Going by feel

Here are two works in progress that Mum is continuing. One is a crocheted rug that will then have wool woven through the grid and the other is a hold all for her knitting materials that she made out of plastic bags. The only wool is in the last rows round the top which she finished last week. From here on in her work is going by feel which she is learning to trust more and more.

Recycling plastic bags - the loo roll

Here's another way to use the plastic bags from Baker's Delight. The writing disappears into little flecks. Mum made loo roll covers.

Back in Gorenzen, Mum told me that a farmer's almanac always hung in the dunny. It was called Scholle und Kraft and we found a copy at Thomas Scharnowski's site on Fellbach.

Poetry in motion

Mum went up to sit with the Pink Ladies today.
There were about six of them all knitting and crocheting for the hospital shop. She sat and chatted and when she came out she uttered a verse in German from Schiller's poem Das Lied von der Glocke (Song of the Bell).

Tausend fleißige Hände regen,
Helfen sich in muntrem Bund.

(Thousands of busy hands stir,
Help each other in happy union.)

Here's a rug that Mum made from wool remnants as part of the efforts of the Pink Ladies for the hospital shop.

Spinning - then and now

When did you start spinning, Mum?

"I must have been about 8 or 9. I was at school. Back then in the twenties skirts were getting shorter and I wanted really long stockings. The ones my mother made only went over the knees. They were knitted from handspun wool. She said if I wanted them longer I'd just have to spin my own wool and knit them myself. She let me use one of her spinning wheels. I finished the stockings but they almost stood up all by themselves. I'd spun the wool much too thickly.

"I started again in the early eighties. It was becoming a bit of a fashion in Sydney. But that wasn't why I took it up. I was starting to get a bit of arthritis and keeping my hands and feet moving helped a lot to keep the joints supple."

Here's a pic of Mum's first spinning wheel which was hand made by Albert Gerber in Berne, Switzerland. It still works. (Albert Gerber made his last spinning wheel in 2005.)

Recycling plastic bags - the tissue box cover

Here's another one of Mum's creations. This time it's a cover for those cardboard boxes of tissues. It's made of plastic bags cut into strips and then crotched with wool strands.

Recycling plastic bags - the bottle bag

Mum's asked me to take over the blog as she wants to concentrate on her crocheting. I talked it over with her, but she said she needs to feel her way with her craft. But all the entries are approved by her, so it's still her blog. She also wanted to change the title - so that will be new, too. So we're starting with what the craft book started out with - recycling plastic bags. Here are some pix of a bottle bag she made out of plastic bags and wool thread.

Vats of fleece

My daughter was asking me about how things were when I was young. We had to make do with what we had back then. My father had a farm in Gorenzen with a few cows, pigs, a couple of work horses and 34 sheep. The sheep were kept in sheds all winter and by the time spring came, their fleeces were filthy. Ammonia was too expensive to use as a cleaning agent, so the whole of the family was encouraged to go on the potty. All the urine was collected and boiled in a big vat and that's where the fleeces were cleaned. Then they were rinsed in water and set out in the sun to dry. Then the wool was carded and spun.

In the 80s in Sydney when I started wool dying, I used ammonia as a fixative for the colours. Here's a photo of a vat of fleece from then. The lovely colour though came from using leaves from the silver-dollar gum, and I didn't need to use ammonia since eucalypts have tannin which fixes the colours naturally.

Here's a picture of what some of the dyed wool looked like once spun and knitted.

Bits and pieces

I seem to have baskets of bits and pieces of wool around the house and I had set about working through them. I'm making a rug out of this lot of wool remnants. It's just crocheted squares of leftovers that you then arrange nicely.

You can also use bits of leftover wool to make booties. These have fleece soles, and I'll tell you about fleeces next time.

Knitting by moonlight

I'm feeling my way with the knitting at the moment, but that reminded me of how we used to do it when I was a child in Gorenzen in the German Harz area. Electricity then was too new and expensive to waste on something like knitting, so my mother and sisters would knit by moonlight.

Oh, and my daughter says I should have a photo on this blog, but I haven't got any recent ones. So here's one from last March that she had on her hard disk. Charlie and Chaptiquack come every day for a nibble.

Hallo, I'm Frieda

and I live in Sydney. I'm 90 years old and I do a lot of craft work - spinning, knitting, crocheting. Last year I started work on a craft book called Waste Not, Want Not. It has to do with how you can use all the bits and pieces and make something pretty and practical out of them.

I made my first book with my friend, Mollie, back in 1989. It's out of print now, but you can get it in the library. My daughter, who's helping me with this blog, found a copy on EBay.

Last month I lost my sight and was at the end of my wits. Today, I was listening to Radio National and heard all about Olive.

Why don't you blog your book? my daughter said. How am I going to do that? I asked.

Well, this is the story of how. It's my story, but my daughter will do all the technical work and I'll be the creative one. I've got lots of ideas and stories I'd like to share.