Last night, before a darkened roomful of masqued and be-costumed heaving bodies, sweaty and drunk and sparkle-laden revellers -- after the bare-tittied midnight cake-burst-Neil-snog, but before the ukulele solo -- Amanda Palmer, wearing a corset she bought from a girl in the audience for the promise of a snog, told us she didn't believe in making New Year's Resolutions.
"They're for lazy people," she said, after singing us a song about working out she's exactly the person she wants to be, right now.

I get it.

I have no New Year's Resolutions this year. I mean, it's not something I'm in the habit of doing anyway. Last year, I had one (buy no clothes for a whole year) but that was more of a challenge really. A challenge I successfully completed -- more or less -- as Amanda burst out of that cake last night. Or, more accurately, about four and a half minutes earlier, as her husband, Neil Gaiman, finished reading a poem about the effects of drinking whiskey on artistic endeavour as it relates to writing.

But, challenges aside, I see nothing that needs changing in my life.

No. No, that's not true. The Tower reversed has not turned up in my spread for some time now. No resistance to change, here. I'm happy -- more than happy, I encourage -- for things to grow and evolve. But there's nothing bad, nothing wrong, nothing that needs a stern lashing of willpower and resolve.

Things are good. Great. In just over two weeks, I'll start my new job. For the first time, I have a job not just because it's there, or just because I can do it, but because I chose it. Something that I believe in, that is changing the world for the better, not causing harm, however indirectly.

I am saving; I see the goal ahead of me, although a few years down the track, yet. A house, built by my hands and his, with a fireplace, and bookshelves, turkey rugs and patchwork curtains, a big kitchen and an even bigger dining table to have you all over for tea. With a garden all around, with oh-so-much food and chickens and neighbours and you.

Sometimes, I see this so clearly, I could knock on the front door.

But here and now, in this wonderful, quirky, home-ish house, I am deliriously content. My garden, as they say, is cranking. The pumpkins are beginning to swell, and I ate the very first beans off the vine for my dinner tonight. And if the basil never really grew, and only one capsicum plant survived and the eggplants never are going to flourish, so what? I have more tomatoes than I'll ever know what to do with, and more on the way; I get more zucchinis morning and night and there is really nothing like cucumber sliced fresh off the vine. Slowly, slowly, we remove more packaging from our shelves and less and less processed food comes into my kitchen and I am satisfied.

And I am happily, sickeningly, heart-burstingly, ribcage-tighteningly, breath-catchingly in love. His smile still gives me butterflies, his mind engages mine, and best of all, we just fit together effortlessly. Being with Dom is simultaneously both the easiest and most rewarding thing in my life. Our life together is everything I hoped for while I waited.

So, life is pretty fucking awesome right now.

But, still I say: I welcome growth, and I welcome change, even as fear flutters in my belly as I type those words, I welcome it.
(all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well)

Still, there are some things I'd like to do. Not resolutions, but wishes. I'd like to write more, and I'd like to make more balance in my life to have the time to write more. There's a novel (at least one) still sitting in my head, waiting to be ink on paper.

And I'd like to perform again. I felt that strongly last night. And not just to perform, but to build a show, craft it, fill it with weird beautiful carnie creatures. Last night, there was a big-haired, skull-shouldered, horse-headed, pegasus-winged, gyrating hipped vampire male anti-burlesque act to Lost Boys Cry Little Sister. I want to touch that again.

Last night, Neil said some beautiful words. His wish for us all this year is that we might make some mistakes. Mistakes are beautiful things, he said, because to make mistakes means you're trying something new. And a mistake means you're doing something, and it's important to do.

I hope this year I make mistakes, and I birth new things, that I am bold and that I evolve, and that I do and that, even if I feel that flutter of fear, I greet the Tower, the Wheel and the World with open arms.

Happy New Year!

Sundays.

It’s become the routine at our place that Sundays are a bit of a ‘tidy-up’ day. And I know it might be daggy, but I really enjoy it. Saturdays are often for getting all of my uni work out of the way, and then a little bit of socialising, and after the bustle of the week, Sundays are just for being around the home, putting some time and energy into the space, and just going slow.

Today, we had a lovely long sleep in, after going out for dinner with friends, and then to see one of my very favourite performers, Mikelangelo, at a wonderful, intimate venue in South Melbourne last night.

Then, I made us fresh orange juice from the abundance of oranges we received in our veggie box this week, followed by an old breakfast favourite of mine: tomato and onion on toast, with some fresh herbs, spring onions and sprouts from the garden.

And then it was getting stuck into the clean! We have a house inspection later this week, so it was a little more vigorous than usual. And it was such a glorious sunny day outside – such a welcome break from a relentless winter – that it was a struggle to stay indoors long enough to get everything done. As it was, I kept going outside every half an hour to just soak up the sunshine.

Another great thing about this warm weekend is that I finally get to wear the ‘summer socks’ I made last Easter and then haven’t had a chance to wear because it’s been too cold. They're 'yoga socks' designed to keep your feet and ankles warm and your toes and heels free for yoga and pilates poses.

But I've found another practical use for them. The perfect combination: thongs AND warm feet!

Then we had a Transition Darebin meeting at a local café. I almost didn’t want to go – I really didn’t want to be indoors. But as usual, it was so inspiring and motivating to hear about everyone’s projects and ideas, so I’m glad I went.

And now I’m home again, pulling the washing in off the line, potting out a few plants and just settling in, preparing for the week ahead. Enjoying the clean and tidy house. How was your Sunday?

Yarn Along

Once, quite a few years ago now, I had finished working for a man in a kilt who lived on the west coast of Scotland. I planned to head South again, perhaps back into England, and told him so.

'Oh no, you can't!' he said in a voice like Sean Connery's. 'Not when you've come so close.'

The balcony on the front of his house looked out over the harbour, and every day, just at the same morning hour, a very large ferry left for the Outer Hebrides.

'You must see the Islands while you are here. They're amazing.'

And he was right. Such wild, treeless islands of wind and ghosts. I stood on a bluff and looked out over the sea and hills and could see nothing made by man. I could have been standing there at any point in history. It broke my heart and healed it all at once.

So I stayed with the daughter of the man in a kilt with the voice of Sean Connery, in her cottage attached to a haunted manor. And we cooked rustic meals of produce bought from farmers, and went looking for ghosts, and fended off Jehovah's Witnesses who knocked on our door-at-the-edge-of-the-world, and we sat around and knitted. There was a book there, too, all about an island even further out in the uncaring sea, which had once had inhabitants who had more in common with the Norse, than they did with the Scotts (although they still had to pay the Laird their taxes). I didn't read all of this book, I left before I could finish, back to a part of the world just a little less magical.

This is not that book, but it is about that furthest-flung island, St Kilda. It is a fictionalised account of the time that a missionary and his wife went to save the natives from themselves, much to the detriment of everyone concerned. It's not a bad book, but it's not that good either. Mostly I keep reading it because it is about my favourite part of the world. And my knitting skills have progressed somewhat since sitting in that cottage too. This is the first of a pair of legwarmers, lace stitch, knitted in the round. The wool came from a jumper I bought at the op-shop and unravelled. It's going well.

Kitting and reading: two of my most favourite things. Joining in with Ginny (and Mum) for Yarn Along this week.

Dyeing a Cotton Dress with Natural Dyes, Part 1: the Alkaline Mordent

I have a pretty dress but I don't wear very often anymore because it's peach, and peach is a colour that's not really me, y'know? I used to wear it to work, because I work in a Steiner kindergarten where our days are colour themed. Thursdays are orange days, and peach is kinda-sorta-close-enough to orange that I could get away with it. But with the reduction in my work days, I no longer work on orange day, so the dress doesn't get worn.

But I really like the style of the dress. It looks especially good with a pair of cowboy boots and a scarf. So, in an effort to make it into something I'll keep wearing, I'm going to try and dye it using natural dyes. I'm going to aim for a rusty red colour, or perhaps a chocolatey brown, but before I can try adding colour, there's a few preparatory steps I need to take.

I received a wonderful book on natural dying for my birthday a few years ago: India Flint's Eco Colour. It's an inspiring book, full of ideas for a number of dye-stuffs and processes and many, many beautiful pictures. In a way it's a little frustrating -- I want to be able to jump straight in and create the beautifully textured and 'eco-printed' textiles featured in the book, but I guess I have to learn the basics first.

Flint's book doesn't have much in the way of formulas or recipes, rather it provides the basic principles and it's up to the reader/crafter to develop the process themselves. So the following is an account of my experiment based on ideas in the book.

The dress is cotton, which needs processing and pre-mordanting before it will adequately take up colour from plant based dyes, which are acidic. Either an alkaline or a protein based mordant on its own will work, but one layered over the other will work better, and this is what I'm going to try out. For an alkaline solution, I'm going to use tea, and I'll try a milk solution for the protein.

I've decided to use tea because it's quite a simple process for my first project; I drink a lot of tea, and so have a lot of tea-leaves to hand; and the tea will also colour the fabric a little, which I think I would like. You can also use tea as a dye-stuff itself, like when you 'antique' fabric or paper with a tea solution. But in my case, I'm going to colour it further with other dyes. Eventually.

First, I collected all my used tea-leaves, and un-drunk (black) tea for a week in a stainless steel pot. (It has to be stainless steel, or some other type of non-reactive metal, or the metal itself will also act as mordent. Which could also be interesting.) All that week, the leaves sat stewing in a warm place, the solution getting stronger.

Then I strained the tea-leaves out.

And then a second time with a piece of fabric attached to the sieve to collect the finer particles in the solution.

The I soaked the dress in the solution for about four days and nights.

After soaking in the tea-bath, I spun it in the washing machine without rinsing it, and hung it out to dry.

I was expecting more of an colour impact from the tea. It's hard to tell in this picture, but the dress is ... well, not so much darker as a bit duller. I've since found out from another book that if you're using used tea-leaves, you need to use significantly more, which seems kinda obvious really, but I didn't think about it at the time. Since I used this process as a mordent, and not for the purposes of obtaining colour, I'm not too worried. If I wasn't going to use another mordent process, then I would probably repeat this process with the tea-leaves, just to make sure that the mordent would work. But I'm going to also do a protein mordent, so between the two, I'm sure they'll work.

And now, I'm going to 'rest' the garment. That is, put it away in a draw for a week or two before doing anything further to it, to allow the mordent to 'develop'. This part isn't absolutely necessary -- you could dye it straight away -- but it helps achieve better results. Some natural dyeing traditions recommend leaving it to develop for a year! But I'm just going to leave it for a month or so, all up.

And so that's the first part done. Stay tuned for part two: the Protein Mordent!

New Year's Resolution: the Rules

The rules are very simple, really: no spending money on clothes for twelve months, period. Not new clothes, not second-hand clothes, not local clothes. Nada. No asking for clothing to be given/bought for me, either. No more clothes.

Like any rules, however, there are exceptions. In this case, underwear and hosiery are exceptions, because I can't see any way around it. I have to wear socks and knickers (well, I don't have to, but they make life more comfortable) and the items I have are going to wear out, and I can't really substitute things I already have for them. (If you've got any ideas around this problem, let me know!) So I can buy new underwear and hosiery, but purchases must be kept to a minimum and local, ethical and organic wherever possible.

As I am going for a few internships and other professional interviews this year, I may need to acquire some clothing suitable for such a situation. Wherever possible, I would first attempt to borrow any necessary items, and if that's not possible, then I'd try second hand, and only failing that would I buy new.

And I can accept gifts of clothing, just not ask for it or seek it out. Especially if the clothes are on their way to landfill or vinnies.

So there are the rules. Let's hope that publishing them here will keep me honest!

New Year's Resolution: the Idea

Sitting in a creek at a festival on New Year’s Eve, I decided my resolution for the coming year would be that I would not buy any clothes. No new clothes. No second-hand clothes, either. No sales clothes, no op-shop clothes, no local, hand-made clothes. Not a cent on clothes for a whole year.

Why? you ask. Well that’s an interesting question, and one I’m not sure I know the full answer to, but I’ll try and muddle it out...

I have never been a fashionista. I don’t have a pressing need to keep up with the latest fashion, I don’t have an addiction to shopping and a sale rack does not set my heart a-flutter, so it’s not to curb an immoderate habit. I don’t have an excessive consumption of clothes, there are no clothes hiding in boxes in the attic and I can still close the doors to my wardrobe with a minimum of fuss. So I don’t need to go on a clothes diet. But it does make sense financially for me to cut back in as many ways as possible this year. Returning to full–time study and cutting back my hours in paid work, I’m not going to have much extra cash for spending on unnecessary clothes.

And that there’s the rub: unnecessary clothes. I have enough. I have enough to wear to work, enough to wear to play, enough that is suitable for uni, for a night on the town, to work in the garden and to lounge in the house. That is enough. I wont buy any more clothes this year, because I just don’t need them.

The inspiration for this decision came originally from an American artist named Alex Martin. In a performance artwork, Alex wore the same little brown dress for a year as a statement against the consumerism of society and fashion, and documents it in her blog, Little Brown Dress. Here, she talks about her reasons: “I challenged myself to reject the economic system that pushes over-consumption, and the bill of goods that has been sold, especially to women, about what makes a person good, attractive and interesting. Clothes are a big part of this image, and the expectation in time, effort, and financial investment is immense.”

Now, I’m not going to wear exactly the same thing for a whole year, but her reasons for doing so struck a chord with me, and so for a whole year, I’m just going to make do with what I have and buy no more.

I’m by no means the first to do this. In America, there are hundreds of women (and a few men) who’ve signed up for the Great American Apparel Diet to do exactly what I am doing: no new clothes for twelve months. Much closer to home, a local woman details her year without buying new clothes on the Transition Darebin blog.

And it almost goes without saying the many millions of people who do it all year, every year through extreme poverty. Like the women I lived and worked with in rural Kenya last year, for whom buying any clothes was a luxury; who had a few changes of day-wear, well worn from repeated hand-washing, and one immaculate twin-set in vibrantly coloured fabric for the occasions where they needed to looked their best. As I sit in a cafe in Fitzroy, or walk down Sydney road and fret about seeming un-hip or daggy and coveting the clothing I see around me, the memory of these African women is a humbling reminder of how little clothing a person truly needs.

I’m taking as my role-model in this endeavour the thrifty 1930s housewife: a woman who had few outfits, but always looked presentable, and made the best of the resources she had. Her clothing was made and laundered with great care, fabric was chosen for its durability and patterns for their enduring style. With these values firmly in mind, I set forth on my year with thrift, mindfulness and a sense of adventure!