It Goes Way Back

Okay, I admit it. I'm a little odd among my contemporaries. I was reminded of it today when I hosted my monthly Craft & Cuppa afternoon. I began waxing lyrical about the virtues of crocheted facial wipes. The idea came from a link on Ravelry. So quick and simple, I'm planning to whip up a bunch once I finish the dishcloth I'm working on. The particular friend I was raving on to is way too nice and polite to show it, but I could tell she wasn't as excited as I was!

Later in the day, I recalled to myself that a long time ago, when I was a child, I had a 'thing' for self-sufficiency. Strange that I've never realised it until now. For instance, even in Australia, girls of my generation were familiar with The Little House on the Prairie. An interest in the television show led me to the books. About the only aspect that I can distinctly remember was that of the family's domestic arrangements. Ma had a day for washing, for ironing, for food preparation and so on. I wanted to have days for things too!

In late primary school, our teacher read us My Side of the Mountain by Jean Craighead George. A boy runs away to the mountains, lives in a tree, finds his own food, makes his own clothes and tools and lives independently. I loved that book and recently bought a copy for my boys to read. For a while, I spent time imagining my own home in the 'woods'; it was a timber house with lots of ingenious (and highly impractical) devices to imitate the mod-cons but in nature-friendly adaptations.

For a few years, decades even, between then and now, life took several twists and turns and apart from enjoying sewing and craft and trying to grow a few vegetables in each place we lived in, I didn't give a lot of thought to self-sufficiency or frugality. Its nice to be coming back to it now.

Today I served my Craft group a really yummy rhubarb crumb cake made with homegrown rhubarb. I'd post a link but I can't remember where the recipe came from. As I mentioned, I've been on Ravelry a lot lately and am currently on a dishcloth-knitting bender. So many patterns...so little time...
I really like the way this smocking stitch turned out:

From Made by Me

This is a simple one with a 'slub' effect:

From Work in Progress

In my queue are more dishcloths, a placemat to go under my crockpot that will stop the rubber feet leaving black marks on my benchtop, the make-up wipes, scrubbies, the intriguingly named 'tawashis' (cleansing puffs), and of course scarves, gloves, wraps, cardis, blankets....hmmm. I could be knitting for a while! I have a pretty good dishcloth stash now so I think its time to start gifting some. Perhaps my friends and family can be taught to share my passion for all things reusable and homemade! Oh, and I even found a crockpot group on Ravelry and yesterday made a very tasty granola, better known to us Aussies as toasted muesli. Yum yum!

It was quite a revelation that this type of life is something I've wanted from way, way back!