The Touchwood Project

I just finished watching a film about a woman who spends a year cooking her way through every single recipe in Julia Child’s cookbook, then blogs about it. It got me to thinking, what would I enjoy doing that much? What would I like sharing with people?

What do I get passionate about? Things that make me feel joyful, delighted, happy.

Sharing them with you sounds like a project worth doing, though I know myself well enough by now to avoid promising to do one every day for a week, much less a year. So I’ll stick to just posting when the mood strikes.

My very first Happy Thing: taking my cats for a walk on the beach. I’ve written about this before, but the joy I feel with these two, listening to the waves roll in, smelling the seaweed and salt, feeling the wind and warmth of the sun.

Perhaps more than almost anything else, these walks define my daily life and remind me to pay attention and be happy. I took along our new videocamera and, having heard somewhere that 3 seconds is the average shot these days, what you get is a slice of our life today, in 3 second doses.

May it bring a smile to your face too.

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Tags: happiness

Vintage style + tweed + bicycles = Tweed Run.

This year’s Tweed Run event in London saw 400 immaculately dressed cyclists gallivanting about the city, soaking up the sunshine and stopping for tea at regular intervals.

I’d love to do something like this, though I think argyll sweaters and multiple tweed layers will be more the order of the day than this:

Which projects to try next?

Already we’re brainstorming which projects to tackle after we’ve finished the Kids Bushcraft, Reinvention Sewing Lounge and Bit Better pilot projects, and we’re thinking bicycles.

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Tags: cycling, fun things to do, Orkney

Two days only: the Reinvention Sewing Lounge at Orkney College

Transform the clothing that’s sitting in the back of your closet, gathering dust, into stylish one-of-a-kind pieces.

Join Kirsteen Stewart as she teaches you how to transform your wooly jumpers into this beautiful scarf:

Or if you know how to sew and want to try a different project, we’ll have several charming project patterns you can work on and a huge stack of gorgeous sewing books to draw inspiration from.

Beautiful fabrics available

Browse a gorgeous collection of fabrics

New pieces of fabric from Kaffe Fassett, Alexander Henry, Cath Kidston and Kirsteen Stewart will be on hand for purchase to combine with recycled clothing to make fetching, affordable pieces.

Thurs and Fri, Aug 5 and 6 at Orkney College

Our sewing lounge will be held for two days only at our stylishly furnished tipi. Come join us for gourmet coffee and tea and the delectable truffles from Cocoa Mountain.

Delicious truffles from Cocoa Mountain in Durness

We’ll be at the tipi on the lawn of Orkney College (right next to the car park) for 2 sessions only so be sure to book now if you’re interested as we only have 8 spaces available each day.

By the end of the two hour session, you’ll have something fantastic to take home along with the skills to create more projects at home.

Register and pay now >>

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Available dates

We have two dates available:

• Thursday, 5 August, 2-4pm
• Friday August 6, 2-4pm

Both sessions will take place on the lawn of Orkney College, Kirkwall. Click here for directions to the College from the Bus Station (next to the library).

Cost

£4 or FREE if you bring an extra item of clothing, curtains or fabric to donate to our collection — natural fabrics only such as 100% cotton, linen, wool or silk.

We’ll provide all tools. We’ll also have truffles from Cocoa Mountain for sale, alongside gourmet tea and coffee.

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Tags: crafts

From a poster for the new Reinvention Sewing Lounge, coming soon

It doesn’t look it yet, but below is the beginnings of the new Reinvention Sewing Lounge, one of our latest projects:

Soon our tipi will be furnished with sheepskin rugs, a woodburning stove, and a cornucopia of fabrics and craft tools to transform the clothes you’ve got sitting in the back of your closet into hip bags, pillows and something new you’d love to wear.

My favourite part: while you sew, you can sip gourmet coffee or tea and nibble on some of the best chocolate truffles I’ve ever had the privilege to sample (and I worked in a Belgian chocolatier’s in college so I know what I’m talking about).

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Tags: crafts, Pilot projects, social enterprise

Note: This is an older post I’m updating and re-posting because we decided to run the pilots this summer instead of last winter in 2009.

One of the challenges in starting up a social enterprise is actually having something to show for months’ worth of effort. Since an eco-lodge will take some time to build, not to mention write a business plan, do a feasibility study, and consult with the community, we needed to find ways of getting started NOW. So we’re building on the success we had with the StrengthsFinder pilot projects and running at least 3 more in 2010.

Here’s what we’re planning to do…

A mobile classroom

First up: a ‘mobile classroom.’ We’ve bought be a canvas tentipi like the one in this picture and are furnishing it with a stove and lovely fleeces, sheepskins and comfy chairs.

A tentipi offers shelter and warmth while still connected to the outdoors

These two photos here — from the Beautiful World Tents website — show how it could work.

Inside the tentipi with an open fire

The challenge of the Orkney (Scottish, British) climate is that it’s usually too cold or possibly rainy to contemplate doing something like a craft activity outside. On the other hand, we don’t want to go the route of being indoors in a community centre.

Tentipis are a modern update of the traditional tents used by the Sami. They look like tipis, but have a few cool features — like the ability to roll up the sides to open out the view.

Our plan is to kit them out beautifully and cosily, but still be able to take them around Orkney, including the more remote islands like Sanday, Eday, Shapinsay and Westray. We also plan to have a number of craft courses that will help furnish the interior with handmade rugs and fleeces.

Beauty, craftsmanship and eco-friendliness are core to what we want to do.

On to the courses…

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Tags: Pilot projects, social enterprise

This morning I started the day with a mug of lemon-flavoured green tea and a TED.com video about how to be a great leader. The point of this talk is basically that people follow your cause or buy your product because they believe what you believe.

Simon Sinek goes through the successful example of the Wright Brothers who, he argues, succeeded because they believed in the power of flight to change the world and thus inspired and attracted people working for them to give their blood, sweat and tears to the cause.

This opposed to Simon’s example of a guy named Langley who was the Wrights’ competitor, who had all the money and media backing any inventor could want, but who was doing it for the money and prestige and therefore had only people working for the paycheck for him.

Here’s the video if you’d like to see it:

So I ended the talk by asking Malcolm: “What do you think the ‘Why’ is behind Touchwood?” The ‘What’ is all the pilot projects and Power Off Weekends that we’re doing, but what is the reason behind our dedicating almost two years to it unpaid?

Well here’s why:

We believe we can do something bold about the environment, that we can take action right now, and that it should be fun.

Pretty simple, really.

It doesn’t sound to me like the kind of manifesto that would inspire millions off their chairs, but then again, who needs millions? I’ll start with the amazing people who have come our way already like Jess and Julie who helped us build a chicken pen, a compost bin, and plant our first garden. Or Victoria, who is leading the Upcycling Your Clothing pilot project this month (really, really need to write a post about these projects but have been so busy actually doing them to write about it). Or Kelly and Laura, who have inspired and led people to join the Power Off Weekend and fended off miserable people on the Guardian.

These people have been amazing and we all seem to share this same core belief that each of us can do something to help the planet and to help our own lives, and that it’s fun to do so.

So what do you believe?

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Tags: Environment, personal development, social enterprise

Today marks Day 14 of my Urban Adventures in Composting. That means for two weeks, there’s been worms in my apartment, doing their thing, which is to say, eating my garbage. In lieu of a book, I read and researched all over the Internet (it’s amazing, actually, all the worm-related stuff on the Internet) and attended a “Composting 101″ class at a local farm/education center. I brought my “worm bin” to the composting class with me, to get a more expert opinion on whether or not it would function properly. With a seal of approval from a long-time composter, I got to work.

Making the Bin

Ok, so this is my worm bin:

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Nothing like a bit of inspiration to start the day, so I’m posting a wonderful video talk we were introduced to last night by our two Couchsurfers, Jessica and Julie. It’s a talk given at TED (an inspiring conference featuring big name presenters) from a neuroanatomist who had a stroke and was aware of what was happening to her the entire time.

I love how this woman, Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor, is so clearly being herself.  She’s not shy about saying not only what she really thinks, but much more impressively and rarely, what she truly feels. That raw honesty and sincerity earned my respect and appreciation.

Hope you enjoy it too.

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Tags: happiness, personal development

In order to run all three of the pilot projects for which Touchwood has been given a grant, we need to find a volunteer to act as Project Manager for one of the three pilots.

If we don’t, one won’t happen and we will need to return those funds to Awards for All. Malcolm and I are too busy working on the first two and simply don’t have the time to manage all three, so I’m posting here to see if any of you would like to take part.

What’s the project?

The pilot we need help with teaches basic sewing skills through three different classes, each aimed at different types of people and will all be taught by Kirsteen Stewart, local fashion designer and sewing instructor at Orkney College:

“Upcycle” an item of clothing

2-hour or half-day session repurposing an item of clothing in your wardrobe. 12 sewing sessions planned with 3 separate courses:

• Make Your Own Creature for parents and young children
• Junky Style for teens and young adults
• Knockout Knickers for women to make their own knickers

What we need

Someone to act as Project Manager, to make sure this test case happens.

Are you someone who likes organising events? Would you enjoy contacting the local papers and radio to advertise the classes, or figuring out which dates and locations to run the event at?

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Tags: volunteer

I’m always looking for ways to inspire myself and today I’ve come up with the “goal circle”. A goal circle is about figuring out one big goal you have and then seeing each day the progress you’re making towards achieving it.

Some days all I can see is grey, grey, grey — all the things I haven’t done from the dishes and laundry to tax returns and web design work, and I have that moment of thinking I’m not really achieving anything. I find myself glumly musing, “What’s it all for? What am I really doing with my life?”

Then my rational mind jumps in and tries to remind me that yes, I am getting somewhere, that what I do is getting me in the direction I want to go, even if it only feels like a stumbling shuffle to a far distant finish line.

But it’s hard to remember that on days like these, so I’ve been thinking about a simple daily habit that can boost my spirits and put a shine on my pride. Continue Reading »