A few thoughts on Folk fashion: understanding homemade clothes by @AmyTwiggerH

Folk Fashion: Understanding Homemade Clothes by Amy Twigger Holroyd
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is a wonderful book exploring homemade clothes, and it is an entertaining read. I read it as my commute reading and it was very engaging. It is based on research and explores making and remaking (a much better word than upcycling). The information from remaking sessions with a several knitters provides crucial information for exploring how people feel about making their own clothes.

It includes sustainability, well being and emotions about making. There is a helpful ten point strategy for supporting and encouraging folk fashion makers. These are points which libraries are well placed to deliver, and some are doing some of them. As it is important to read this book before getting to the ten point strategy, I am not going to include it here.

This books is currently held in eight libraries in Australia (based on information from Trove Australia).

This book has lead me to pull out and old jumper I used to wear and adjust (remake) the length of the sleeves, a 15 minute job and to sew buttons on a knitted vest which had been unfinished for about 15 years.

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A few thoughts on the book Tinkering: Australians reinvent DIY culture by Katherine Wilson

Tinkering: Australians Reinvent DIY Culture by Katherine Wilson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book explores the concept of tinkering in Australia. It is based on interviews with several tinkerers (mainly from Victoria) and uses aspects of ethnography as the methodology for this research. This interesting book is based on the doctoral research by the author.

There are useful ideas in this book for libraries which have maker spaces or other connections to makers and tinkerers to consider however, libraries are almost invisible in the work. There could be another interesting research project looking at the connection between libraries and making and tinkering.

The discussion of tinkering in this book includes a wide range of formats including electronics, mechanical, building, research, photography, and jam making. Mending is raised as a tinkering area, but it is acknowledged that more research needs to be done into this area.

There are useful perspectives of failure and mistakes presented through this work. Block, one of the people interviewed for the research states, ‘I make mistakes all the time, that’s how you learn about things and get more experienced. You have to think, and you have to be patient’. Hondo, another interviewee states that you ‘never know if what you imagine will turn out’.

The author writes that when ‘policy makers and bureaucrats make decisions about cultural spaces like Men’s Sheds, Hackerspaces, community gardens, manual education and innovation programs, they need to understand that their magic force lives in quests, stories, senses, skills and the plotting of self in he continuity of experience...For all its senseless and supernatural overtones, magic is an important way to understand the everyday transformative, spellbinding power that pulses through Australia’s sheds, paddocks, kitchens, backyards and workshops’. p83. This idea of forces of magic is an interesting description to use.

While there is no index, there is a useful and detailed list of select references.

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#rakowinspired from @corningmuseum

The Corning Museum of Glass, is an amazing museum. They are continue to profile the library at the museum, the Rakow Research Library. Recently on the museum Instagram account, they have been encouraging people to share their #rakowinspired work. This is a lovely way to share work inspired by the library at the museum (which is why I did a storify of it).

encouraging making

 This photograph shows some of the action in one of the Woolcraft sheds at the Bendigo Sheep and Wool Show last week.  It was to encourage making (and give people a chance to sit down).  It really was an old blanket with which you could use the various items on the table to decorate - trying a new skill or participate in visible mending. I liked that it was simple, and was for experimenting with.  There was no overall design, so it was impossible to do the wrong thing with it.

Showing detail on the blanket of some embroidery

Do you have things like this for adults in your library?

Anythink Perl Mack

This is a lovely library



This table has noodles on it to encourage people to make things.

You can see more photographs here.

creating content

I use different online tools from time to time to create content.  I have been making calendars for a few years.  This year I was back to Redbubble (and I have to mention the brand so you can see the example).  I was uploading photographs for a calendar, but the site suggested lots of other things I could do with the same content.  You can see some of the examples in the image below.



































I think there is a lot of potential for public libraries to load a dozen or so photographs into this.  With a dozen photographs you have have a print on demand calendar, and then with a few more minutes spent on the site have many other merchandise options, again print on demand so there is no financial outlay for the library.  You can make sure your library logo, website, and other details are on the items, just as you do for things which are printed.  These just happen to be print on demand.

I tried some of the bags, and this is how they turned out. They look better in real life than in this photograph - and I am really pleased with them.


























This is the original photograph.