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.

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.

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.