PYF AT HOWIES CARNABY STREET.

Last night we are talking at Howies ( the totally cool ethical clothes store) on Carnaby Street.

Howies dedicated the Beastie Boy's 'She's Crafty' to us on their blog and were flattered and excited!

They started off by being a lovely audience, but then we discovered they could make the evening even more interesting, so we ended up having a good old chat and discussion. Everyone there was deeply concerned about the lack of use of nature's very own high tech fibres.

Howies have a water fountain in their shop and you can use it any time you are passing. How kind. On their clothing labels, it says 'Buy land, they don't make it any more'. How cool. Thank you Howies, we had a lovely time. Howies do evening talks and discussions on many subjects, with free beer from our friends at Pitfield. Lets all make friends with Howies.

WINDING UP MY PARENTS.

I have decided to come clean about our carpet yarn. It's rough, cheap, durable, 100% wool. Spun from the most outer/older part of the fleece, it can with stand abrasions and frictions - a bit like my parents do.

I aquired the carpet yarn from a gentleman who was retiring from making carpets. It was a bargain, but came in scanes so big you can hardly lift them. I'm blessed with very supportive parents.

Mum heaved the scane onto the back of a chair and started to wind it into balls. Dad watched her for a while and then came up with a genius ball winding solution, a wheel, a bobbin and an elastic band. After dinner, the ball winding machine appears in front of the fire. Dad winds the wheel and mum unwinds the scane. It looks easy, but as the bobbin fills up, Mum has to speed up, and her arms start flapping all over the place.

Thank you to Sabrina Gschwandtner for filming it.

FISH FEET.

When we in Iceland we drove the length of the country, in the 4x4, over dirt roads of the interior, just to see the Textile Museum. It was well worth it.

The lava rocks are sharp to drive on, let alone walk on.

The textile museum had a wonderful collection of the common fish skin shoes with knitted insoles. As you can imagine a cured fish skin shoe does not last long, and a journey was measured by the number of pairs of shoes you would need to get from A to B.

When the skin wore through, you would remove your knitted sole, knitted on about 2mm needles, and insert it in the next pair of shoes. Wow.

THE MAN WHO KNITS HIS OWN Y-FRONTS .

Restless feelings, not being in control of your own destiny is a scary condition, especially when the state no longer has power, and we don't know who to vote for. It could lead us to consume.

We founded Prick Your Finger, after concluding that we were willing to apply our creativity to all aspects of our lives including plumbing, wiring, and finance. Creativity makes us happy, introduces us to new friends, and encourages our interest in the universe.Learning requires confidence and we often meet wannabee makers, outfaced by the amount of practice needed to make beautiful things. 'Just have a go' and 'One step at a time' are motos which enable us to begin a journey. Recently we have met a shining example of a confident, creative learner, who proves our point that with a little help from your friends, anything is possible. Meet Mr. John-Paul Flintoff -

The man with the profitlessly speculative mind, who set out to find the meaning of modern life and ended up making all his own clothes.We first met John-Paul when he came in the shop and bought some of our own brand Black Welsh Mountain DK to crochet himself a hat. He asked lots of questions. You may have read John-Paul's stories in the Sunday Times or Observer. His new book, 'Through the Eye of a Needle" is a fascinating, funny, and moving account of his journey off the grid of consumerism.John-Paul is friendly and down to earth. He leads us to believe that whatever he does, we could do too. His story starts in New York, when he was fitted for a suit by a robot. A following meeting with sweat shop workers forced J-P to think deeper about what he was wearing. Once home, looking for another story, he embarked on a trip round Britain's diverse range of Christian churches. Asking questions in his friendly way, he uncovered fascinating insights, and explains them by asking yet more questions. Through the spiritual pilgrimage, he became a bin man, exterminated rats, threw himself into mainstream politics, chatted to Hollywood actors, and thought deeply about how to save the world.
Through his pilgrimage John-Paul discovered that the nearest and easiest place to develop spiritual enlightenment was in his own hands, with fingers and thumbs, on the journey of making things. He bought a treadle sewing machine and set about making his own shirt.
Then followed, jeans, shoes, hats, jumpers, clothes for his daughter. He saved all the little bits of string from his organic delivery box and knitted a purse from them and then finally produced a pair of Y-Fronts, knitted from nettle yarn, which he spun himself.'Through the Eye of a Needle' is an easy read, especially chapter 39, entitled 'Prick Your Finger'! It dis-spells any myth that craft skills are un-obtainable. You don't need qualifications in a subject, just an interest and someone to show you how.
Vivienne Westwood keeps telling us not to buy her clothes but to get into making our own, and think for ourselves. She says the most important thing is to understand the world you live in. If you are not religious, you can soak up ideas in galleries and museums. If we stop consuming rubbish, we leave room for the more full filling pursuit of gaining knowledge and developing dexterity, which we can use to give something good back to our environment. Well John Paul Flintoff has shown us how he does just that!I asked J-P if he could show his work in our window, and he said he was flattered at the offer, but wondered if the quality of his work was good enough. The thing is, John-Paul has already contradicted his fears. It is the very act of doing which interests and excites us, so we earnestly await his show, and will endeavor to sell his book to you all.
Please click on the link below to hear John-Paul on last week's Woman's Hour and another link for his lesson in the benefits of nettle fibre.
http://www.theecologist.org/green_green_living/clothing/304924/
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/womanshour/listenagain/2009_34_tue.shtml

A PUFF OF COLONY.

Last summer, I took Sabrina Gschwandtner to puff on knitted fags in the Colony Room.

The Colony Room was the best place for happenings on days when enough had happened already.

We chatted to Ingy and a Swedish film maker. Sabrina filmed on super 8, which didn't come out too well because it was dark there.

Whilst clearing out my computer today, I rescued a little bit. RIP Colony Room.

(I nicked the sound track off a Kenneth Anger Film -Puce Moment, 'Cause We Ended as Lovers' by Jonathan Harper . It's much longer than the film but who cares. )

RACHAEL'S HOLIDAY PHOTOS.

I went to Iceland with Mum, Dad and Monty my brother. Iceland is like another planet, and stunningly beautiful. It was too extra ordinary to photograph with a normal camera, so using my old Lomo, I started making patterns with the landscape.

We took a 4 wheel drive through the interior, which was black desert, with river and lakes of milky water. With white overcast skies it made stripes.There was a rainbow which filled the whole horizon, and stayed most of the afternoon.

As we got higher, towards the glaciers, the ground got blacker and the water whiter, so I started to make checks by double exposing.

Then I did the same with the horizon.

And the white tops of volcanos coated in black lava.

When we got back to the sea, a Russian schooner came in. Monty speaks Russian, so he chatted to the sailors and we went on board.

I had fun weaving with the rigging.

Iceland is very special. It is cheaper to visit now that the ecconomy has collapsed.

I read a very depressing book "Dreamland- A self Help Manual for a Frightened Nation" by Andri Snaer Magnason, about the pollution of a unique landscape hosting the world's finest salmon fishing, by an aluminium plant, running off geothermal energy.

You can read about it at http://www.andrimagnason.com/books/dreamland/

We discussed the situation over a cup of tea on the edge of a glacier.

It wasn't a huge chat because it was too cold to talk. We made tea by burning newspaper in the storm kettle, which took ages to boil due to lack of oxygen.

Oddly, we came home with suntans.

BON SOIR TOUT LE MONDE...

We are going on hols! Prick your finger will be closed from 10th August until the 1st september! We all wish you a marvelous August and see you in the new term!x x