Unbought Delicacies: Our heritage and our future

Wednesday 9 September 2009

Our heritage and our future

Now, please indulge me on this one!It's wool, so technically speaking should be on one or both of my knitting blogs, but I had to share this one with you. I am passionate about the old breeds of British sheep and supporting any efforts to ensure they survive. The best way to ensure this survival is to use them - for meat, for wool, good breeding programmes, etc to secure their future. Any breed lost is a domestic tragedy.
So, I was delighted to find this at the County Show at the weekend:

Not a breed local to Dorset, but from the Isle of Man - Manx Loaghtan wool. It is just so tactile and beautiful; although I haven't started the knitting yet, a ball sits out for me to touch and stroke as I pass LOL. I know some of you will understand.
I sold two o fmy hats from the Guild tent to a delighted customer, and that moneyww ent straight into the pocket of these good people:

http://www.eggardonhillnaturalfoods.co.uk/ehnf/index.php

The wool is grown in Dorset, only a few miles from my house, and spun by The Natural Fibre Co in Launceston. Also hugely important is the fact that the sheep are reared organically, and that this entitles the wool to be labelled organic as well. The natural colour when spun up is a very beautiful shade of mid-brown; comes in 4ply ( which I bought) and Aran weights. It was on sale at the show for only £2.50 per ball. I bought £30 worth, and can't wait to get it on the needles! I have an idea I'll be ordering some more. :)

As I said, thankyou for you indulgence, here; it's really, really important to me to make sure that small producers sucjh as Eggardon Hill Natural Foods get all the publicity and promotion they can, and deserve. It's both our heritage and our future.

Edited to add later:

I've just come across this whilst looking for something else, ended up watching the whole episode (about an hour).
A very salutory tale, I think, and an improtant piece of film on mnay levels, apart from some of the patronising commentary. Well worth a watch and very, very thought provoking.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00ml5nv

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I have found such joy

I have found such joy in simple things;
A plain, clean room, a nut-brown loaf of bread,
A cup of milk, a kettle as it sings,
The shelter of a roof above my head,
And in a leaf-laced square along the floor,
Where yellow sunlight glimmers through the door.
I have found such joy in things that fill
My quiet days: a curtain's blowing grace,
A potted plant upon my window sill,
A rose, fresh-cut and placed within a vase;
A table cleared, a lamp beside a chair,
And books I long have loved beside me there.
Oh, I have found such joys I wish I might
Tell every woman who goes seeking far
For some elusive, feverish delight,
That very close to home the great joys are:
The elemental things- old as the race,
Yet never, through the ages, commonplace.

~ Grace Noll Crowell

Ideas for handmade gifts

Small knitteds - gloves, scarves, hot water bottle covers, hats, tea cosies, phone covers, little toys,,cushion covers, bags. Some of these can be felted/fulled for extra interest.
Edibles - chutneys and jams, pickles, nice teas in a vintage/retro tin, sweeties, toffees, mustard, home made wine and liqueurs, home dried fruits, ketchups.
For the home - trimmed tea towels, handknitted dishcloths, quilted wallhangings, small samplers, restored picture frames, pot pourri, lavender bags, covered coathangers, little scented bags for hanging on handles, framed photos of family,etc you've taken yourself, pincushion,needle book, scissor keeper, book of promises (eg babysitting, 1 hour's housework, the ironing, etc)
Bathtime - homemade soap, bath oils, bath salts, knitted washcloths, herbal bags for the bath, hand sewn toilet bags, trimmed hand towels, homemade lotions and potions packed in pretty jars and bottles.
For the garden - home saved seed in handmade decorated packets; homemade handcream, exfoliating soap, wheat bag for those digger's aches and pains!

Handmade books, personalised printed notepaper and envelopes.
Hamper of bits and bobs from the above lists, packed in a pretty lined basket.

I'll add some more as and when I think of them; These can be used all year round and easily tailored to the recipient - everyone loves a homemade gift. :)

Inspiring thoughts.............

I saw a man, an old Cilician, who occupied an acre or two of land that no one wanted.
A patch not worth the ploughing, unrewarding for flocks, unfit for vineyards;
he, however, by planting here and there among the scrub cabbages or white lilies and verbena and flimsy poppies, fancied himself a king in wealth, and coming home late in the evening, loaded his board with unbought delicacies.
Virgil

I had no theories to prove. I merely wanted to try living by my own hands, independently as far as possible from a system of division of labour in which the participant loses most of the pleasure of making and growing things for himself. I wanted to bring in my own fuel and smell its sweet smell as it burned in the hearth I had made. I wanted to grow my own food, or forage after it. In short I wanted to do as much as I could for myself, because I had already realised from partial experience the inexpressible joy of doing so.

Harlan Hubbard, Shantyboat: A River Way of Life

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Wednesday 9 September 2009

Our heritage and our future

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