Trampled by Geese is a reminder to myself to look at the positive side of life and to endeavour to only write about things that inspire me rather than focus on what is negative in the world. Kirkegaard once wrote, “Being trampled by geese is a slow way of dying, but being eaten to death by envy and greed is even slower and more painful”.
Hens are great layers. But even better are clothes layered on top of each other. It transforms a seasonal outfit into a multi-season extravaganza!
Winters on the farm are muddy, mucky, bloody, and occasionally snowy. I do a lot of laundry.
Come lambing season, I can do two or three loads of laundry a day.
So I want farm clothes that wash well, like cotton. Only the problem with cotton is that it's not very warm. It actually, what's the opposite of warm? A single layer of cotton is terrible for working outside in the winter because if the cotton gets wet, it chills the human and can cause health issues. So we could be forgiven for thinking that if a single layer does harm, a lot would do more.
Layering the clothes creates air gaps that allow the skin to breathe and provide insulation so I can stay outside longer to get things done. And since I often wear skirts or dresses when working on the farm, I can take my fall and spring cotton skirts and transform them into winter skirts by adding a petticoat or two underneath.
I enjoyed this project. It's the first time I've made something from sheep to clothing that feels like a quality garment. What's more, it's a sheep from my farm! One that I feed every day and who loves cuddles.
In a lot of ways I've gained confidence. I understand better how the yarn behaves in the woven cloth and that I can actually make something from scratch. I also understand why a more historically accurate cloth would involve a lot more people: a shepherd, weaver, spinner, seamstress, etc. It seems almost that I lose as much as I gain doing each step myself.
One of the things I worry about is this sets the bar too high. Both for me and for viewers.
There's no need to do every step ourselves. I did it because I was curious if I could and I'm a cheap little chicken who can't always afford to buy the cloth I want to work with. Even in this project, I combined modern cloth with traditional methods. Add growing, spinning, and weaving the lining to the mix and I would need another year or three to get it done. But even then, I don't think it would have been as good for the cloak as the lining I choose.
It's about learning from history instead of trying to reproduce it. What can I learn from the past and how can I incorporate it in my life today. There's no shame in it. There's no shame if a future project has bought yarn or I go to the shop and buy fabric. And yet, it's a nagging worry that I now need to progress to better and better things, especially on my youtube journey. That's not the path I want to take. I want to make projects that fill me with joy, and sometimes that means buying yarn. Sometimes it means spinning it.
Sometimes there won't be any yarn involved at all.
Most of all, I'm happy with the improvement in my video-making skills. I'm getting better at what to film and what to leave out. My voiceover confidence is improving. I'm still seeking a balance between showing enough for the technically curious and keeping the story moving, but on the whole, I've moved up a notch and am now about 11% of the filmmaker I want to become.
