Edition 4 — Make
Creativity is the mother of all tonics. Strike a match and light the creative fire in your belly: get making.
Edition 4 — Make
The pandemic has changed everything. Collectively, we have had a lot to grieve. We have lost loved ones and social freedoms. Celebrations have been put on ice. With no clear endpoint ahead, it is important to take stock of where we are at and consider how we wish to evolve from this point.
Making means putting things together, combining parts to bring something else into existence. 2020 has been a rough year. The festive season is around the corner and 2021 sits on the horizon as flat and shiny as a fresh page. I can't think of a better time to create something new, something better than before.
This edition we are celebrating the art of making things. Creativity is the mother of all tonics. Get curious and crafty: play with clay or dabble in weaving. Whatever your vice, be curious and enjoy the creative process. Tap into your consumer and individual power; explore how you can make a change in your community. When nothing in life makes sense, it is comforting to know we can always make bread. This editions recipe, The Life-Changing Loaf of Bread, will put everything to rights.
Strike a match and light the creative fire in your belly: get making.
Lead image via Maria Sigma website
Make: Time to create
Creativity has the power to heal and has a calming effect on a busy mind. How we choose to define creativity is up to us. Rest assured, you do not have to be Anish Kapoor or Eva Hesse to consider yourself creative. 'Making', as defined by you, can be tinkering in the shed, or pottering in the garden, crafting your own Christmas cards, or making a batch of jam. The possibilities are endless. What matters is that we allow ourselves to be lost in the activity and abandon our own judgement. Being curious and playful is where we find the most joy.
To help you along your journey, I have curated a selection of the best online tutorials and inspiration for you below.
Keep your hands from being idle with a knitting or crocheting project from We are Knitters. Pick your pattern, wool, and delivery method, and you are good to go! We are Knitters pride themselves on their hand-dyed sustainably sourced Peruvian wool and crafting materials. They use no plastic in any of their products or delivery packaging.
Kana London, image via Wolf and Badger
#clayathome with Kana London. Whilst the studio is closed, Kana London created Kana Club which offers everything you need on your ceramics journey. Products range from tools and clay to masterclass tutorials. Kana London offers a wide variety of projects to choose from and gift options are available, too.
Maria Sigma creates hand-woven sustainable textiles with a zero-waste philosophy. Maria claims "weaving makes us feel good." She believes weaving is the creative antidote to feeling overwhelmed, stressed, and anxious. Maria offers weaving and upcycling tutorials that teach you how to weave using objects found around the house and tools at home. The only limits are the ones you set for yourself. If that doesn't appeal, you can also buy bespoke weaving kits that include a loom and materials.
Kathryn Davey natural dying, image via 91 Magazine
Before we had chemical-dyes we relied on natures bounty to dye fabrics and materials. Ireland-based Kathryn Davey offers workshops on hand-dying using plant extracts. Kathryn has also written an e-book, How to Naturally Dye with Avocado Stones, that covers all the basics of natural dyeing. Avocado stones and skins dye fabrics in a soft blush pink shade, perfect for festive linen that will see you through 2020 to the new year.
For more inspiration on how to get creative at home, Crafts Council selected 11 of the best books for at-home crafting. Topics include basket weaving, paper marbling, trash origami, and textile mending. Read the full list here.
Lead image Kathryn Davey natural dying via Remodelista
Make: A change
2020 has bought grief and loss to many. We haven't lost just our loved ones, but our jobs and routines, too. The pandemic has created a powerful sense of loss in our lives. In doing so, Covid has exposed invisible class lines, shone a light on institutionalised racism, and highlighted gender disparity. The status quo has officially been shaken and a new chapter has begun.
We must come together to face these challenges and seek out proactive resolutions. A great place to start is to look at where you are spending your money. Each time you spend your hard-earned cash, you are voting for a business and a system, often without even realising it.
Think about where you can change your habits to support ethical and independent businesses. These business models are often smaller and have a social impact policy in place, too. Hilary Osbourne recently wrote an ethical shopping guide for The Guardian. The headline says it all: 'It's as easy as from a big-box retailer': ethical and local options for Christmas shopping.
With so much change happening on a global stage, it can be tempting to cling to the stability of what we already know. However, for the most part, stability is an illusion. It can be far more liberating to embrace change and use this pivotal moment in time to revise how we hold businesses accountable in a meaningful way. Together, we can build better structures than the ones we had before. The first step in this process is to look at what we can do in our own communities and be open to possibilities.
Reading can help us to open our minds and shift our perspectives. Waterstone's knows this. To incite understanding and compassionate change, they created a list of educational books on the topic of social injustice and prejudice. The books on this list share stories that are "vitally important discourse and bear witness to the Black experience in the twenty-first century". Titles include Black and British by David Olusoga, Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo, and Maya Angelou's iconic I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. Read their full list here.
Social change is nothing without action. The delicious, divine, sublime, Tony Chocolonely's chocolate believes in fair-trade and slave-free chocolate. If you manage no other changes this year, sign their petition to make 100% slave-free chocolate the law.
Lead image by Perry Rowe, via Perry Rowe website
Make: The Life-Changing Loaf of Bread
I was introduced to this bread when I visited my friend S. in Norway. I can’t think of that trip without recalling what I now associate with the taste of Scandinavia: smoked salmon, eggs, nutty bread, and strong coffee.
S. lives in Stavanger, a picturesque town located on Norway’s west coast. Norway is known for its breathtaking scenery, and I think it would be fair to say that Stavanger and it’s surrounding areas has more natural beauty than most. We ate this bread on nature trails as a snack and as breakfast in the cabin before we set off each day, which is to say it is versatile, and pairs excellently with coffee.
Because this bread is so healthy you are free — no, encouraged, to load it up with all kinds of flavour combos that really take it to the next level. My favourite remains smoked salmon and avocado, and if I have fresh herbs nearby I’ll generously garnish it with dill or parsley.
As soon as I arrived home in London, I got to work recreating it in my own kitchen, far from the fjords of Norway. The Life-Changing Loaf of Bread has a cult following, hence the name. You’ve likely heard of it before. Sarah Britton created it for her blog, My New Roots, and let me just say it is the easiest bread recipe that I’ve ever made.
Each time I make it, it takes me back to Scandinavia and if I concentrate hard enough, I can phase out the hum of London and instead pretend I am atop a Norwegian fjord.
1 cup / 135g sunflower seeds
½ cup / 90g flax seeds
½ cup / 65g hazelnuts or almonds
1 ½ cups / 145g rolled oats
2 Tbsp. chia seeds
4 Tbsp. psyllium seed husks or 3 Tbsp. if using psyllium husk powder
1 tsp. fine grain sea salt
1 Tbsp. maple syrup or honey
3 Tbsp. melted coconut oil or ghee
1 ½ cups / 350ml water
Firstly, you want to take all your dry ingredients and combine them in a bowl. Put your dry ingredient mixture to one side. Mix the water, coconut oil or ghee, and the honey in a separate bowl. Or, if you’re a little lazy like me, chuck them straight into the dry ingredients bowl because they’re all heading there together eventually.
Add the wet ingredients to the dry and mix, mix, mix, until it is all combined. You want the mixture to be a little ‘sticky’, but not ‘gluggy.’ Add a little extra water here if you need.
Once your powers are all combined, place the mixture into a greased loaf pan. I like to grease my pans with coconut oil or ghee, depending on what I have on-hand. Cover the loaf pan and leave it on the side to vibe for at least 2-hours, although you can leave it for longer if that’s your jam.
Preheat the oven to 175 degrees celcius. Then, bake the loaf for 20 minutes. After this, remove the bread from the pan and bake for an additional 30-40 minutes on a baking rack.
Go with your gut, and trust that your bread is ready when it’s golden brown on the outside and crispy on all the little edges. Leave to cool for a short while before slicing and enjoying with all the delicious toppings your little heart desires.
All images via My New Roots
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