swap for yarn
...from our March'23 swap table held under cherry blossom trees in our community garden
Every year we host one craft circle, where everyone in the group who has been a standing member brings along yarn they want to give away. Before meeting & having our annual swap, I remind everyone to check for moths or other parasitical bugs, encouraging everyone taking part to ensure nothing else travels between our stash yarns.
The idea is anti-capitalist and focuses on community building- as we connect a-new.
“Let’s pass on things we no longer feel the love for and find a new match amongst our group to take our unwanted stuff home… in turn ‘yay’ maybe we ourselves find something we might like for us.”
Always with the focus on our shared intention to see yarn being knit up into new , different, unexpected projects.
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The idea was to gather in the community garden & have our swap there -I luckily get to garden in a small patch of the Interkultureller Garten Wedding/SUZ to grow flowers and vegetables and experience community through this so(il)cial circle.
(feel free to visit it in archive posts, as I have written about the garden and its fruitful soul soil effect on me regularily :)
And, wow, what glorious sunny weather and tree magic we experienced! The cherry and apple trees were in full bloom, with the wind sweeping little petals down to create a floral confetti -only nature knows how to magic this kind of seasonal delight.
Every person had also brought a treat for the buffet, and we started the afternoon sitting around the picnic tables we had previously set up, with a little shade one of the apple trees offered us, munching on cake and fruit whilst chatting and knitting a few stitches.
I made some fire-tea for us using the open fire samovar, which has a tiny little chimney and is my priced possession - I learned about this way of tea making from my Turkish Garden friends. We often make tea for each other this way.
Basically, it is a mini fire place with an inbuilt pot holding water right above the fire (with small oven door). You use extra small wood (like starter wood and dry branches) to make a small but mighty fire… the chimney often smokes and sparkles embers from the fire inside. There is a little tap and once the water is boiling you can make tea.
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Once everyone had arrived and our swap table was fully set up and filled, we all gathered around the table and benches with our mountain of yarn on it. Generally, when I host these events I address everyone to consider each others’ tastes and converse whilst swapping, meaning that if somebody finds sth interesting they check in with the group if anyone else had their eye on it - only after that exclaiming “Yoohoo… I love it, I take it!” and not the other way around. Noone should run down the “door” we created together. Experince shows that it helps to have this little speech, because when we see ‘free’ yarn, (-; sometimes well, we go into overdrive and not everybody is the same=
one person might storm ahead and take a lot,
another might turn shy and feel overwhelmed.
Communication is key.
This time we even swapped finished garments and to be honest I absolutley love how this happens every other year we swap, that also some of us say: this is not my colour, this is not my fit, please try it and see if you feel better wearing this….
…and maybe you can spot it, yes Mimi, aka me, is now the proud owner of the brown & ochre colourwork sweater pictured above, right in the middle of the image.
I am so chuffed with it and grateful for Sara who made it.
Whatever we love we gather in our arms and bags, and those yarns which might end up left behind, still on the table when we have all had a good long look and rummage, maybe walking around the swap table for a second or third time….
Well, once we have finished, the leftovers get donated to schools or a social project where yarn is collected for purposes like weaving with children or sock knitting for people in unfortunate circumstances… There is a local to me Secondhand which also accepts crafting materials and buttons, additionally they collaborate with a centralised drop off for fabrics or other stuff- it is called Haus der Materialisierung, where people definitely look through stuff properly before dooming it unfit for purpose.
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Our crafting group meets every last Tuesday of the month from 19h in a local café which is now under construction as it has changed ownership/ fingers crossed we will be allowed to return. Whilst we wait for them to complete their- by the looks of it -
! extensive! refurbishment we are on a small winter break but I really hope we can come back with a meet up this month. Our group is called Liebes Wedding Strickt and we will meet on 25th March 2025 from 19h in a yet to be confirmed interim location. Please follow liebwedd (IG) for information as soon as we have a meeting place confirmed I will post a #liebesweddingstrickt post on my feed and pin it to the top of my page.
Thank you for reading about our swap table throwback today. I hope this inspires you to join our craft circle if you live near, to check out your local craft supply swaps if you live far, or maybe you feel like you want to start one yourself (?)
because it is always fun to share & care about making from what we already own!
What Mimi loves:
it is #mendmarch created by Kate of visiblemend (IG) and I am joining in with some of the daily prompts focusing on my ·sleeping· mending projects and climbing the mountain of fix-it tasks we as a family have- yet again- accumulated.
I had immense fun following the Fiberuary Challenge prompts by Ceci ceciknitstheworld (IG) aka fiberuarychallenge , did you join in as well?!
my friend Jules gave me a flox multi tool when we met up in Glasgow early 2024 and it is the cutest most helpful thing I have ever seen. I got some as presents for friends inspired by her from wildandwoolly/ Hackney when visiting the uk last Nov
my travelvlog series from then is about to be completed with a final chatty vlog coming to the patreon page soon… please consider subscribing to the vlog tier to see the back catalogue and all new vlogs.
loved writing the analog stashvent letter which became the December/January yarnchix letter for subscribers of that tier on patreon
(pssst* I might me making a very similar letter for yarnchix letter Feb/March ;)
scrap knitting & dedicating time to leftovers from old projects is so amazing & fullfilling, check out this garment alone together I looked at it again after our swap table in the analog photos inspired me. I really want to make sth exactly like it
(bonus: it is a free pattern)…
Berliners, listen up, the neue Nationalgallerie is hosting an exhibition of Nan Goldin you got to, you got to/ got to go!
a spooky, beautiful, timecapsule evoking, silly and inspirational image ( yes, all that at once for me) Nan Goldin photograph from the previous show we visited in Akademie der Künste here in Berlin was: Nan’s self portrait
song of the moment.
to recap: I loved hosting our liebes Wedding strickt group in my spring-vibe community garden, and a highlight was sharing stuff, finding a perfect clourwork sweater for me and cooking the tea for everybody who came along.
(all analog photographs shown here were taken by me)
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thank you for reading my newsletter- it will always be free.
Love, Mimi