How do you know how to do that?

People sometimes ask me how it is that I know how to do so many things...or at least how I know what needs to be done, even when I can't necessarily do it myself.

I don't know.

I'm very, very inquisitive. And very, very greedy when it comes to knowledge. I want to know things. And I want to try things.

There are some things that I have learnt on purpose:

Tiling the stairs

• My Granny Norton taught me to knit and sew with a machine. 
• My Granny Snyman taught me to crochet and helped me perfect my hemming stitch. 
• My Mom taught me to cook.
• My step-dad taught me to give a car a minor service (in the days of plugs, points, condenser and oil change - don't ask me to do it now!).
• My Dad taught me to dropkick and fight with my fists. He wanted a son, what can I tell you? These days, it's perfectly acceptable for a girl to play rugby and box. Not so much in the 60s!
• My friend Catherine taught me tiling so that I could do my stairs. 

Then there are other things I sort of learnt by osmosis. I used to watch my grandfather at work in his workshop, mainly because it was made of creosoted split poles, and I loved the smell. I don't know how I absorbed as much as I did, when another person might not have done so. Maybe because I wanted to?

I have sat and chatted with workmen who come to the house to do various tasks, sometimes working with them when a second pair of hands has been needed.

But a lot of it goes back to my earlier post about just assuming that 'it can't be that difficult, surely?' I sort of tilt my head to one side and think 'if I attach a doohickey over there, and connect the hypergrolium to the hyperdinglepuffy (my Dad's favourite two words), it should work'.

Knowing how to do something for yourself is very empowering. Even supposing - for whatever reason - you don't have the time to do it yourself, or you've broken your arm and you're physically not up to the task. If you have a knowledge of what can be done, you can talk confidently to the person who will do the task for you. You can make suggestions about treatments and options, and you can call their bluff if they try to bulldust you about how difficult and/or time-consuming a task is going to be. You can make sensible suggestions about colour or finish or whatever. Even though you're not doing the work yourself, you're not at anyone's mercy.
Today I've been thinking a lot about my lovely Granny Norton. The one who taught me to knit and sew.

An old Singer: an icon

She had a Singer sewing machine. Those black and gold ones, with the wasp-like waist. If I remember correctly, hers had a foot pedal and a foldaway handcrank, so you could choose which you wanted to use. Initially, I think I used the handcrank because it was slower and gave me more control. Then I progressed to the foot pedal.

I can remember sewing all sorts of things by hand in my early childhood, but the first thing I remember making on my Gran's sewing machine was a green T-shirt dress with side pockets. I remember the challenge of working with stretchy fabric (no stretch-stitch in those days). I remember doing top stitching in white around the neck and the pockets. I remember taking the dress back to boarding school and feeling very pleased with it.

I can only think that my Gran must have been very patient with me, because I'm sure I was quite inexpert to begin with. It would have been so much easier (resisting the urge to say 'sew much easier') - not to mention quicker - to just do the work herself. If she had done so, my dress would have been prettier, there is no doubt about that. But I wouldn't have felt the same sense of accomplishment. I wouldn't have worn the dress with anywhere near as much pride.

And I probably wouldn't cock my head and think 'how hard can it be?' quite as often as I do today.

On not knowing that it can't be done

There's something to be said for a certain level of ignorance. It has certainly served me well in my life. Years ago, when I sang in a band, I didn't play an instrument, and I would want to go straight from one song into another. The instrumentalists would tell me it couldn't be done, and I'd say "Like this..." and sing what I wanted. Sometimes it worked. Sometimes it didn't. Nobody died.

The first piece of user-driven 'e-learning' I ever created was done using PowerPoint and a screen capture tool called SnagIt. Apparently that couldn't be done either. Except I did it. And it worked.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not describing a level of defiance here. It's not that people say a thing can't be done and that then fires me up to prove them wrong. It's that I think of something I want to do, and decide on a way to do it. Sometimes I find out before I begin the actual work that it (allegedly) can't be done. Sometimes it is only after I've done it that I find out it can't be done.  Sometimes when people tell me a thing can't be done, they're right. Sometimes I say "But what about..." and it turns out they weren't right.

I seem to have an overdeveloped 'how hard can it be' gland (perhaps it takes up the space where my schadenfreude gland is supposed to be, because those who know me will attest to the fact that I am singularly lacking in that area).

That same blithe lack of realism is found in most areas of my life. The work I do with my hands is no exception. There are so many examples of things that I didn't know couldn't be done before I did them.

Pine, rickety and in need of TLC

Today's post is about one small example of that.

I acquired a little stool from a house clearance not far from my home. It was pine. It was rickety. And it was strung with hideous green nylon twine. I know it doesn't look hideous in the photo, but trust me: it was.

First I took the twine off. I Freecycled that to a keen allotment gardener for his peas and beans.

Then I made it a little less rickety by sanding off a lot of excess of glue, previously applied for no doubt the same reason, and re-gluing it. One tip: new glue doesn't generally stick very well to old glue (does that make sense?), so if you need to re-glue something, take the old glue off first.

Then I painted the frame a lovely duck egg blue, and gave it a good waxing.

So far, I haven't mentioned anything that 'can't be done', have I? Well, here it comes...

What was I going to do about that top? I could just screw on a plank of wood. I could put a piece of wood with a cushion on top. But I liked that woven look. And how hard could it be?

How hard could it be?

I bought cotton ribbon in duck egg blue and cream. Two different designs. Then I cut lengths of it and wove a new seat for the stool. Starting in one corner and alternating between north-south and east-west. I pulled it as tight as I could and stapled it with my trusty staple gun. Then I covered the ends and staples with some calico strips, much as I do when I'm reupholstering a chair. And hey presto! A stool for teddy.

It never occurred to me to think that the width of the ribbon and the dimensions of the chair would be a mismatch...and they weren't. It worked perfectly. It was only when I put the item up on my Folksy store and Facebook page that I found out that it was tricky to do a seat like that and easy to get it wrong.

Hey Presto! A stool for teddy

I say again: there's a lot to be said for not knowing something can't be done. I'm sure there's a lot of deep philosophy that can be extrapolated from this, but it's just how I work. Perhaps I'm just in permanent denial. Don't disillusion me, will you? I seem to get more done this way.

The story of the little drawers that could

When you're making something, do you start with all the thinking and designing and drawing and then move on to the doing? Or do you start doing right away and kind of make it up as you go along? A blend of the two?

Here's how I tend to go about things. I'm going to use a specific piece as an example.

I came across a little drawer unit advertised on Freecycle. The advertiser admitted right up front that one of the drawers was jammed shut, but she thought it might be fixable. It was the fact that it was solid wood that appealed to me, so I arranged to go and collect it.

Under the wallpaper

The sorry little unit had been (badly) covered in wallpaper, but it was clearly sturdy and it had a cute shape. It had promise. I took it home and ripped the wallpaper off. What I found was what had obviously been the drawers of a desk in bygone days. It bore one of those oval shaped stamps in purple ink that appeared on the movable assets of all government departments when I was a little girl. Sadly, even though this one has been stamped more than once, none of the stamps were clear enough for me to read. The desk top having taken a different route at some point, the top of the unit was a piece of badly cut plywood.

Under the wallpaper, the unit was painted beige. And the drawers had those little wooden handles that were ubiquitous at one stage.

Exposed skeleton

I took top off and let the denuded little unit stand as it was for a while, while my subconscious mind toyed with it. Clearly, the paint had to be stripped off. If the wood underneath was good, it could be sanded and sealed and allowed to speak for itself. If not, I would repaint it.

This is going to sound really mumbo-jumbo-ish, but it's when I get hands on with the wood, that I begin to get a sense for what it should become. I'm almost inclined to say I commune with it, but that would be seriously overstating the case. I'm not into animism.

Mismatched wood

As I stripped and sanded the little unit down, it began to take shape organically. It proved to be made of a variety of woods, which I had no plans to disguise. I also opted leave just the smallest traces of the previous paint. All the drawers were in varying shades of the same colour, but with different grains. Just perfect. To make matters even better, once the wallpaper and paint had been removed, all the drawers behaved just as they were designed to do.

After sanding, with new handles

I had no plans originally to replace the drawer handles, but I could clearly picture those brass, cupped drawer handles that were on teachers' desk drawers during my early school days. I went on a hunt and wouldn't let up until I had found exactly what I was after. I had been to all the recognised DIY and hardware stores without joy. But I struck up a conversation with an elderly couple who were also looking at drawer handles in the hardware store. I told them what I was after and they assured me that they had seen exactly that at a budget store in town. I hied me there and found them exactly as described, and at a fraction of what I would have been prepared to pay!

Of course, there was still the little matter of the top. It occurred to that I still had some solid bamboo

Bamboo top

floorboards left over from when we had our lounge and hall floors done. I had already made a coffee table from some of the leftovers, but there were still a few boards knocking about. This could work. It would add yet another colour and texture to the unit. I cut them to size and attached them. Perfect.

Now...was I going to varnish, oil or wax? The feel of the wood under my hands during the sanding process had been so silky, I didn't want to lose that any more than I needed to. So I went with oil. And there you have it: the little drawer unit that could. I think it's lovely. But then I would.

Tada!

So there you have it. Some forward planning. Some subconscious stewing. Some happy accidents. Some flying by the seat of the pants. Some organic development.

The emporium

Over the past few years, I have had first hand experience of the online 'emporium' in the form of both Etsy and Folksy. Drawing traffic to an online stall within these virtual shopping precincts isn't easy. Etsy does at least have an app, making it easier for potential shoppers to find you and buy from you. Folksy has yet to be persuaded that this is a good idea, in spite of repeated calls for this option from users. But more of these virtual marketplaces another day.

Woven bead cuff

If your items are small, like jewellery or baby clothes, you're probably okay storing them within your home. If your items are larger, like sculptures or furniture, having a virtual shop front doesn't solve the physical problem of warehousing. So you are likely to need a physical space to store your products. And if you're going to pay for that space, it might as well be a space from which you can sell, too.

Emporiums (emporia?) are becoming increasingly commonplace. There are several that I know of within a 10 mile radius of my home, and probably many more that I don't know of. The way it works is this: someone buys or leases a space - the quirkier, the better. They then rent out areas within that space to individual traders. X amount will get you a display cabinet, Y amount some wall mounted shelving and Z amount will secure you an area of floor and wall space to call your own.

Upcycled coffee table

Some of these require stall holders to put in time on the shop floor on a rotational basis. The larger your stall, the more time you're expected to put in.

Modern point of sale systems allow sales from each individual stall to be tracked. There may or may not be an additional per item commission to be paid.

Of course, it is on the emporium leaseholder's best interests to keep the stalls as varied and wide ranging as possible. Three makers/sellers of crocheted doilies under one roof is probably not the best way to go. So potential stall holders have to apply for a space. It is seldom 'first come, first served'. If an applicant offers a product that is different and exciting, it will attract a wider range of customers to the emporium per se, which the leaseholder will take into account.

These spaces are in hot demand, and there are usually several potential takers for any space that comes open. This tips the scales quite heavily in favour of the emporium owner, and allows them to pick and choose from among applicants to ensure that they get a wide range, minimal duplications and a harmonious blend. They may also choose not to stock a certain type of item based on a historical lack of customer interest in that type of product.

The rent paid for these spaces cover the overheads of the space itself and are used for promotion and advertising. It is, of course, also up to each stallholder to do their own advertising. The upside of keeping your pieces at home is that there are no additional overheads. Once you start renting a space to put them in, you need to make sure you're going to sell enough to earn that money back. You also need to factor in the time you're going to have to spend minding the store instead of making new products.

Because many of the items I produce are fairly sizable, I have been on the lookout for a physical space in which to store and sell my wares. I have approached a few of these emporiums, but have yet to be successful in securing a space. On one occasion, I was under the impression that we had agreed that I could have a space, only to discover that the emporium owner was under no such impression. On another occasion, the person I spoke to was so rude that I left feeling utterly crestfallen. Mostly, people are very kind and polite, but it doesn't change the fact that there are more applicants than spaces.

As the upcycling/re-use market grows, there will be more and more people like me, making stuff in their home workshops or studios. And presumably, there will be more and more emporiums being opened up to house them all.

So this is me, giving a shout out for your local emporium, populated by individuals who are making, remaking, upcycling or recycling pieces. They aren't likely to get rich off it, but their ethos is probably a lot better for the planet and the local economy than the behemoth mass production outlet in the posher premises. Can I challenge you to do more of your shopping there, and less from the mega-chains?

The joys and woes of Freecycling

I love Freecycling, it has to be said. I am an active member of a few of my local groups. I have 'won' quite a few items, and supplied just as many in my turn. I have had less luck with my own 'items wanted' posts, sadly, but them's the breaks.

This post is about my experiences: the ups and the downs.

If you have something that still has life in it, but is of no further use to, Freecycling is a great way to make sure it doesn't wind up in a landfill, but goes on to become part of someone else's story.

When you advertise an item free of charge to anyone who is prepared to come and collect it, most of the time, you will be deluged with responses. Some sites (like Freegle) ask responders to say why they want and item and what they plan to do with it. They ask advertisers to give a little time for responses to come in, and to choose someone based on...merit? Not sure that's the right word, but you get my drift.

Most of the time, though, you will offer the item to the first person to ask for it. This can mean that, in the rush to be the first responder, people may forgo pleasantries. Responses can amount to the word 'yes' followed by a phone number. I make a conscious effort to be polite and friendly. After all, this person is offering to give me something for nothing. The least I can do is be pleasant about it. This has stood me in good stead on at least one occasion: one advertiser found my response such a refreshing change that he now contacts me first to see if I want an item before he places the ad.

Once you have notified the person who is to have your item, you will of course, supply your address and agree a date and time for pickup. Mostly, people are accommodating and reasonable. But occasionally one will, well... 'take the piss' is the expression that springs most readily to mind. They might ask you to hold the item for several weeks. In those cases, I usually move on to the next person. I don't have the space to provide warehousing.

The most negative aspect of Freecycling is the incidence of no-shows. There is a tendency to undervalue things that come for free, and - often enough to drive some people away from the practice - people simply don't pitch. The worst case was when I had scheduled three pickups back to back on a Saturday afternoon and none of them showed. To be fair, one of them did contact me to reschedule. On another occasion, the person failed to show, so I scheduled a pickup with the next responder who also failed to show. It can be like that.

It can also be a bit hit and miss from the other side, too. The items that people give away are sometimes not worth keeping, but that's a chance you take. I recently went to collect an item that the advertiser referred to as 'solid'. I wrote a bit about that recently. But there are some finds out there, too. Not necessarily always valuable in monetary terms, but potentially useful as a part of your story for a while.

Another place I tend to hang out is the reuse shop attached to our local recycling depot. I picked up a workbench there for £3. Possibly the best £3 I ever spent! If that thing collapsed tomorrow, it would owe me a thing. I use it every day. Every. Day!

So may I encourage you to get involved? Yes, there will be some negative experiences, but it's got to be worth it, right? For the craic? For the community? The planet?

Upcycling, recycling, freecycling, makeovers, restorations....

Chair with Shweshwe fabric

There are so many terms being bandied about, and there isn't consensus as to where the boundaries lie between them. I don't think it matters that much, as long as we're making an effort to chuck less stuff away and to reuse things as much as possible.

But last night, I participated in a tweetchat in which someone was definitely spoiling for a fight on the subject.  So this is my take on what all the various words mean. You might have a different view. That's okay. We can still be friends.

The tweetchat was about upcycled items and the theme was colour. A few of us posted pictures of things we had worked on recently. One person wasn't convinced that they all qualified as upcycled. Some of them had just been restored. She was probably right. For example, this chair, with which I am insufferably pleased, is hardly upcycled. It started as a chair and ended up as a chair, albeit with a new seat pad, new coat of paint and new fabric on the back and the seat. But neither did I restore it. If I had done that, I would have made it look as it did when it left the factory (kind of like 'restore factory settings'). So I would say I gave it a makeover.

On the other hand, this hanging rail I made out of a vintage potato crate, in my mind, qualifies as upcycled. It started out as one thing, and ended up as a another.

Hanging rail

 When I take my scrap metal to the recycling plant, and it is melted down to make school chairs or fighter planes. That's what I would think of as recycling.

And when someone gives an item away to someone else. That's freecycling.

I will tell you something for nothing, though - freecycling can be a bit hit and miss. People have widely differing views on what constitutes a quality item. Just yesterday, I went to collect a small unit that the man told me was 'solid'. What he meant was, it was heavy. It was made of chipboard and metal and was in pretty rough shape. It went for recycling.

On the flip side, today, I picked up a small chest of drawers for the princely sum of £5. It was a vintage Stag piece. Possibly 1930s, I have to do a bit more research. It has been painted at some point, and the paint is chipped. But I will restore it...mostly, and maybe throw in a bit of a makeover, just for good measure. More of that anon.

Turning heads

When I was younger, if I may say myself, I turned my fair share of heads. I had good bone structure, big eyes, healthy hair, and a pretty damned decent figure. I even had a brief foray into photographic modelling.

A brief modelling 'career'

Now that I'm on the far side of 50, I don't turn heads with natural assets any more.

I do, however, turn heads when I visit the local supermarket in my work clothes. It never occurred to me before to notice the gender divide on the expectations of dress and appearance when nipping in to the local Sainsbury/Tesco/whatever to pick up the ingredients for tonight's supper. But I'm here to tell you that it's real.

I face a choice: I can either pop in to the shop in my workclothes, or I can shower and change, only to get totally scruffy again when I get back home. To me, it's a non-brainer. And I often see local workmen in the supermarket, dressed in whatever they were wearing when they realised they needed a sandwich for lunch or some chicken to make a Thai stir fry for the family later. Dirty jeans, safety boots, paint-spattered dungarees... No-one turns a hair.

Dungarees and a dust mask

But I turn lots of hairs in my paint-spattered dungarees. There are double takes, nudges, and even - on one occasion - sotto voce grumbles of horror from an impeccably turned out elderly lady.

I recently had the opportunity to turn one encounter into a pleasant conversation.  I was in CostCo at the meat counter, standing near a little girl and her Daddy. The little girl looked at my attire and turned to say something to her Dad, pointing at me as she did so (she was only little). She realised that I was watching her and was utterly mortified. I said "It's not usual to see ladies dressed like this, is it?"

Her Dad was clearly relieved that I didn't take offence and explained that she was asking if that was paint on my clothes.

I looked straight at the little girl and confirmed that it was, indeed. I said, "These are my work clothes. I've come straight from work and I'm buying something for supper. I suppose that's what you're doing, too?" She nodded.

I explained, "I've been painting somebody's kitchen today. I know it's not usual for ladies to do work like that, but it's what I do. And I love it. Because girls can do anything!"

Her Dad added and emphatic "Absolutely!" before the little girl, completely without prompting, said, "Thank you."

I told her she was most welcome and took my leave.

So let them look. Let them nudge each other. Let them make their sotto voce grumbles of horror. I'm a girl who wears dungarees to work. And if I have to make a quick detour to the shops, I will do so in my dungarees. And maybe, just maybe a little girl will see me and think that she might also enjoy a job that just happened to involve getting dirty or wearing dungarees, and maybe those jobs aren't just for boys after all.

"They don't make 'em like they used to"

Hands up who gets sick of hearing that expression. I know I do. Problem is, it's kinda true.

It's a bit of a vicious circle really: things aren't made to last, so we find ourselves having to replace them. But then technology advances so quickly and tastes change so regularly, that there is sometimes little point in investing in an item built to last.

But there are times when I find myself wondering how we got to this level of throwaway-ness in both attitude and product quality.

Here's a 'for example'. A while ago, I bought an ottoman cube thingy to use as a dressing table stool. It was covered in a less-than-gorgeous burgundy dralon, but I knew I could do something about that: there was bound to be something useful in my large fabric stash. I'm no Sarah Moore, but I have a large stash of fabric, just the same.

Before I even got around to doing that, one side of the ottoman gave way under my weight. Even that, I thought, should be a simple fix. So I took it apart. In doing so, I discovered a label that identified the piece as a footstool. Clearly never intended to bear the full body weight of a buxom wench like myself. My bad.

That wasn't all I discovered, though.

I discovered that what I had was not so much an ottoman, as a slightly reinforced cardboard box, covered in fabric.

This is the ottoman, showing where it has given way

I removed the fabric, to find this. Polythene sheeting, over foam.

Under the fabric

I removed the polythene sheeting and flipped the piece it over to reveal its secrets. Two sides made of cardboard. Two sides of chipboard. The top was cardboard with chipboard struts, one of which had broken, as you can clearly see. You can also see that the cardboard of the top has torn. I suspect even a pair of feet might have achieved that.

Reinforced cardboard box

The sides were covered in 1cm foam. The top had a thicker layer: 2-3cm.

Foam padding

I salvaged the foam, and have already used some of it in another project. The fabric may find a purpose at some point. The chipboard and cardboard will fuel a fire chez Romeis.

The polythene sheeting will have to go to the tip, because it isn't recyclable. And that gives me the mutters, it really does. Because that's the stuff that nightmares are made of for animals. It gets wrapped around necks, feet and wings. It gets stuck in throats, permanently located in digestive tracts and incorporated into nests where it can smother the next generation before they even have a chance to venture out. It can frequently be seen festooning the trees jammed in trees, hedges and fences along the motorway and in the countryside (on which point, is it just me, or is England particularly littered this year?). It's the very divvel, so it is.

I'm not going to name and shame the company from which I bought the piece, because I suspect they're not the only ones. My suggestion? If you can't see what its skeleton is made of, assume it's crap.

In order to end on something of a positive note, here's what I replaced the ottoman with. I bought a stool from a local charity shop and gave it a makeover using fabric I had to hand. There wasn't quite enough, so I had to get a little inventive. I'm very pleased with it.

Remembering how to do blanket stitch

Making a feature of the shortage of fabric

The finished article. Cute, huh?

By way of introduction to this new chapter

I take a lot of flak for the fact that I haven't written in such a long time. So okay, okay already. I'm writing.

One of Karyn's Kreations

If you followed my erratic learning journey during my previous chapter, you will know that I am no stranger to depression. A few years ago, the black dog paid a visit. He had visited before, but this time, he looked set to stay. It. Was. Dire!

Gradually, after a few years of mist and fog, I began to feel that I might finally be coming out from under. I was headhunted and took a 'proper job' in a company and everything.

But after a series of setbacks in my personal life, and some disappointments in my professional one, I decided to call it a day. My manager was very understanding and we parted on good terms.

Initially, I looked for part time or contract work in the field of L&D (Learning and Development), which had been my consuming passion for lo these 25 years and change. But I just wasn't feeling it any more. I was tired. I was tired of having the same conversations that I had been having for 10 years and more, about technology in learning and the future of the field. I was tired of dealing with the same objections. I was tired of starting every project with the client enthusiastically calling for innovation, only to observe the client's feet growing progressively colder, until we ended the project with more of the same. I was tired of farting against thunder. I was tired of not making a difference.

I have always been a keen crafter and pretty good with my hands. Gradually I found myself doing it on a full time basis.

So now I dress in dungarees and Crocs. I wield a paintbrush, or a sander, or a beading needle or any of a vast array of other tools large and small. I am usually covered in sawdust. Or paint. Or both. I might even be bleeding (remember the beading needle?). And I love it.

I upcycle old and tired pieces of furniture or clothing. I make stuff out of reclaimed... well, stuff. Like wood. Or beads. Or mirrors. Or whatever else I find. And I advertise it in various spaces (like this one, for example), hoping to move it on to a new home. I undertake commission work for clients: restoring beautiful oak kitchen counters, or garden furniture that is showing signs of age. I have even been known to do a spot of painting (walls, not canvasses!).

The name 'upsycho' as you might have deduced, is a conflation of 'upcycle' (which is what I do) and 'psycho' (which is a nod to my struggles with mental health issues).

I am currently on the hunt for a physical space from which to sell my 'kreations' so that my long-suffering husband can stop falling over things en route to the dog food bin, the tumbledrier, or his scooter. Watch this space.

And that is enough context setting. Posts from this point on will be about this stage of my journey. This chapter. Are you up for coming along?