Working for The Co-op

I finally landed a job with my dream employer, The Co-op. I started 2 weeks ago and it's been great.
There are a lot of changes happening as The Co-op hit a pretty bad patch when The Co-op Bank suffered some serious losses. I was a bit miffed to find out that The Co-op now only owns 20% of The Co-op Bank as I bank with Smile and own a Co-op Member Credit Card. 

But being now an employee and a colleague member is in a different league. I went to the 'Back to being Co-op' session on Monday and thoroughly enjoyed it. The idea is to go back to The Co-op's roots, i.e. the Rochdale pioneers who pooled together to open a shop where they'd sell proper flour, not chalk. 

And yesterday, I met some of the Food Business' Quality Assurance team - how they verify potential suppliers' credentials and check products supplied. Is this olive oil really extra virgin??? Stuff that doesn't sell gets passed onto FareShare who redistribute to local charities. I got a goodie bag of toilet paper, crisps, mackerel and apple. :) And said goodie bag is made from recycled material: check this entry on The Co-op's blog.

:)
I'm also part of the Taste Team so yesterday we got a sample of Italian meats like Parma Ham and Salami. And on Wednesdays, there is a tasting session on the ground floor. Last week we had a lush goats cheese pizza, today granola! There was also a talk about a co-operative producing cocoa in the Ivory Coast that benefits from The Co-op's stance on fair trade.

Tomorrow I'll be lending my colleagues a hand at my local Co-op Store, promoting the new membership. 1% of what you spend on Co-op own brand products (and wills, and funeral plans) will go back to your community.

Sewing Project: Upcycling a Jumper into a Cardigan

Hi,
as I mentioned in my April post, I have several sewing projects I need to finish, and here is one I have finally managed to complete: turning a cashmere jumper into a cardigan/ jacket.
I started this project at a French Knots 'Clothes Clinic' workshop in June 2015. My grandma gave me that jumper in the 1990s, so it was a bit tight, but it is cashmere and a lovely almond green colour, so, despite the fact that it seems to be a magnet for moths, I just could let go of it.
Jo encouraged me to be quite radical about it, and I liked the idea of a Chanel-style cardigan/ jacket, so I chopped off the ribs at the bottom so that the hem would sit at my waist, and cut the cuffs off so that it would have 3/4 sleeves. I also widened the neckline and cut the front straight in the middle.



I then started sewing some floral bias binding along the 2 front edges and the neckline. Then, unfortunately, the project sat in the sewing room for more than a year, where two moths managed to have another go at it.
But I picked it up again on Tuesday for French Knots' Sewcial, and finished it yesterday at last. Here is the finished product:

It's good to have finally finished this. Now, I have another six French Knots projects to finish, in particular my Advent bunting that I started in November 2014 and didn't finish in time for Christmas 2014, nor Christmas 2015. I really want to put it up by 1st of December 2016 - it's good to have a deadline.
I will incorporate the patchwork star cushion I made in September 2014 into a quilt I started in October 2014.
I still keep the Dorset brooch in my handbag (started in January 2015) - must admit whenever I have a moment, I tend to read my Kobo rather than progress this embroidery progress. It would look perfect on my new cardigan though.
Still need to sew the buttons on  the patchwork clock (started January 2015).
And still need to assemble the bamboo handle bag (started in February 2015).
I also now have a snap purse to finish, and I made a dolman-sleeved T-shirt yesterday - my first attempt with jersey - that just a hem and cuffs.
Watch this space!

Baking: Banana Tea Bread

Hi,
not posted in a while, probably hit by SAD.
But I've managed to catch up with quite a few things over the past few weeks, such as cleaning the windows (with diluted vinegar and a microfibre cloth, very easy) and tidying up my 'sweet' recipes.

I have several categories, the most imposing ones being chocolate and lemon, but also fruit (from apricot brioche tarte to summer pudding) and things to make for Christmas presents (chutneys, biscuits, spicy nuts, etc.).

In the course of that, I've determined to try my own recipe of brownie.

But first, a repeat of Annie Bell's Banana and Date Tea Bread, a recipe I cut out of The Independent a long time ago. My friend David gave me 2 bananas on Friday and by now (Wednesday) they still hadn't gone completely mushy, but were soft enough for this recipe.

Annie starts with the mashed bananas, chopped dates and golden syrup. I swapped the dates with prunes and the syrup with very fragrant honey from Marsden, West Yorkshire.

Butter creamed with muscovado sugar, 2 eggs, 2 tbsp milk.

Instead of just plain flour, I used 100g of freshly delivered Marriage's organic light brown plain flour (sounds nice not using bleached flour!) (as well as very old baking powder) and 150g or so of left-over wholemeal self-raising flour - I hope there was enough moisture in the recipe to allow for the wholemeal portion. And then I added 40g desiccated coconut, and some milk chocolate stars, for lushness.

Lookin' goooood... Hope the kids like it...

The Honey Bee, a messenger of love

Been watching interesting but scary films about honey bees, colony collapse disorder (CCD) and wider issues.

When we had an allotment (early part of the noughties), a Belgian friend kept bees and was worried about them being ill. Since then, this issue has really hit the media.



In 'Vanishing of Bees' (2009), we learn that pollination was worth $50 billions a year in the USA around 2009. I suppose that's why people started paying attention. Great explanation of the impact of monoculture and pesticides, old and new.
Unfortunately, the subtitles of the French interview are incorrect. They mention bad French keepers, whereas the interviewee talks about the French (bee) disease. The French state led the way by banning Bayer's Gaucho systemic pesticide. The UK and the USA have not followed in these foot steps.



'More than Honey' (2012) is very powerful. It contains very precise elements about the science of bee keeping, from queen breeding to parasites. I have been haunted by the fate of this poor old man who had to destroy his great-grandfather's hive of native black honey bees contaminated in a secluded valley in the middle of the Alps. The sights of bees in the post and pollination by human hands in China are also shocking.

It's also interesting to hear one almond tree grower defend monoculture on the basis of his 35 years' experience, whereas in 'Vanishing of the Bees' they showed how almond tree growers demanded the import of Australian bees to compensate for the loss of American bees to CCD. It was reported in February 2015 that this same grower, owner of Paramount, has now purchased Headwaters Farm, which was founded by Dave Mendes, who featured in Vanishing.

Commercial bee-keeping is just mind-boggling: they drive hives around the USA to pesticide-stuffed orchards (two-week window in February in California for almonds, apple and cherry blossom in Washington in March-April, apricot tree in North Dakota in the summer, etc.), where the colonies contaminate each other, and they feed bees sugar water and antibiotics.

15,000 hives at $150 per 2-week stay - are we looking at $7 million yearly turnover?

See the Co-operative's Plan Bee initiative.

See the Soil Association's Keep Britain Buzzing campaign.

See Friends of the Earth's The Bee Cause campaign.

Please sign 38 Degrees' petition to keep the ban on bee-killing pesticides.

#savebees

Brighton Waste House - I'd live there!

Found out about this house/ project in an email from Good Day at Work that has been sitting in my inbox for a while, and led to this article in the Guardian.

Look at this! How amazing is it? I love the look of that house covered in carpet tiles, 

and the carpentry students did a wonderful job inside.

We got rid of hundreds of VHS tapes and boxes last year so I can relate to this. I'm not convinced it's safe to use the VHS tapes for insulation because they are full of harmful chemicals - I suppose you'd have to remove the tape from the casing first. But the boxes - yes, why not?

The headlining 20,000 toothbrushes, the Guardian tells us, 'came from a company that cleans planes after long-haul flights. This vast quantity represents the harvest of just four days'. Now that's scary...

I'm curious to know how well they will fare in the insulating quality tests.

For further details, visit the architect's website: BBM. It looks like they have already produced a lot of eco-friendly projects. There's also a list of articles where the house was featured - I just read the first one to find more pictures.

Sewing activities - projects to finish

At some point, I will finish the patchwork star cushion cover I started in September 2014.
Since then, I also started:
an Advent bunting (2 workshops with French Knots in Sale in Nov14),
a Dorset brooch that I carry in my handbag at all times - easy to keep oneself occupied whilst waiting (Jan15),
a patchwork clock (just need to sew the buttons) (Jan15) and
a bamboo handle bag (missed half of the workshop because I was finishing some work at home; at least I had time to cut the fabric - Feb15).

I did manage to finish the squishy patchwork cushion I started on 31/03/15:

I also had a lovely time at the parent and child sewing workshop. The options were an owl or a dog, but DS1 wanted to make a dinosaur:

DS1 chose the fabrics and learned to pin the pattern to the fabric and to do running stitch and back stitch, and to sew on buttons.

http://www.frenchknots.co.uk/

Patchwork Star

Thank God for crafty workshops that keep me making now that I'm at work full time.

Latest effort is this gorgeous star - my children chose the colour scheme. Squares then triangles...