Ethical Socks?

I needed some new black socks and so I Googled ‘ethical socks UK’.

Lots of sites came up.

I hate pairing socks so I only want to buy plain black ones from now on. For ethical reasons I don’t buy from Amazon. This narrowed my choice and I decided on The Sock Shop.

On the same day my Smol laundry detergent arrived by post – another attempt at being green and ethical in my purchases.

SOCKS – The good:

made with bamboo, not cotton

they came in paper packaging

they did not have those hideous plastic paddle tags to hold them together, but were sewn to the card label

The bad:

They came with plastic hooks

They were made in China (I should have checked this out before I bought them)

They looked black on the website, but they are grey – not terrible, but they feel like school socks!

So

I wrote to the company and got this reply

Hi Sandra, Thanks for your feedback. We try to make our socks as environmentally friendly as possible and we appreciate your feedback regarding this. I shall pass on this feedback to the relevant department.

Kind regards, Rebecca, SOCKSHOP

~~~~~~~

You might be tempted to suggest I knit or crochet my own, but making socks has never appealed. I do admire those I see, but I really don’t think I will ever make any.

For those of you who love handknitted socks you might be interested in this site KDD&Co

If you know of any ethical, environmentally friendly, plain black socks that are not made in China please let me know. 🙂

EDIT: A friend has told me about the compnay ‘Cambridge Baby’ and I contacted them. Their socks are made in Germany using organic cotton and wool, I ordered 2 pairs and I am very pleased with them.(no plastic used in the packaging)

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Scrap Happy Edge

Scrap Happy in August: I finished the Scrappy Blanket that was started in February and I gave it a rather magnificently over-the-top edge.

I made up the pattern for the edge as I went along, using Helen Shrimpton’s Sunbursts from her Cosmic Cal pattern as a guide.

Some of you might wince at this. Lynn and Jane, I’m thinking of you. 😉 Look away now!

It felt very freeing not to worry whether the sunbursts were always on a corner or not.

It looked particularly at home on the bench made of recycled pallets

and next to the repurposed empty blue agricultural detergent container, which is now a waterbutt. The blanket has gone to live as a throw over an armchair in my daughter’s grey, white and sunshine yellow kitchen, so I made myself another smaller one!

and thought this bench perfect for the photo shoot.

The bench is in the children’s play park where much of my scrap happy crochet is done, I sit and crochet whilst the children play – what better way to spend a few happy hours of Granny hooking time.

All the yarn is either left over from projects, unravelled old projects or from my Mum’s vast stash, gathered when we cleared out her house. Nearly every strand holds a memory, adding to the joy of making each blanket – and there is lots more to go!

I tie each piece together with a reef knot and leave the ends on show for texture. If I feel I want a change of colour, I just cut the yarn and add in a colour I want.

These blankets are made with a mixture of yarns – cotton, acrylic, mixes and a small amount of 100% wool. They wash well in the machine at 30C.

Pop along over to Kate’s place and see links to lots of other inspiring Scrap Happy projects. Scrap Happy day is on the 15th of each month.

Store Secret

As Denis and Cathy thought, my secret is a cupboard that is in fact a log store.

A clever idea I saw many years ago in a friend’s house , and now I have been able to recreate it.

A crafty trick!

Vase on Monday: red, white and green

Cotoneaster berries and parsley in the Vase this Monday.

Houseplant of the week – white cyclamen grown from seed. It is my houseplant of the week because it is flowering away even though it is stuck on a north-facing bathroom windowsill and reaching up for light.

Joining in with Cathy’s merry band of gardeners at Rambling in the Garden where you can see many beautiful vases from around the world and her charming touch of MAGIC!

I hope you will forgive the poor quality of my photo but the days are so dark here at the moment! and I did not have time to play around and perfect it. Better a poor photo than no photo I thought. I do so love joining in with this meme, I didn’t want to miss it.

The Father Christmas wooden doll has been our family for about 30 years now, given to my daughter by the man himself in her Xmas stocking.

This is about as festive as it is going to get around here, over many years I’ve gradually become almost phobic about the wasteful excesses of Christmas.

CJ At Above the River puts it so much better than I could: 

I’m finding the constant media urgings to get more stuff for Christmas combined with news from the climate change conference an indigestible mixture. I never like the wilder excesses of the festive season. Mountains of packaging, wrapping, plastic that will be in landfill before we know it, rubbishy stuff imported from thousands of miles away. I honestly hate it. I try very hard not to contribute to that bit of the festive season, but I know I’m part of the problem. In my kitchen there is packaging that I didn’t want, didn’t ask for. Gifts that aren’t made in this country. Christmas cards with their toxic inks and wasteful production processes. The planet can’t support it all.

I’m trying very hard to be smaller about everything this year though. More ethically sourced gifts. Food with less packaging. Locally produced things. I don’t mean to cast a shadow over it all, just to think aloud a bit. Over-consumption is nauseating, the shops are making me feel anxious and claustrophobic at the moment. I wish I had a big badge that said, “I’m opting out”. Just some simple gifts for the children, a nice meal, some food with friends. A bit of greenery from the back lane, vegetables from the allotment or a local farm. 

CJ writes so beautifully, her posts as so full of warmth and humour, many have responded to her post with their thoughts and I must say it gives me hope for the planet that there seems to be so many of like-mind … in blogland anyway!

I do hope you are all having a happy, healthy stress-free December.

A Good Yarn

It is fun to join in with a Yarn Along to see what others are making. I have been joining in with Ginny, but I have felt a bit of a fraud as she asks us to share our latest yarny work and the book we are currently reading.

I don’t seem to read any more – I don’t know why, lack of concentration or something like that. However I do like to watch films and TV series on DVD

and this means I can keep knitting, sewing or doing crochet as I watch or listen.

One of my favourite DVDs is Marie Antoinette

I love its quirkiness and the colour palette – as it says “a love letter to cake”! I have watched it over and over again, pausing to wonder at the fabulous food concoctions and patterns on the clothes and furnishings – it is a veritable visual feast!

And my latest yarny project has been inspired by Mrs Snail, who in true Permaculture style is re-using and recycling odd bits of yarn by tying them together and making hats – I’m going to give it a go.

I’m so glad I did save all the off-cuts.

Please feel free to join me by leaving a link in the comments – I’d love to know what you are making and/or what films or other DVDs you have enjoyed.

Crisp

Crisp salad leaves grow,

A Permaculture triumph

Self-seeded, zone one

*

Ronovan’s words of the week: Sweet and Foul – here goes!

Sweet green lettuce leaves

Growing through foul winds and rain

Of Winter and Spring

*

 These salad leaves grow just outside my front door(Zone 1) in a Veg Trug – gardening at waist height – the way to go.

We would love to have a few more along for the weekly photo challenge – and all the subjects are already set out for you so you can plan well in advance. You can use old photos or fresh ones – each tells a story.

CRISP by Jamie, Roz, Garry, Melissa and Erika

Next week: GOLD               Go on give it a go!

Quite often as soon as I see the word of the week a photo springs to mind. I have enjoyed sharing old photos, giving them new life and a new story to share in blogland. I started adding haikus to the picture cos they just seemed to pop out!

And now I also include Ronovan’s Haiku Challenge, and like to see how the Haikus work together.

Melissa also combines the 2 challenges – in fact it was she who inspired me to do the same!

Peachy

Last year I bought a teeny tiny peach tree online. Variety: Bonanza.

Look at the amazing blossom on it – what a pink! Those flowers look like they should glow in the dark.

It is supposed to be a patio peach tree that you can grow …well on a patio – in a pot.

My thinking was that if I planted the tree in the garden, it would grow a bit bigger than it would in a pot, but not too big for the small, south facing space I made ready for it.

However it does look ridiculously small in its shelter.

The corrugated clear plastic roof is  to keep the rain off to prevent leaf curl – so far so good. The roof tilts slightly to the right and the rain drips into the black container (a bin from an old sit on mower I once had) and hey presto that keeps the ground from getting sodden in one place and provides water for watering the peach tree – that’s permaculture in action right there!

I hope it does grow a bit bigger, do you think it will?

A Passion for Permaculture: Part 1

I first came across Permaculture in the late 1980’s and it has led me a very merry dance ever since! Almost every decision I make is based on Permaculture Principles. Masses of stuff has been written on the subject and you can find out more by clicking on the links – but  here are MY PPs:

1. Earth care, people care, fair share.

2. Live simply so that others might simply live.

3. Make each thing you do as energy efficient as possible: minimum input for maximum output.

4. Make each task or item as multi-functional as possible.

5. Think in zones and start with Zone 000 (your inner and/or spiritual well-being) – more about Zones another day.

I might think of more later, but they are my main guidelines for decision making.

And tonight my Permaculture in Action moment is ‘Lighting the Fire’:

I have a wood-burner with a flat top, so that I can cook on it, and on the right of it is a cupboard for the logs (note the 2 kettles for heating water, which I store in vacuum flask pump pots to use next day)

 

so easy to get at

 

 

 

and holds masses of logs because it goes back and back,

and is fed through a hatch on the

 

outside!genius eh!!!       (not my original idea) but absolutely PERFECT for log store efficiency …..

every wood-burning home should have one don’tcha-think!