the door is always open

the stirring of a restless wind

Adventures in wonderland

the sejour of the summertime

over and over

TRAID: Textile Recycling for Aid and International Development. These guys are doing something really cool and for a good cause- helping the poorest communities in the world. They receive charity donations from recycling banks, sort it all out, send the quality, wearable clothing to their shops, re-sell it, and use the profits to fight against inequality and exploitation in the global textiles chain. The remainder of the donations are re-styled into something new which is then sold under their recycled fashion label TRAIDremade.

Making something new from something that had seen better days is recycling at its foremost. It's like hand-me-downs, or how one man's junk is another man's treasure, all it needs is a fresh way of being seen. On my (oh-so-slowly expanding) etsy page I've been trying to make things from re-used materials like these dog brooches whose parts come from old dresses and sheets.

Glasgow, a trip to

         

is anybody home?

Some days I feel like I don't want to be seen by anybody. Which is a sort of impossible thing to do I mean unfortunately I can't make myself invisible so when I'm feeling like this and I really have to go outside and walk amid the people I like to feel like I've made myself as hidden within myself as possible. Jeans always help me pretend like I'm in disguise - their nondescript nature make me think of things like Platform 9 and 3/4s in Harry Potter - the way people will look straight at it but their eyes will go through as if it were not there at all. Which is why today I was a plain as possible. One clean but scruffy white shirt (ironing is luxury, not a daily essential) one average style cardigan and one very ordinary pair of denims.

That was me on the outside, but me on the inside was full of busy little details and I put my pen to work in drawing cards and bookmarks to send to friends in the snailmail while drinking coffee from my new mug and thinking how much better off my insides would be if they were being soothed by loving herbal tea instead.