.

Deck the halls with homemade bunting…

…tra la la la la, la la la la…

Is it a banner or is it bunting? I call it bunting!

So, I've been at it again. Having made a major dent in my Christmas present making I decided to make something purely decorative, for me! I checked the idea with the hubbie first, though, I wasn't going to slave over a hot mac and scalpel only to discover he has a major aversion to bunting being hung in our sitting room!

The inspiration came from the fantastic 12 Days workshop. I know I've banged on about this already but once you sign up you'll see what I mean! If you want to see other 12 Days creations, take a look at their Flickr group.

Anyway, I fancied something a little bit less overtly festive so opted to spell 'deck the halls' in bunting. I had treated myself to a pad of scrapbooking papers (my first) and the colours seemed perfect for this make. I cut out the letters from the paper and then strung them up with leftover blue wool which, again, seems to match perfectly! It all worked out better than I had hoped so I'm wondering if I can get away with keeping this up all year...?

Foreign holidays – guilty or pleasure?

I am the green gal and I have flown on an airplane.

Sounds wrong, I know, so let me explain myself. Although, first of all, does being green mean never flying? Ever? How about offsetting flights? What about only flying short-haul? Or only long-haul?

My husband and I decided after our honeymoon in Italy that we would only fly every other year. It was actually four years until we flew again, last week, to Italy as it happens. After holidaying in a tipi, a fancy tent on a farm and in various cottages in the UK, mostly in disappointing weather, we decided it was time we took ourselves off to sunnier climes and felt a bit of warmth on our skins.

Our Italian week saw us give money to The Man (BA flights, Europcar rental, Esselunga supermarket) but also support independent and local businesses. BTW, yes we did rent a car to compound our CO2 evil – we were in rural Tuscany, wheels are essential!

We rented our apartment from a couple who renovate ruined old villas, we ate in restaurants owned and run by the same family for who knows how many generations, and (after the initial panic stock-up in a supermarket) bought local produce in independent stores. Much hilarious bad Italian pronunciation on my behalf and confused gesticulation on the locals’ behalf ensued.

Originally we thought we’d spend several days visiting different towns seeing the historical sights but then decided to only take two day trips. I would say this was to save on emissions but actually it was because we were just too darned tired and wanted to lie around absorbing Vitamin D! But pumping fewer pollutants into the atmosphere was a happy bonus.

I read three books, all borrowed so no trees were freshly hurt for my reading pleasure. And I knitted. A lot. A scarf I’m hoping the recipient in a few weeks will like.

So, as foreign holidays go, I’d say that’s low impact-ish. Si or non? I’ve thought about offsetting our emissions but that’s such a fuzzy area I find it quite confusing. One school of thought is that it’s better than doing nothing, you plant trees or support eco projects in developing countries. Others disagree saying it’s a sticking plaster for people to feel better about their indulgences, that the planted trees could be chopped down long before they’ve had time to offset your emissions.

Having got the need for a foreign holiday out of systems for the time being, I don’t think either of us have a huge urge to sit on a plane again any time soon. Yes the weather is unreliable but the UK has so many beautiful and interesting places to visit that we’ll be happy staying in the Isles for the next few years.

And if we do get twitchy tongues for foreign lingo, there’s always the Eurostar!

Adventures in knitting

I've finally finished knitting my tea cosy! I know it's not that rock n roll a statement to open with but I'm very pleased with the end product. I started it months ago so really it's about time.

For those of you yet to discover the joy of knitting, have a go! It's the secretly super cool activity that is no longer the preserve of the blue rinse. I ask you, if knitting was only done by the retired would there be a worldwide knitting community called Stitch n Bitch? Think book club with needles. Check out www.stitchnbitch.co.uk for more info.

I've been a solitary knitter so far but I've spread my little woolly goodies far and wide. Everyone knows that homemade gifts, even slightly ropey ones, are valued for the time and effort that went into making them. I started with a good ol' scarf, not dissimilar to Dr Who's. Following that I knitted 16 (count them) squares, half green and half cream, and sewed them together to make a blanket for my nephew/godson. The thing's big enough to keep him warm till college but better that than too small. I then branched out to make baby bobbly hats for another nephew and niece. Having made a little Innocent smoothie bottle hat, I just sized up their pattern. 

The obvious natural progression is a tea cosy! Well, it isn't, especially as I have a particularly smart-looking teapot, but cold tea is just not tasty.

So, what next for me and my needles...?

Be nagged

Nagging is not something we usually like, want or even ask for. Well, let me tell you about a website when you can sign up to be nagged every month! www.thenag.net is a fab website with the sole purpose of reminding you to do something to make the world a slightly nicer place. There are stock nags like switch to green energy, join a veg box scheme, that kind of thing, but also lots of imaginative nags suggested by other users. Become a Womble Nag sounds rather appealing.

The idea behind The Nag is to help people live more sustainable lives – many people doing small things adds up to a big difference. Nags are tracked to measure impact and visualised on a UK map. And if a nag plops into your inbox that you don't like the look of, you can miss it for a month. That's not really the idea but you're bound to find a nag more to your taste on the website. 

Now, I'm off to start implementing the Knit Your Christmas Presents Nag, family and friends be warned!

Green in the broadest sense

I use the word green to cover all manner of things which I think are included in the general ethos of greenness - the idea of treating the planet, people and creatures the way you'd like to be treated. So, my list of websites and books don't just cover topics to do with climate change but also things like getting back to nature, the fairtrade ethic, even making your own natural beauty products!

Happy Campers

One book that doesn't live on the climate change shelf but is just fab for life in general is Happy Campers. From advice on what to take camping to get the home from home feeling and campfire recipes, to a guide to identifying clouds and knitting instructions, it's a must-have for anyone who wants to look up once in a while and smell the roses. I took it when we went teepee camping in Cornwall and it was invaluable. The book link takes you to Amazon or you can log on to the Happy Campers own website. Be happy camping, or otherwise!