Stuff, repair, repurpose, Kintsugi (金継ぎ)

About a year ago, some stuff happened.

It looked something like this, only not. 

An injury. 

Nearly 12 months later, I find out what is going to heal on its own, would have by now.  

I'm not good at accepting that.  

But there are some therapies that are show promise.  Believe it or not, the health system pays for me to go to mindfulness classes.  As if this is the glue that will help pull the pieces back together.

I'm beginning to realize, even if I could find all the little missing shards, it won't be what it was before.

Not the same.

 But it's a really cute mug... I mean, it's the only life I have.

So what do I do?

I look at what remains.  Find something to fill in the gaps.  Hope.

Most of all, I repurpose.  

They say it will help, but mindfulness, especially the guided stuff, bores the pants off me.  

And yet, it meshes so well with my learning of photography and videography.  The camera sees what's actually there.  To capture the moment, we too need to see that moment.  To be attentive, not with judgement, but with a curiosity of everything the camera sees and hears - and what it doesn't.  

So maybe my instinct to make up for what I have lost from the written world by learning new visual skills, is a way of healing?

But also there is grief.  But that's part of healing too.  

This mug was a Christmas gift.  Part of a set and all the others arrived with loving perfection except this poor shattered Dalek.  I looked into different ways to repair him, and although I would love to one day try Kintsugi (金継ぎ) which is a repair with lacquer and gold and I'm told does such a good job the mug is 100% useable again.  I couldn't find a traditional kit (most modern ones use chemicals that aren't food safe or heat resistant enough for tea) in my price range.  Maybe one day.

For now, I have a protector for my fountain pens.  

Use at your peril. 

Some thoughts on vintage sewing machine repair - coming back to it after 10 years

It's been 10 years since I've last worked on a vintage or antique sewing machine.  I actually sold most of my parts (keeping only a few prized machines for myself and some parts machines if they break) and moved on to repairing other things.  I love working with sewing machines, but the truth is, there was very little interest in these beauties and almost no good resources online on how to fix them.

The few sewing machine posts I have on this blog, are some of my best-performing pages.  The interest goes up every year and thanks to the ads on my site, I'm earning between 1 and 5 cents per week from them (not much, but every little bit counts).  It's amazing how much more interest there is now than 10+ years ago when most of them were written.  

A thing happened the other day and I brought home a sewing machine that would, to any sane brain, be considered well and truly beyond repair.  

Guess what?  oh, you guessed.

That's right, I'm going to see if I can repair it.  

I know the worst thing to try to fix is a bad repair, so I'm taking this slow and doing my due diligence.  I'm spending a lot of time with my friends duckduckgo and google to see what new information is out there and WOW!  The interweb is flooded with advice on how to repair and restore vintage sewing machines.  

Most of that advice is horrible!  I know this because I've spent many hours repairing the kind of damage following that advice causes.  

About 5 to 10% of what's on the internet in this area is good advice.  About 50% of what is left is okay, but not going to give the long term life that one wants or cause unnecessary work (most common seems to be removing the shellac or "clear coat" because they mistake it for caked-on oil and grime).  The rest of the advice, I'm not sure if it's well-meaning or written by people who want the value of their machine to go up by destroying the existing machines.... evil laughter. 

So the ratio is about the same but the quantity to shift through is so much more.  

Although I am loving how much of this is on youtube now.  But restoration videos are one of my favourites.  I wish I had a sound safe studio space where I could make some ASMR repair videos for you all, but alas, something to dream about in the future - living in the country is NOISY (tractors, cars, planes, roosters, geese, sheep... )

Anyway, I really like this guy, as he doesn't recommend things I know will damage the machine.  

Some of you have probably already guessed what my new treasure is from the photos.  For the rest of you, all will be revealed as I'm going to document this project on my youtube channel.  

But evaluating the machine, I also notice that I'll need to spend quite a bit more money on this restoration than usual.  It needs new paint, and paint stripper and... I don't even want to think about it yet.  Some of this I can improvise.  Some I cannot.  On the whole, I would be very very lucky if the cost of materials to restore this were less than the final value of the machine.  Also, I might keep it as a forever machine.  I haven't decided yet.  

It's important to me that every hobby be self-funding, so part of this project is looking for creative funding ideas.  Youtube now gives me money for ads (at just under a dollar a day for all my videos, so you can guess how small that is per video).  But I also don't turn on all the advertising features like commercials that show up in the middle of the video.  I can see clicking all the boxes for these sewing machine videos to see if I can the machine to fund its own repair.  

In the photos, some of this is rust, most of it is old grease and oil.  It will be interesting to find out how much of each.

Happy sewing everyone!  

Experienced shepherdess seeks bummer - only ewe lambs need apply.

I am looking for a young ewe lamb or two to hand raise and join my flock.

I have a small fibre flock and work from home.  I love spending time with my sheep.  But we aren't lambing this year and I miss having the little bleaters underfoot. 

I would like to buy one or two young ewe-lambs, not yet weaned.  Preferably a bummer that the mum is unable/unwilling to care for. 

I have no specific breed in mind, but I would like it to be a squishy wool good for sweaters and socks (most of my current flock are Cotswolds).  A Suffolk or Suffolk X would be lovely for sentimental reasons.  Will consider "meat" breeds as they often have lovely fibre - what keeps a meat sheep happy and healthy also makes good wool. 

This will be a forever home.

Rams, wethers, and hair sheep need not apply.

Self identity - Spinster

Even before I knew the history, it was a word that sang to me. I love the word spinster. 

It might be that childhood worry that every story was about the boy meeting (and often rescuing the girl) and they living happily ever after.  I like the ever after part.  But why was it impossible to be happy without being married?  

Why does one need a second person to become complete?  

And what happens after "happily ever after"?  

There was so much missing from those stories.  I liked better the stories about the boy getting lost while walking down the street and finding his way home again by remembering all he had seen, or the one where the boy plants some beans and has an adventure only to come home with everything all better.  And then there was the train who thought he could, and he did.  Pretty nifty stuff.  Each story had lessons I could use (take note of where you are going, 5 magic beans will buy a cow, and keep on keeping on until you get somewhere or bow a gasket).  

So when I found a word for "woman who lived happily ever after without a handsome prince to save her." I was happy.  Only to find out too soon, that Spinster was an evil word in our society.  One to be avoided.  The Old Maid to be pitied and given charity.  

And yet, Bachelor is a word meaning joyful single man who is having lots of fun before settling down.  

That didn't seem fair.

The other day I was in a second-hand shop.  I saw the most gorgeous mini sewing machine (more on that later).  By some miracle, it was within my budget.  (it needs a bit of love to get it working, but I'm up for it).  

I asked the front desk to hold the sewing machine while I had a quick look around.  When I returned, the woman behind the desk was trying to sell the sewing machine to an older man.  I think she was flirting.  But what stuck out most was the words she said as I walked towards the counter.

This would be the perfect sewing machine for a bachelor like yourself.  

My reply, It would be even better for a spinster.  

Her reaction wasn't anything to do with me interrupting her flirting or that she hadn't seen the 'hold' sign on the sewing machine and was trying to sell my treasure.  

Her reaction was that I used the word Spinster.  

I couldn't have gotten a stronger reaction if I did something evil in a church (not sure what evil things people do in churches, but I imagine a room full of outrage and shock and an immediate storm of voices trying to fix the unwanted behaviour - something like Reddit, but better dressed).  

The word Spinster is not to be used in public.  She made that quite clear.  

And yet, the word Bachelor is a compliment.

I love that we now live in a world where people can self-identify.  They can choose their own pronouns to match their true self.  Once again people are able to choose their own gender roles in society and not be restricted by the nature of their birth or upbringing.  Even ACE (asexual) is starting to be recognized as a real thing and not an illness.  We live in exciting times.

And yet, Spinster is still treated as a dirty word.

I was born female.  And I was born unmarried.  If Spinster is a dirty word, then we are saying that my birth is unacceptable.  I don't feel that's right.  

Spinster has a second meaning.  An older meaning.  A meaning from long before it had any relation to marital status and happily ever afters.  It means a person who makes their living spinning yarn.  

I make my living spinning yarn.  

Spinster is a beautiful word filled with history and romance.  It is self-contained and implies that happily ever after can live in one person.  I don't need a prince to rescue me just yet.  I'm having fun.  

Distaff Day 2022 - where I dress sticks in wool

We look at the past and forget.  

It's easy to do.  We forget that the spinners of years gone by didn't spin yarn for fun, or to save money or for sentimental reasons.  They did so because, without yarn, they were bloody cold!  

Yarn is survival.  

All the incarnations.  Be it string, twine, rope, thread, yarn... all was made by hand and without it humanity couldn't thrive in the extreme environments that we do today.  Yarn binds us together as a species.  

What amazes me most of all is how universal yarn production is.  Every culture that makes yarn has three steps (draft, twist, stash).  Sometimes these are done by different people (Cowichan Nations and Ancient Egypt), but always the same three steps.  Draft, twist, stash.

And almost universal is having something to manage your fibre source.  Often this is a distaff.  

If it was as clumsy as it feels to my modern hands, people would have given it up long ago.  And yet, even well into the 20th Century, handspinners who are connected to their cultural roots and a time when spinning yarn was a survival trait, still used distaves (plural of distaff).  

Last year, I set out to perfect my distaff spinning skills.  I got pretty good at it, but I also learned that one year is not long enough to master this skill.  There is so much more to learn.

But... I did learn lots and here are a few methods I found work well for me for dressing a distaff with wool.

There are as many ways to dress a distaff as there are spinners who use them, so try lots of things and find out what works well for you.  There is no wrong way so long as it gives you the results you seek.