Hey Blog! For a few weeks, I’ve been crafting and making every day I can, both in an attempt to increase my productivity and as one of my favourite things to do.
I have always been very much on the production side of things. Admittedly I sometimes tend more towards destruction – I once took an axe to some perfectly serviceable pieces of wood to make them look more, well, axe-cut and rustic; and at other times have dug very deep holes, possibly as a mine shaft or a dinosaur excavation. But whenever I’m not doing that, I like making – whatever it may be. I have told you of my wood turning exploits, and that I do sewing, and baking, and watching “The Great British” of these things, but these have not been all brought together under a collective subject on HEIAS before.
This seems a good point to mention that I am very interested in heritage crafts, and indeed all crafts; and this may one day be a career choice or at least a permanent hobby. However, at present I have a pride that everything I create, be it copies of the Rings of Power or a crochet stick, is entirely hand-made and done using simple tools without specialist equipment, yet are things of beauty and fine make. What I make on the lathe is slightly more advanced as it requires a carefully designed machine, and the pokers I made at High Peak Junction (Home Ed at the Forge, 6th Jan 2024*) are even more specialist. Most unfortunately, I do not have a readily available forge at home, the correct PPE for dealing with close to 1000°C temperatures, nor the iron/steel to use, so I cannot replicate this craft.
Heritage Crafts (https://www.heritagecrafts.org.uk) have a list of over 250 recognised crafts they support, and many of those are on the Red List – endangered crafts which need more people participating to pass on the skills. I do not know yet which of these I would most like to pursue – if any – but it’s good to know there are people who are preserving this valuable cultural, productional, and fast-vanishing knowledge.
Last week I did 5 different types of making, one on each day – not counting weekends – and here they are:
Monday. Knitting. This is a birthday present, so I can’t say any more here, but it’s half finished now and looks fantastic! It has also been a good reminder of knitting, as I had almost forgotten a few of the techniques – but the muscle memory survives even when the conscious memory does not. When this project is finished I will need to make a point to find another to work on.
Tuesday. Crochet. Still doing the squares, and it is looking like the full blanket may take several years to complete at this rate – sorry! I need to keep going and get a lot more squares done.
Wednesday: Wood turning. This time I made a needle case out of some of the yew wood we have. It isn’t the best ever needle case I’ve made, but was a good practice – it is very difficult to get the thickness right!
Thursday: Baking. My most practiced recipe – shortbread biscuits. They are blimin’ lovely if I do say so myself. I’m doing baking as my skills section for DofE, so this shows how I started – and now I just need to improve. What’s for pudding next week? Any suggestions?
Friday: Chain Mail. I know what you’re thinking – “But Kit, you just said you don’t have a forge. How can you make chain mail without one; unless you have the chain rings all made already – and even then you still need particular tools for riveting together?” Well, yes. It’s not particularly strong, since it’s made of aluminium – this is ring pull chain mail. While it might not stop arrows fired from the longbow I’m making down in the garage, this does look the part and is beautifully shiny. A huge thanks to my friends, one for suggesting the idea and another for providing some additional ring pulls. Now I just have to work out a method of soldering them shut to make it even more secure…
There are many crafts that I haven’t even heard of, and I’m sure I will have a go at many of them. I feel like I dabble in them all – a “Jack of all trades, master of none” situation – but, as the proverb closes “though oftentimes better than master of one!”
* – this also has a short paragraph on my making up to that point so you can ‘compare and contrast’ how far I have come