Lots of us have an uneasy relationship with throwing things away. We all know that we need to try to generate less waste. Fast fashion is an environmental nightmare, supermarkets still sell pasta in plastic bags that can't be recycled, we have electronics we no longer use and what on earth do we do with CDs and videotapes? In the Little House on the Prairie books, Caroline Ingalls throws nothing away. Nothing is wasted. Every last scrap of ... Read the Post...
Landscape and Creativity Part 2: Dyeing With Nettles
In the last post I wrote in this series about landscape and creativity, one of the things I mentioned was how we can use our creativity as a way of exploring and expressing our connections with the landscape. One way is to use plant material found in the landscape as a natural dye. Using natural dyes has been on my list of things to try for ages. As part of my textiles course, I dyed some tiny bits of fabric with nettles, and I've dyed ... Read the Post...
How to Make a Waterproof Picnic Blanket
With warmer weather hopefully imminent, one of the things on my list of things to make was a waterproof picnic blanket. It's lovely to be out in the fresh air and the sunshine, but sometimes you have to sit down, and there isn't always a bench. I'm also thinking ahead to next spring. I'm determined to have a Japanese style cherry blossom picnic, and I will definitely need a waterproof picnic blanket for that! Our lovely temperate English ... Read the Post...
Landscape and Creativity Part 1: Hierophany
Recently I've been reading a book called Enchantment: Reawakening Wonder in an Exhausted Age by Katherine May (this is an affiliate link). Both the title and some of the reviews make it sound like it's a book full of bonkersness, but it's not. It's a beautifully written book about the author's search for a sense of meaning that she feels has been lost. She describes it as something that lies at the edge of our consciousness and is only noticeable ... Read the Post...
