Thursday, December 6, 2012

We Are All Connected


Cashmere sweaters, fresh from the thrift store, ready to be felted.




I just learned of the factory fire in Bangladesh, where so many women perished. They were working for just over a dollar a day to produce the clothes that we wear, name brand clothes that pull good prices here.  The columnist I read likened it to slavery, the way those women worked to give us the lifestyle we want.

I often say that my work – repurposing old clothing into new – is my way to fight this system.  A very tiny way, but I hope to be a voice calling for sanity in the way we consume goods.

And yet, I am complicit in the slave labor of those women, and the creation of more desert in Mongolia. The ability to buy cheap goods means the devaluing of those goods, and of the lives that went into the making of them.    If we didn’t live in a throw-away society, I wouldn’t have those Gap sweaters, or the lovely cashmeres I adore to work with. I love going to the thrift store and coming away with good finds – but that often means someone else didn’t care enough to mend a small hole, or try to remove that small spot.  Did I make them get rid of that sweater?  No.  But we are all connected, our actions are interwoven.

My work is my prayer that in some small way I can re-value those lives.  My work is to help others to see the connections.  May my work bring healing.
 

Friday, July 20, 2012

Getting Ready For Falcon Ridge

Next week I'm going to be vending at the Falcon Ridge Folk Festival.  I learned about it last year when my computer guru Sue Muldoon posted pictures from the festival.  I saw that there was dance there, and thought that my skirts would be popular among the dancers, so I applied and I'm going!

When I open up the Falcon Ridge web page, the aerial photo both excites and terrifies me.  So many people!  I'm working hard to have enough inventory to bring, and hope it will be enough!  Here's a few pics of the latest things.

Felted hats, mittens and wrist warmers

 Upcycled Twirly Dress

Upcycled Twirly Skirt

The skirts and dresses have full circle skirts, so they are wonderful for dancing!

This week I went out and bought the lighting and cords I'll need to do night time selling.  I need to make sure that the bubble carrier fits on my car, and pack clothes and food for the weekend.  It'll be a busy week! (Not mentioning the farmers markets on the schedule for next week...)

Wednesday, March 14, 2012

The (Good) Blues


Spring is making itself well known around here. The temperatures are high for March (no complaints), the birds are all staking out their territories and the sparrows, at least, are nesting. When I opened the window at sunrise, there was a burst of birdsong. I love it! If you can see it in the photo, the forsythia buds are swelling. I don't think it will be long...

I took a walk yesterday at Topsmead State Forest while the Boy had his voice lesson. It's a magical place, and I saw and heard my first bluebirds of the season. For years I made felted bluebirds as a prayer/wish that I could see one. Last fall I came upon a flock that was readying for migration, and that was a wonder. Yesterday I heard these warbling calls and after looking and following the sound for a while, I saw at least one. There are a lot of nest boxes at Topsmead, and it looks like they are used well.

A couple of days ago I was eating lunch out on the patio, and heard some hawks overhead. One lit in the tree next door, and it was BIG. It was a pair calling to each other; I hope it's a mating pair. We have a lot of big birds in the neighborhood - there are wetlands and some woody areas, so there are hawks, herons, geese, lots of swallows (haven't heard them yet), and red-wing blackbirds (I hear them, but don't see them). It's a totally suburban neighborhood, but surprisingly good birding.

Enjoy the spring where you are!

Friday, February 24, 2012

New Materials, New Designs


My friend, Pamela, from Boxed Goodes, is a wonderful source of information and inspiration for me. She's always checking out new things and showing me new possibilities. The latest was the idea of making little girls' dresses from t-shirts, in a different design than I was using last year. Here are two of them...


Saturday, February 4, 2012

Building True Community

Today I was vending at the Litchfield Farmer's Market, and the wonderful woman who was tabling opposite me handed me an article she thought I'd enjoy. I did enjoy it, so much that I'm copying the entire thing here for you. I found out that she was the author of the article - Thank you so much, Lynn!

Be 'Neighborly' in a Sustainable Way
by Lynn Fulkerson

It was a morning in early summer when I first noticed them dancing in the top of a dead craggy tree on the edge of our meadow. Further inspection with binoculars revealed a large bird of prey feeding its young. The dancing was a back and forth rocking and swaying as the young tore into palatable pieces of the breakfast provided by the parent.

A few days later, my husband, John, discovered a bird of prey caught up in the bird netting surrounding our blueberry bushes. With scissors and surgical skill, John carefully freed the bird’s talons while I observed, bird book in hand, this merlin falcon. It was, in fact, the same bird that was raising its young in the old tree.

Reading about merlins confirmed our observations. We watched the young ones fledge and begin their lives in our vineyard. A merlin’s diet often consists of other birds. They are extremely fast, which we were witness to on several occasions as they chased down other birds in flight. What better place to raise your young than a vineyard that attracts numerous fruit-eating birds. We net and we hang huge one-eyed balloons to save our fruit. Now the merlins were pitching in. What reciprocity! We provide the home and the surgical care and they protect our grapes and blueberries. It’s what neighbors do. We named the land we care for Merlin Meadows.

The merlins returned each year until the tree finally gave out and collapsed to the ground to be devoured by other neighbors, beetles and worms and other microscopic lives that we will never know.

My next door neighbor, Joyce, calls when she is going into town on errands to see if I need anything. I do the same for her. After hip surgery, she drove me to do errands she couldn’t do for me. I water her plants when she is away. We all understand what it means to be “neighborly,” although in our fast-paced lives we sometimes forget.

If I take the time to look around and think about who does what for me to make my life what it is, it is overwhelming and humbling. I think it was John Muir who said, “When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe.”

My life, in fact, is supported by the entire web of life and is much poorer if something is plucked from it. I am dependent on the health of the soil, water and air. The soil that grows my food is dependent on numerous lives doing their thing. This includes fungi and bacteria, earthworms and ants, and, oh yes, even moles and slugs. Neighbors?! Ha! What have you done for your local mole lately?

I watch the swallows and the bluebirds eating mosquitoes and others as they swoop over the meadows. They use our bird boxes to raise their young. Thank you, neighbors.

The fox and the coyote feast on the mice, rabbits and snakes in the fields. A few years ago a two-legged neighbor boasted that he had shot and killed eight coyotes. Please, neighbor, don’t pluck them out unless you are going to eat them, and then only with gratitude for their lives. That year I struggled raising and harvesting vegetables before the rabbits destroyed my garden. We have never before been witness to such a population explosion of cute little bunnies. URRG! Yes, they are our neighbors, too, but to remain healthy they need the coyote and the fox, who, by the way, have repopulated the meadows.

Other neighbors we never see, but they, too, support our lives: those who raise our food in other places and climates, those who often risk their lives to put fish on our plates, those who for meager wages make and build the things that we use daily and without which we cannot imagine our lives. Often they handle pesticides and chemicals with no protection, have unsafe and unhealthy working conditions, and have none of the benefits that most of us enjoy. Their factories pollute the air and water where they raise their children. My husband and I biked for two weeks in rural and urban China. We witnessed children not knowing what a blue sky with fluffy white clouds looks like. Life is grey. They are breathing in the pollution from the industries we have transported to make the stuff we buy. The children along the roads welcomed us cheerfully. I asked myself how can I be a better neighbor to them?

There are no easy answers. The starting place for me is thinking about where all that I depend on and enjoy comes from. Who is connected to my daily life? Can I make better choices?

Can I purchase Fair Traded products and organic food? Can I invest in companies that are deemed to be socially responsible? Can I reduce my consumption and use less of the earth’s precious resources? Can I conserve energy and switch to generation of electricity that is less polluting? Can I support my neighbors who are farmers, weavers, furniture makers, musicians, bakers, bee keepers and who improve the quality of my life? Can I just not throw stuff away because I know that nothing really goes away? Can I reuse and recycle more? Can I remember to call Joyce and offer to pick something up for her in town?

I’ll give it a try.

Lynn Fulkerson is a member of the Litchfield Energy Task Force (www.litchfieldctenergytaskforce.org). Recently she has been in conversation with neighbors about the Transition Towns Initiative. Visit www.transitionnetwork.org

Wednesday, February 1, 2012

Welcome to my updated blog!

I've wanted for some time to update my blog, to make it more like a website for my business. With the help of Sue Muldoon of Sue Muldoon Images, it's well on its way! I have a new address: bethanyhomecrafts@blogspot.com.

Have fun browsing my galleries!

Monday, January 16, 2012

Winter and Early Spring Schedule



Artfully upcycled dresses!

Thanks for checking in! Winter is a slow season for markets and fairs. Here's my schedule:

January 22, February 5, 12 &19 : Coventry Farmer's Market at Coventry High School, Ripley Hill Road. 11 am-2 pm

February 4: Litchfield Hills Farm Fresh Market at the Community Center. 10-1

February 9: Westport Farmer's Market at Gilberties on Sylvan Lane. 10-2

February 18: Forest Park Farmer's Market, 302 Sumner Ave., East Longmeadow, MA.
10-2

March 3: CT NOFA Winter Conference at Manchester Community College. 9-4