Webbcrafts

Rebecca Haynes born 1892 walks in my herb garden..

When I was young

My grandma, Rebecca Haynes, taught me so much, and yet she died when I was very young.

My memories are vague but powerful, and some are tangible in that I have beautifully worked dressing table mats, their stitches fragile, but the crochet pattern still intact and hiding in tissue paper against the light. When I hold them I am touching her and all that she taught me.

The Great Depression

Rebecca lived through the great depression of the late 1920s and early 1930s, and then the war years when it wasn’t easy to be a woman, and through it all she wielded her crochet hook.

It didn’t mean anything to her that:

• Modern tampons have been around since the 1930s.

she had to find another way.

Nothing special used during Menstruation

It is generally believed that working class women from 1700 – 1900 didn’t bother with any menstrual protection, merely bleeding into their clothes, in which case my grandmother had learned to be different. Her lifestyle would, however, have been called ‘working class’ as she was married to a milkman.

• The average woman uses 11,000-17,000 tampons in a lifetime. (Think of the monetary value!)
  

Grandma didn’t know what a tampon was, and had she known she would have been very suspicious of their use. She crocheted her way through menstruation, and when she didn’t need protection for herself she taught others. Sadly my own mother never learned to crochet.

Available materials

Belts were made from a soft silky material (rayon, silk?), although she may have used linen in earlier years, from which to attach a pad with loops. The pads were filled with whatever material was available, it was believed that she used crushed sphagnum moss, but not sawdust. Perhaps it wasn’t available to her, I will never know.

What a waste of time!

It is now considered a waste of time to make menstrual protection as there are so many different kinds available, they all however contain the many chemicals that would be better not to introduce into such a delicate part of the body. (Some Facts)

A Disposable Life

A whole industry has been built around producing tampons and pads which can be thrown away, but what if, like in my Grandma’s day these products became scarce or unaffordable?

The mother of invention

I too have no need of menstrual protection since many years past, however I was asked to devise a way to apply medication to this very area, without contributing to chemical overload. I thought of tampons and researched some that were made with unbleached cotton which cost £5.00 each. Probably a reasonable cost for something imported, but making them for yourself would be so much more cost effective.

A simple pattern

Other crafters have worked on this problem and produced functional tampons and pads, but there is always room for improvement, (and cost) and in this case simplification. Grandma would be proud!

A collection of tampons

These are basically a chain with single crochet rows which can be rolled to form the filling. The tail is secured within a tiny eye which holds the bulk of the tampon beneath a small hood.

They are made using an unbleached cotton yarn which proved easier to insert than a softer bamboo yarn.

After use they can be opened out, rinsed in cold water and soaked in a solution of water and white vinegar or sodium bicarb. or tea tree oil, or even colloidal silver. Any bacteria removing agent that doesn’t contain chlorine bleach.

Ready to wash tampons

One thing leads to another

The same arguments apply to incontinence pads, and the need for an older person to be secure in the face of a very nasty cough. This is my pattern for those occasions :

A three piece pad

The pad itself is unbleached cotton, but for the inserts I used soft bamboo yarn. Very absorbent and gentle on delicate parts. The pad can have as many inserts as needed  i.e. one on top of another. I tested this on myself and it is very comfortable.

I secured the triangle wings with a button, but you could use a pop stud, which means that it doesn’t move around in snug pants.

If you don’t crochet

If you don’t crochet but want to try something different that is made just for you, then I can customise your menstrual protection if you get in touch with your needs. (my email address)

Different sized tampons designed for your body and needs

Difficult times

Even in difficult times women are able to retain pride in their unique bodily functions by becoming self sufficient. It is true that we, as half of the human race, have been taught to believe that our biological functions should never be openly discussed, and mass production is better left to men.

We women know better!

Layered menstrual pad

The Magic Tooth Saver

The shock of wobbly teeth

It can be a trying time for five or six year olds when they suddenly find that they have wobbling teeth. It happens just when they are experiencing the change from playing in nursery to being serious about learning, or perhaps even leaving their nursery and joining the big school.

Softening the blow

How can that blow be softened just a little? With stories of course, and there isn’t a  better story at this time than the Tooth Fairy whose promise is a coin or a gift.

Searching for the elusive tooth

Finding a milk tooth from underneath a pillow can be very difficult, especially if your child is lying right on it, and so a tooth saver is a pretty way of making life easier for yourself.

Crochet, beads and needle felting

Tooth Saver showing all pieces

I crocheted this one, and then stiffened it with beads and added a needle felted fairy as a handle. You do however, have to be ready with a story, especially if this is the first lost tooth.

Searching for stories

After searching the information on the origins of the Tooth Fairy myth, and finding that no-one is really sure how it came about, and knowing that I would surely need to explain to a very inquisitive little lady why she would benefit from putting  her tooth into the little nest for collection, I wrote this story:

The Best Tooth Fairy in the World

The Best Tooth Fairy in the World

Serafina is the world’s best tooth fairy, which means that she is allowed to collect the teeth from her favourite children. You Freya are honoured to be chosen by Serafina because you are a kind little girl who loves animals and flowers, especially toadstools, which as you know are where fairies make their homes.

Keeping the world safe

By giving Seraphina your tooth you are helping her to keep all the beautiful flowers safe from harm, and so make the world a wonderful place for all the children who are not quite as old as you. Children like younger sisters and brothers, who don’t yet understand how important it is that Seraphina is allowed to do her job properly, but they will when it’s their turn.

You see, your lost tooth holds magic.

It is the magic that holds everything together, it’s like a special kind of glue, that only little children can make. It is that special smile that lights up a dull world, it is your infectious laugh that makes all the old ones laugh too, it is your big hugs that bring such pleasure to everyone who cares for you, and it is your dreams that hold your future in your hands, and Seraphina collects it all from your tooth.

Making Seraphina happy

We all owe her our gratitude, and if we can hold her in our thoughts once in a while she will be happy too, because even fairies get old, and Seraphina is at least two hundred and ten. Now I know that this is hard to believe, but it is true, and she gets a little tired from flying such great distances every night.

A gift for every girl and boy

Because children never stop losing their teeth, and we are all so pleased with them for doing it that Seraphina leaves a little gift for each boy or girl that believes in her and leaves a tooth. Her gift also holds magic, and you can use the magic straight away.

Keeping your magic

You can take your coin and choose something from a shop that would please you, or put your present in your treasure box to keep and remember your first lost tooth, and know that you were especially chosen by the best tooth fairy, and send her your love.

Remembering why

As you lose more teeth you can put them in your pink tooth nest and wait for their collection, happy to know that all the effort of pulling your tooth that last little bit, which sometimes stings, will be all worthwhile.

The Pink Tooth Nest

Sorting the Worms from the Compost

Working Worms

Today I sorted my worms from the compost that they have made for me.

I provided old cardboard in the form of tubes from various sources of paper, and a huge quantity of used tea bags, both conventional black and herbal.

No Worries

Throughout the winter I checked on them occasionally, gave them extra tea bags or a blanket when it really got cold, and they worked. Thanking me by producing the most nutritious compost ever available, and staying with me.

A potted Mahonia fed on worm compost gives me berries for wool dye

Worm Bolt

It is not possible to keep a worm if it doesn’t want to stay, and when there are thousands that don’t want to stay it is indeed a spectacle.

They didn’t Like Scrap Wool

When I first started keeping worms my intention was to have them compost the waste wool that cannot be spun. Duly I gave them the wool as part of their bedding, and they left in huge numbers. I only spotted the flight by accident, and managed to keep a small amount by quickly finding another container and changing their habitat to cardboard. They then chose to stay, and have been with me ever since, which has been eight years now.

Grateful for Worms

I was destined to keep worms from an early age.  On reaching the age of  eight my parents and I holidayed in the country, and I collected an enormous number of worms and put them in a jar, but I didn’t have a lid. On being called to eat I wondered how to stop the worms from crawling away. The solution I felt was to turn the jar upside down then they couldn’t leave me.

On returning to the spot some hours later there wasn’t a worm left, and I was so embarrassed that I didn’t tell my parents what I had done, feeling that I should have known that they would burrow.

These beans are just a few weeks old and budding already

Mutual Admiration

I now know that if you give them what they need, the reward will be well worth the wait.

Free Fertilizer

Who knows if we will be able to rely on manufactured fertilizer always being available? And why not be organically self-sufficient anyway, it saves a great deal of money and the resulting vegetables are sweeter for that.

A luscious pot of Mange Tout Peas

Marking Your Page

A New Book

Today a beautiful new book arrived through the post. The smell of it’s pages inspired the need for a beautiful new bookmark to go with it. Bookmarks have a fascinating history and the making of one connects our thoughts to long gone crafters.

History of bookmarks

The first bookmarks were used throughout the medieval period, circa C5th to C15th century, consisting usually of a small parchment strip attached to the edge of folio (or a piece of cord attached to headband).

As the first printed books were quite rare and valuable, it was determined early on that something was needed to mark one’s place in a book without causing its pages any harm. Some of the earliest bookmarks were used at the end of the sixteenth century, and  Queen Elizabeth 1st was one of the first to own one.

Modern bookmarks are available in a huge variety of materials with a multitude of designs and styles from which to choose. Many are made of cardboard or heavy paper, but they are also constructed of leather, ribbon, fabric, felt, steel, wire, tin, beads, wood, plastic, vinyl, silver, gold and other precious metals, some decorated with gemstones.

The first detached, and therefore collectible, bookmarkers began to appear in the 1850s. One of the first references to these is found in Mary Russell Mitford’s Recollections of a Literary Life (1852):

“I had no marker and the richly bound volume closed as if instinctively.”

Note the abbreviation of ‘bookmarker’ to ‘marker’. The modern abbreviation is usually ‘bookmark’. Historical bookmarks can be very valuable, and are sometimes collected along with other paper ephemera.

Most nineteenth-century bookmarks were intended for use in bibles and prayer books and were made of ribbon, woven silk or leather.

I made a beaded one.

Beaded Bookmark

Materials:

Some Dos and Don’ts

• Don’t use silver beading wire…it breaks
• Don’t use cheap beads…the holes aren’t uniformly drilled
• Don’t use earing posts…they don’t bend well
• —————————————————————
• Do have a selection of needles ready
• Do use a bead spinner, it makes threading quicker…as long as you don’t use cheap beads
• Do use a good quality silver wire to make your ends…it doesn’t break

It’s up to you

You can make any pattern of beads, just using the beads that you have collected by keeping old jewellery, or buying from a charity shop. Your ends need to be finished attractively, but you can experiment with twisted wire and end beads to achieve the effect required.

It is helpful to have the small jewellery pliers, but if you haven’t got them then raid a tool box. The smallest pliers work well.

I had about three goes at this bookmark before I was satisfied…if at first you don’t succeed, try a different technique.

I'll Keep Your Place

Simply Knitting

The Really Useful Blue Cabled Bag

Free bag handles from ‘Simply Knitting’ magazine gave me the nudge to try their patterns for knitted bags.

Stash Buster

They would, I thought, make handy project bags. Easy to carry about with a piece of crochet or knitting, and small enough so that I would have enough yarn in my stash.

Never the Right Yarn

Sorted through my stash pile, and was able to come up with similar colours, but of course, different weights from the pattern. This wasn’t going to make too much difference, except the size of the bag would differ from the given dimensions.

One Small and One Useful

Using Aran weight the cabled bag was an excellent project if you are new to cabling, and came out a useful size. I used the yarn left over from when I made a cabled cardigan, and so with the free handles it didn’t cost anything in materials to knit. The pink and purple bag was knitted with left over yarn from children’s  cardigans which made it much lighter, and therefore smaller.

Off Cuts Make Good Lining

The lining was also an off cut bought from our local charity shop which had been stashed away for when it would be useful, and now it was. Cost was about 40 pence, and it lined both bags.

Keeping the Blue

I shall keep the blue one because it is just the right size to hang from my spinning wheel, the pink one I shall give to a little one to carry something precious around with her.

Pink and Purple Children's Bag

The Importance of the Swatch

I’m always unwilling to knit a swatch, it seems like a waste of time, but these bags are a real lesson in why it is important to do it. This project didn’t matter, but if I needed something to fit and I couldn’t find the correct wool for the pattern it would matter a great deal. I will remember this!

Lining secured and neatened

The Inspiration for a Warm Sweater...

When your country looks like Iceland in winter, one of the first things you think about is warmth, and keeping warm.

Using the Natural Materials

When your country has sheep with an incredibly thick fleece, you will find ways of utilising it to provide the warmth that every body craves.

The fleece that keeps out the Icelandic winter

Was Your Winter Cold?

The winter of 2009-2010 has been long and hard, the coming of spring delayed, we could learn from Iceland.

The Lopapeysa in action..

I hadn’t knitted a lopapeysa before, but once I started and worked through the pattern methodically ten rows at a time, I was pleased that it was ‘ doable’

Warm enough for action...

Nursery Rhyme

I love this nursery rhyme from Iceland, but you don’t have to start at four, I proved it!

Now you have come to your fourth
year Your work you will begin- That is
learning the three arts:
To read, to knit, to spin. -Icelandic nursery rhyme

Little Maid Decorated Eggs

Egg Time

If you have been filling your nest with eggs it should be full by now because it’s Easter Sunday tomorrow and the children will be expecting their eggs.

Boiled Eggs

If you haven’t made the chocolate ones and you haven’t made the needle felted ones, you still have time to boil an egg.

I chose two double yolk organic eggs from a local farmer’s market and boiled them for 7 minuets, then plunged them into cold water so that a black line wouldn’t develop inside, and left them over night.

Two Little Maids

Braided brown wool tied with red shiny parcel tie provided their hair and acrylic paint their faces. I hope that the children won’t mind breaking them open to provide a healthy lunch!

Chocolate Egg just fits the Hobbycraft container

Easter Chocolate

Didn’t I promise you chocolate?

There are many kinds of chocolate, some are good, but most of the shop bought chocolate eggs are not either good or economical. The cardboard and silver paper make up much of the cost.

The Best Possible Chocolate

I wanted my grandchildren to have the best chocolate possible. This means that some sugar is unavoidable, but by using organic  chocolate with as high percentage of cocao mass as possible, and raw sugar, I am doing the best that can be done.

I melted 2 bars of 80% cocoa with a little butter and moulded the chocolate in different ways.

Egg Poacher Mould

The Egg Poacher Easter Egg Mould

The egg poacher was the perfect size to fill the Hobbycraft painted egg. Just to create the cream egg effect I put two balls of home made truffle into each half and chilled in the ‘fridge. When hard the chocolate fell out without any trouble.

This made an 8 ounce egg of the finest quality. Wrapped in cellophane and put into the painted egg I am very pleased with the effect.

Wrapped and ready to go!

Hobbycraft Lollipop Mould

Hobbycraft Lollipop Chocolates

A Hobbycraft lollipop mould was very easy to fill with liquid chocolate and produced shapes that will be attractive to the children, once set the chocs fell out easily too. Nothing wasted!

Now what to do with the left over chocolate.

Coated Nuts

The little ones love soft cashew nuts (so do I!) and coated in chocolate they are even more tempting.

Brandy Truffles

For the adults I used the same chocolate melted with raw sugar, egg yolks and finely chopped nuts and then added a good splosh of brandy. Chilled, and then rolled in good quality cocoa powder and arranged on a dish…who can resist?

Brandy Truffles and Coated Cashew Nuts

The Hand Made Card

Card framed and hanging on wall

What usually happens to even the most precious birthday card? It is thrown away, and if I was going to spend an afternoon hand crafting a birthday card I didn’t want that to happen.

Something really special was needed for my husband whose birthday was also the day which would see him retire from work. Sometimes this is a stressful time, and lack of status which employment brings needs some adjustment. A morale booster was in order!

Chinese Astrology

The Chinese Astrological system came to my rescue. It isn’t necessary to believe in any system to use the iconography, but in this case it worked for me!

The Rooster

People born in 1945, yes baby boomers, were born in the year of the Rooster which has the most brilliant colour scheme of reds, black, and purple with yellow highlights. I found an illustration and then interpreted it in needle felted wool.

Attributes of the Rooster

I used the features attributed to the Rooster to make a rhyme:

The Rooster

You are a Rooster capable and wise
With thoughts that sing a deep song
You do not sleep through a brilliant sunrise
And all your thoughts are brave and strong.

Framed

I cut card to fit a picture frame that I already had, and as soon as he received it he wanted it framed and up on the wall. I call that success.

My Husband the Poet

My efforts have inspired my husband to write more verses around the Chinese Astrological symbols, http://www.poetryweaver.com and of course I will make more needle felted pictures to go with them.

My basket of coloured Merino needle felting wool

Crocus Pattern Eggs

A Cunning Plan

When thinking about filling my nest with eggs, I hatched a plan!I would make some Clarice Cliff inspired eggs because her crocus patter is the epitome of Spring.

I used combed sheep wool to make solid eggs and then decorated with coloured Merino wool. The colours are vibrant, and this wool was purchased for Christmas, another stash buster!

Easter Ornaments

Why do we only have ornaments around the house at Christmas? This year I made a collection of 25 needle felted ornaments which were meant to be hung up one at a time starting on the 1st of December. (Picture on side-bar.)

Advent

When the day came and the box of goodies was given to the children, they didn’t want to wait, they wanted all the ornaments hung on the tree right now. And so this is what I’ll do for Easter.

A Permanent Nest Egg

Give the nest and selection of different eggs so that they can sort out the ones that they can eat, and then hang the others on a twiggy decoration. After all there isn’t much that any child can do with a felted egg except throw it around for a while and then lose it. This way they will have a collection that can be bought out year after year. Long after I’m gone.

The Nest is Filling up

The next eggs will be edible…