Hmm, can’t believe it’s been practically a fortnight since last I wrote here!
The past two weeks have had their blessings, notably (separate) visits from two dear friends I have been lucky enough to keep since childhood. This made for a couple of very pleasant, special and relaxed days. Karaoke has resumed, and Friday’s outing was also on my husband’s birthday which made it more special. Today hubby and I even managed to get a boot fair in at last… and the rain which had been forecast held off just long enough for us to make a little money towards our forthcoming break.
My mind has still been on “things” a lot… what to keep, what to be rid of, why I want to keep what I want to keep and whether I would do better to have a change of heart and mind on keeping much of even that. Our “boot fair pile” has grown substantially lately due to a household turf-out or two, and now we are slowly starting to go through the big stash of craft books, materials and equipment I gathered during the several years period when I was selling things I made at craft fairs and we are putting it up on eBay or adding it to the boot fair stock.
It seems a thing of the times… crafts being a big hobby market these days… for crafters to have anything from a sideboard full of materials to a walk in cupboard to a whole room (mine was the middle ground of small just about walk into-able cupboard, lol), referred to as their “stash”. There are now whole shops dedicated to craft materials, and the internet is of course full of craft sites, tutorials and online craft shopping all hours of the day and night. I got seduced into this like all the others you now see on eBay “de-stashing” due to harder economic climes. Craft fairs turned out to be a bit of a mug’s game – even if you were looking for a self-funding hobby rather than earning money for living. Why would people pay extra for your time and skill and the individuality of the things you make when they can either buy nice and cheap mass-produced things or things from foreign lands made by equally skilled but considerably cheaper workers instead? Unless you live in a well-heeled area or a tourist honey-pot, you don’t get paid for your time as a crafter, and you are lucky to get your materials money back once stall fee, petrol etc have been taken back out of the pot. So I have finished my crafting journey now well equipped to make someone a bracelet or crochet them a scarf or make them a quirky felt glasses case for their birthday, but with the sad realization that crafting skills actually don’t come in handy that often and crafting is not a money-making venture in coastal east Kent
Which brings me to thinking what sort of a “stash” my ancestors who enjoyed crafts might have had – maybe a wicker basket with a little tin of buttons in, scraps of materials, bits and pieces saved from items no longer fit to use or wear and made into something new, or used to embellish something tired and make it seem new again. Maybe if they were lucky they knew a dressmaker or a tailor and could nab some scraps from them. But they certainly didn’t have a crafts superstore in their nearest big town and they probably would have regarded it as recklessly profligate to accrue stuff brand new just to sit on the shelf in case they wanted to use it.
So why do crafters today think so differently? Why is the stuff on our shelves instead of in the shops, waiting until we actually need it for a project? Why are lovingly garnered and squirrelled scraps of material now sniffed at in favour of “fat quarters” from folksily branded American companies? Is it because our clothing and textile household items are now so cheap and throwaway that they’re not fit for much when they come to be discarded or is it that we’ve just forgotten how to save and re-use stuff, to re-cycle for arts and crafts?
There is a world full of humans spending their lives miserably mass-producing stuff to sell to other humans who are spending their lives miserably mass-producing stuff or selling stuff in order to afford the stuff other humans are producing or selling. Why the hell do we all need all this stuff? We are told if all this stops we will all starve because the world needs an economy and production blah-de-blah-de-blah… and in the meantime we consumers are “consuming” alive the world that we actually need to live on. Growing numbers of people seem to be turning their minds to how we could STOP all this and live in a happier way, wanting and needing and consuming and using a lot less.
On websites on minimalistic living or downsizing or de-cluttering I am reading how good people can feel when they are either forced to, or decide to, walk away from or get rid of much of what they own… the sense of freedom to instead move about more, unburdened with all this stuff to haul with you, look after, find enough room to store. Freedom to make different more daring decisions or moves in life than you might make when weighed down with commitments to maintaining a home, stuff and a lifestyle. Freedom to experience more and be more.
I only wish I could get on with the process a lot quicker. My husband’s shifts only allow us to boot fair every other weekend, and boot fairing is at the mercy of the weather, and eBaying is a frustratingly complicated process these days seemingly geared more to the business seller than the private individual de-cluttering. With money the way it is, we can’t walk away from the potential money tied up in all this stuff, as we actually now need it to just get by in our current situation.
I am looking forward to one day, in our new freer, lighter life in our caravan, sorting through my little wicker picnic basket full of scraps of re-cycled material and old buttons, and re-vamping an old top or two, or making a pretty patchwork glasses case for a friend for their birthday. Maybe I will feel some kind of connection with the women in previous generations of my family who did just the same. Maybe I will feel some kind of hope for generations of women to come who will perhaps find ways to live more happily and peacefully and relaxedly (is that a word?) with less.
One thing sticks in my mind from someone else’s blog, amongst the many I have explored recently… she said that who we are, our identity, and our memories, these aspects of self are not as tied up in the things we own (and use and wear and keep) as we think. We always have ourselves, hopefully we always have our memories (and if not, scrapbooks and photos are pretty good reminders which can be digitally stored). Take a photo, let things go….
