reuse

Make your own // Reusable cloths

~ Julia Kendal ~ 1 Comment

reusable_knitted_wool_cloths

I wrote a while back about how we were swapping out short-lived sponges and cloths for ten durable cloths that we would wash and reuse. These cloths served us well, but a few years, and one house move (and therefore epic clean) later, and we needed a few replacements. I thought about hopping back on Ethical Superstore to buy some more, but then remembered a crochet pattern for washable cotton wool pads that I had stumbled across a few years ago. Rather than introducing new resources to our home, this would use up ones we already had to hand. I eyed up my knitting basket, and hatched a plan.

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6 questions for ethical shopping

~ Julia Kendal ~ 5 Comments
mike-petrucci-open-shop
Photo by Mike Petrucci on Unsplash

Our lives are marked by the decisions we make. Where and how we fill our time, who we spend it with… the answers will sculpt new possibilities whilst excluding others. Our decisions can change the lives of other people too, perhaps never more so than in our increasingly interconnected world. By the time I’ve dressed and breakfasted, I’ve interacted with continents and communities – through the source of my coffee, the makers of my clothes, the components of my phone… This knowledge can sit heavily; we need to be enabled to make daily decisions aware of – but not paralysed by – the impact they will have.

Over the years, I’ve come up with a system; a series of questions I try to ask myself when making a new purchase. It is an evolving approach, informed by conversations, reading, mistakes. And it minimises the helplessness that can arise when becoming aware of how our globalised world means our pop into the local shop can have far-reaching ramifications.

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Gardening // Saving water all summer

~ Julia Kendal ~ 1 Comment

bucket_plant_pots

Water is life-giving. It’s consistent – in how it flows, fills the space it enters. But water is also fluid, changeable. Abundant in some places, absent in others. It is easy to be casual with water when it springs readily with the turn of the tap. The emptying reservoir lies unseen.

Water is local. The drops we thriftily save will not, then, be available to people in drought-ridden East Africa. That’s not how water works. But it doesn’t mean we should be wasteful with it. The water from our taps has already been through the energy-intensive treatment process to make it safe for us to drink. It seems a shame, after all that, to pour it all over our unfussy vegetable plots.

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Making home from second-hand – part 1 (the why)

~ Julia Kendal ~ 2 Comments

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bookshelf2A month. The act of leaving one home and starting to make another has taken over five weeks and left room for little else. Having cleared the items deemed surplus, life outside of work has become packing, moving, unpacking, arranging and rearranging that which survived the cull. It hasn’t been particularly stressful, just tiring and demanding of our time. It has also been enjoyable; a season when we have tangibly experienced the joy of community as our friends gathered to help pack boxes, move furniture and even clean our old oven (a sign of real friendship, if ever you needed one). Continue reading →