Crafting our way out of economic tough times is an idea from Before Our Time PLUS a Giveaway!!

Crochet, for many of us, has suffered from its connection with 1970s fashion when an acrylic granny square armchair cover or a crocheted string bag was the height of the craft. With samples of crochet being dated as far back as 1000BC it is certainly a long-lived craft but one that has suffered swings in popularity. Prior to the 1800s the craft had largely disappeared in Europe, confined to monasteries and the homes of wealthy ladies of leisure where lace was crocheted for religious garments of the time.

An example of intricate 19th century Irish (crocheted) Lace.

This was until financial disaster struck. Crochet was revived as a widespread pastime during the Irish potato famines of the 1840s and 1850s when it became a major cottage industry for farming families looking to make money any way they could. Now well to do ladies could have their delicate crocheted collars, cuffs and shawls made for them to order. Irish Crochet is extremely delicate lace-work unrecognisable from the crochet we know from the 1970s. By the 1870s it is estimated that there were between 12,000 and 20,000 women in Ireland producing crocheted items for sale.

Fast forward to 2009 and I wonder are we seeing a new resurgence in home-based craft businesses? If evidence coming out of newly bankrupt Iceland is anything to go by then the answer is yes. Reports are that sales of thread, yarn and fabric are high in the tiny nation as its inhabitants are turning to crafting to make money.

And we need only look to the online world to see that home-based crafting businesses are alive and well regardless of the economic climate.

A beautiful child's beanie made by Stacey

Stacy Murray of http://www.sheepsclothing.com.au/ has a love of knitting. She started her home-based knitting business when she found it difficult to find high quality knitted clothes and accessories in contemporary styles and colours for her children. Seeing a gap in the market she launched Sheeps Clothing with both children's and adults styles and now sells her range online and direct to children’s stores here and internationally.

Tracey's Philip is an Astronaut Quilt. Imagine your child's face on this fabulous piece!

Tracey Petersen of http://www.imaginethatquilts.com/ is a passionate sewer and is motivated to create beautiful and unique quilts by order. Her home-based quilting business started when she found herself sitting down to sew for pleasure after midnight each night after finishing work and then putting her children to bed. Exhausted from her sewing in the wee hours she realised that with the sewing skills she had developed she could make sewing and creativity her main job. Tracey now works less, creates more and has achieved an enviable work-life balance.

The common element with these women is their love of their craft and their commitment to the skills, processes and creativity of their products. This weekend seek out a local craft market and you will see many highly skilled craftspeople selling their knitting, beading, crocheting, quilting, photography and sewing. Home-based businesses such as these not only contribute to family income but to the survival of crafting skills generally.

A craft-led economic recovery? A damn fine idea I think.

And now, A GIVEAWAY!

On the theme of crochet and home-based crafting we’d like to giveaway this beautiful hand-crocheted scarf. Crocheted in 100% machine-washable wool from Bendigo Woollen Mills (colour: silver) this scarf will be posted to one of our readers.

All you need to do is promote this giveaway in some fashion – via your blog, twitter or email to friends (don't forget to link to this page!) – then come back to leave a comment that you have done this, preferably with a link to your promotion because we’d love to visit your blog and/or twitter site too!

We will draw the lucky winner out of a hat. This giveaway is open worldwide and will be open until a week from today.

Good luck!

* please note: Before Our Time does not get paid to promote any items. Any reviews positive or otherwise come direct from the heart.

In our time: Grateful for the indoor, flushing toilet

View from above of rows of timber houses with outhouses built by the Queensland Housing Commission in Norman Park, Brisbane, Australia around 1950. The little sheds in each back yard are "outhouses" or "dunnies". (sourced from: Wikimedia Commons)

Here in urban Australia we take it for granted that we can flush our toilets several times a day, with little or no thought about the process of removal of such waste. The sewerage pipes take care of it. We don't need to think about it.

But deep sewerage is a relatively new phenomenon. It was the 1970s before the whole of Brisbane was connected up to it, and parts of Tasmania had to wait until the 1980s. Many rural areas of Australia still use septic tanks on each property, but they do have the benefit of water-flushable toilets.

Many of my parents' generation remember well the days before indoor, flushable toilets. The days of the dunny, the thunderbox, the shed up the back, the outhouse, the sh*thouse, the building at the bottom of the backyard which was often covered by a creeper, perhaps a choko or a morning glory?

The bluestone-cobbled laneways that the inner-suburbs of Melbourne are so renowned for were not designated so that 21st century families could build double-garages with convenient rear-access. They were actually there to provide access for the 'night soil' collectors who came by during the night once or twice a week with their horse and cart, collecting a removable pan of waste from each outhouse and replacing it with a new one.

'Night soil' - such a delicate euphemism for human excrement!

And what, once it was collected, was a night soil collector to do with his bounty? This was an issue that local authorities struggled with over a long period of time. The City of Kingston local history website highlights that, "Much to the annoyance of many local residents the sandy soil in the Shire of Moorabbin was seen by some councils as a prime dumping ground for this accumulating waste," while the Monash City history pages detail how in the Oakleigh area, "Despite various attempts to ban it as harmful to the health, night soil was a major source of fertiliser for the surrounding market gardens" and how in the early part of the 20th century, there were many attempts "to prevent market gardeners taking produce to Melbourne and bringing manure back on the same carts".

Local authorities across Australia drew up by-laws about the hours during which night soil could be carted, and the depth at which it had to be buried.

The City of Kingston article about night soil is particularly interesting if you wish to persue this topic in more detail.

Even once flushable toilets became more common, many households installed them in the existing (or a new) outhouse. In my lifetime, I have certainly made use of many outdoor facilities at people's homes and even nowadays, many cafes and restaurants in strip shopping precincts have facilities 'down the back'.

The outdoor dunny phenomenon has led to a multitude of references in Australian folklore, including the classic 1972 Slim Newton song, The Redback on the Toilet Seat, which is now available as a children's picture book.

I am extremely grateful for the invention before my time of the flushable toilet, and glad that in most Australian houses nowadays, it is located in the warmth and comfort of the main house. However, I am very mindful of the fact that for a large part of the world's population, sanitation is indeed still an issue and that for those people, not having access to basic levels of sanitation threatens their health and opportunities for development.

Those of you who have already seen the Academy-award winning movie, Slumdog Millionaire, will recall a particularly graphic scene involving a long-drop toilet and the main character as a small boy. Everytime I think of that scene I am particularly grateful for my flushable, sewered toilet.

What memories or experiences do you have with non-flushable outdoor toilets?

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Thank you to H&B from House & Baby for suggesting this subject as part of our series on ideas and skills from before our time we can't do without.

H&B wrote, "I had a great old chat with my mum recently re: the dunny man... he had another name though ... nightman, I think? I myself grew up with an assortment of long-drops. I could kiss the flush toilet, in fact, my new one is so un-scathed, I might just do so now...I think about him often as we take our 'shortcuts' down the back alleys of our cobblestoned suburb to get to kindy. I love thinking of the history as I go down the backalleys, and the boys love the bumpy ride in the pram."

This is indeed the kissable new flush toilet at H&B's house. Photo courtesy of H&B.

H&B has been blogging the suburban life since 2006 and is a professional photographer.

If you have something you'd like us to cover please email us at beforeourtime@bigpond.com

Before our time: when others fought for the right of women to vote

Today I wear purple to remember the proclamation of the Suffrage Act on 21 March 1895 in South Australia which gave South Australian women the right to vote in State elections, the first women in Australia to be able to vote.

Australian women were not able to vote in a Federal election until 12 June 1902 and the first female, Edith Cowan, was not elected to parliament until 1921. Worldwide many women still do not have the vote and many more only received the right to vote in recent years. Click here for a list of countries and the dates on which they granted women's suffrage.

Today I'm sure we take it for granted that women can step up to the polling booth but we should take a moment today to remember those brave people from before our time who took a stand and were active in women's suffrage groups that brought about the changes that enabled us to do so.

March is Women's History Month. Why not wear purple and give some thought to those that thought of our daughters.

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Thank you to Fe from Fe...a life for suggesting this subject as part of our series on ideas and skills from before our time we can't do without. Fe describes her blog like this: This blog is where I get to talk about everything and nothing. I'm agonisingly honest and an eternal optimist. Life has thrown some challenges my way, and I discuss them candidly and grittily.

If you have something you'd like us to cover please email us at beforeourtime@bigpond.com

Renovating with ideas from Before Our Time - Air Drying

Readers of this blog will know that last June, at the beginning of winter here in the southern hemisphere, I decided to turn off my clothes dryer and dry my clothes naturally. I was never a big user of the dryer but did rely on it for drying towels, sheets and underwear during the wettest coldest months. To my surprise, I didn’t find going without the dryer particularly inconvenient. The worst element was the sheets which had to be folded several times before being hung but with my central heating even the sheets dried relatively quickly. Once the experiment was over I went back to my old life - with the occasional use of the dryer.

Then at the beginning of January my dryer broke down. Normally I would call a repair person the same day, but I didn’t. I decided to see how long I could go without the dryer. Almost three months later I still don’t have a dyer and, really, I don’t care. In many ways autumn in Sydney is more difficult than winter to dry clothes. The air maybe warm but it is also humid and we have a lot of coastal rain here. Not warm enough to dry the clothes outside many days but too warm to turn on the central heating to help dry them inside so the clothes can sit for days before they are dry. An ugly look and I always imagine the clothes stewing in their juices, eeeewww.

With a small renovation to our kitchen and laundry being drawn up at the moment my thoughts have turned to what design features I should incorporate to allow me to dry clothes effectively all year ‘round in Sydney without a dryer. I have asked the architect to ensure that an outdoor clothesline is well placed to receive the most sunlight and warm breezes but I will also look at the design of the laundry carefully. Currently on wet days I hang clothes indoors on drying racks but this gives the house the look of a commercial laundry.

So I've looked back before our time and decided that a Victorian-style ceiling –mounted drying rack would be perfect. Our house is over 90 years old and has 3.3m ceilings. My new laundry will have a drying cupboard located over a central heating vent and a ceiling mounted drying rack to catch all the warm air that rises to ceiling. An indoor drying solution that is confined to the laundry – that is sure to please everyone.

I will still install a clothes dryer but I hope I never have to turn it on.

Minding your money

The art of saving money is very much a woman's province. Women handle most of the money in the world. Though men are often good with money, women are generally better. Once they have established a goal, they can find ways to cut costs, while maintaining their living standards.

The first goal should be stabilising the family expenditure, the second to establish a sinking fund for emergencies, the third, getting hold of some money on which to base the family fortune.

"Are you making the most of your money?"

Australian Home Journal, February 1967

You can't turn around at the moment without encountering a reference to the Global Financial Crisis (GFC). The newspapers, TV news, radio reports - they're all full of it.

All of which is having the effect of making people very conscious of their own personal finances. Every day I have casual conversations with people about the changes they are making to their spending, or the impact the GFC has had on their superannuation accounts, or how their families, friends or acquaintances have been affected by job restructuring.

The boom-time mentality of the past ten years or so is definitely over.

Perhaps it is time to revisit some of the wisdom regarding finances from before our time.

I was intrigued to read an article from the February 1967 issue of Australian Home Journal and realise how much of what was written then has application today.

"A home is as much a business as a corner shop, and books should be kept. Not the great ledgers of Charles Dickens' times, and certainly not the soul-destroying budget books which list every packet of chewing gum. Just buy a small cashbook, write the month at the top of a double page, make one side the credit side and the other the debit."

In today's world it is easy to lose track of money coming in and going out. ATM withdrawals, direct debiting, eftpos, internet banking, cheque books, credit card charges...it takes a fastidious home accountant to keep on top of it all. But unless you do, how can you keep track of where your money is going and where savings could be made?

"Food is the most flexible item on the agenda and the one where all the economy usually starts."

It seems obvious, but we've become so used to buying what we want, when we want it, that we often forget there is a price to eating out of season. Fruit and vegetables are cheapest when they are in season. With a large freezer, food can be bought in bulk when it's cheap and then consumed throughout the year. Of course, if you don't have a large freezer already it may be false economy to go out and buy one! In our own household, we're currently clearing out our freezer in order to buy a half-side of beef. There are a number of 'cow-pooling' schemes springing up around the world, where families get together to buy a whole cow direct from a farmer and split it up between them. This means you may have to be a little more creative in your menu choices and start to exploring cooking with cuts of meat you don't normally buy, but it can bring the cost per kilo of the meat over the entire carcass down considerably.

"Impulse-buying, according to one bank manager, is probably the worst sin in the business of managing money...'Impulse spending can become a habit that grows and grows, until the impulse is an expensive holiday, or even an unsuitable house.'"

I don't think it takes a bank manager to point out the flaws in the habit of impulse buying! But I'm sure we've all been guilty of buying something on an impulse. It takes a fortitude of spirit to stop and ask, "Do I really need this?"

"Live within your income."

Again, obvious. But do you think all of our global financial managers followed this rule?

"Spend no more than one fifth of your income on rent, or equivalent mortgage payment."

This is one area where costs have slowly crept up over the past forty years. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics 2008 Yearbook in 2005-2006, "For the majority of owner and renter households, housing costs represented less than 25% of gross household income, but for some it was more than 50%.

"Wherever possible buy goods for cash - and use the fact that you are a cash buyer to obtain a discount."

Cash talks. In the current environment, you can certainly negotiate discounts by offering cash.

Definitely some food for fiscal thought there.

What is your favourite money-management tip from before our time?

Australian Icons: The Lamington, a controversial history

Lamington. Noun. A cake confection made by covering a cube of sponge cake in chocolate icing and desiccated coconut. [Apparently named after Lord Lamington, 1860-1940, Governor of Queensland, 1895-1901] Macquarie Dictionary, 4th Ed, 2005

When my daughter started a school project on Lamingtons as part of their discussion of Australian icons I had no idea of the controversy of which she was to become a part. History, we know, is written by the victors and it seems the lamington has a past clouded by hearsay and convenient recollection.

The Lamington regularly finds its way to lists of Australian icons alongside the Sydney Harbour Bridge, the Kangaroo, Vegemite and the meat pie. For much of the last 100 years it has been a popular addition to any “bring a plate” event, although in recent years it is more likely to be store bought than made at home.

Much of the Lamington’s iconic status probably derives from its suitability for our climate as sponge cake lasted much longer in the heat when it was iced in bite-sized squares and covered in coconut; and it also became a staple at fundraising events (known as Lamington Drives) where it could be made easily in large quantities.

The Lamington’s origins, however, are quite cloudy. The Lamington is not only claimed by Australians as a popular dish but also by New Zealanders (as the Lemmington, or Leamington) and by the Scots. It is most likely that the name derives from either Lord or Lady Lamington. Lord Lamington was the Governor of the State of Queensland from 1895-1901.

The most popular story is that a kitchen maid of Lord Lamington accidentally dropped some sponge cake into some chocolate icing and then rolled it in coconut to stop it from being too sticky to handle. However, some further research by Australian author Jackie French unearthed a story that it was invented in the early 1900s by a Queensland cooking teacher, Amy Shauer, and that they were named after the cooking school’s patron – Lady Lamington.

[the CWA Cookery Book and Household Hints, Perth WA 1936]

Recipe books written before 1910 describe the Lamington as a whole cake iced in chocolate and coconut rather. Bite-sized lamingtons didn’t appear in cookbooks until a few years later, giving more impetus to the Lady Lamington story over the Lord Lamington one.

Historians before our time were apt to attribute discoveries to the most senior person on an expedition or a local government official so perhaps the common attribution of the this iconic cake to Lord Lamington rather than Lady Lamington is just another example of this practise.

I think we will never know the true history of the lamington, although I’m quietly cheering for the Lady Lamington story. Perhaps you have a different lamington story? Or perhaps the Scots and New Zealanders out there would like to weigh in with a completely different history?

Living the past - 1790s style

Remember when I sacrificed my hot showers in the name of research for the 1930s bathing challenge? I was pretty proud of sticking with the sponge-bathing routine for a whole week.

But Scottish writer and museum researcher, Fiona Houston, puts my paltry effort to shame. In 2005, she embarked on a year-long project to live as her forebears had in 1790s Scotland - housing, clothing, food, agriculture, technology...all exactly as it had been for her ancestors.

In this video she talks a little about the project:


Fiona has now published a book with a detailed account of how she lived that year, The Garden Cottage Diaries. (Check the link for an interesting extract from the book regarding the making of nettle soup.)

The publisher says about the book:

Bemoaning the evils of the modern diet, Fiona J Houston was challenged to prove her claim that people ate better 200 years ago than they do today. Thus began an extraordinary experiment: for a full year, she immersed herself in the 1790s lifestyle of her rural ancestors. She wore home-made clothes, ate from her garden (frequently entertaining family and friends), learned lost crafts and skills, and endured dark, cold winter nights with only her fire and candles for warmth and light. Her quirky, lively and down-to-earth account is packed with history, folklore, facts, practical tips and curiosities.

If you are interested, the book can be obtained direct from the publisher (UK readers). For non-UK readers, I discovered I could get it from http://www.bookdepository.co.uk/ who deliver worldwide for free.)

The part that would really get to me, I think, would be sleeping on a straw mattress. Give me my inner-sprung posturpedic any day. And hot showers.

Reading about Fiona Houston's experience made me reflect on the lives of my own ancestors, who also lived in Scotland, however I then started to think about how life would have been for women in Australia in the same time frame and what it would take to live that life for a year.

If you were a woman in Australia in the early 1790s you fell into one of three groups; Indigenous women living a traditional life, convict women transported for crimes committed in Britain, or the wives and families of the officers, marines and ships' crews accompanying the first fleets to establish the new penal colony of New South Wales. After 1793 a new group joined them, the free settler women.

Life for most of these women was tough, and particularly so for the second of these groups. The conditions on the transportation ships were horrendous. There were one hundred female convicts aboard the Lady Penrhyn of the First Fleet. Many of them were ill and they were badly clothed. They had been imprisoned in England for years before transportation and had bathed infrequently. Five women died before the ship even set sail and many others died on the journey or soon after arrival.

Once they were in New South Wales, the convict women were assigned to military or free families and worked as servants doing hard physical labour, or worked in groups building roads. They lived in barracks or in tents. There are many interesting stories about what happened to these women, some of which can be read at the Australian Government Culture and Recreation Portal.

Many convicts received pardons or tickets of leave within a few years of arriving in New South Wales and they then attempted to build a new life in this very strange land.

In her excellent novel, The Secret River, Australian writer Kate Grenville immerses the reader into the experience of creating that new life on the banks of Hawkesbury River in the early 1800s. It was truly frontier territory. In addition to having to start from scratch in building shelter, growing food, securing fresh water and tending animals, the settlers had to negotiate living alongside Indigenous people who already had rights to this land. The 'negotiations' were often carried out through violence.

The main character in The Secret River is William Thornhill, a bargeman from London who is transported to New South Wales in the early 1800s for the term of his natural life. He arrives with his wife Sal and their children. Eight years later, Thornhill is a free man who sails up the Hawkesbury River to claim a hundred acres.

I found his wife Sal to be a fascinating character. She holds very dearly to the idea of returning to England and yet, she battles on with a stoic determination to create a home and life.

It is a world in which there is no medical treatment for sick children, where crops fail and families starve. Supplies are days, if not weeks, away and there is little communication with the outside world. The 'house' is a rough-hewn hut constructed out of forest timbers. Despite the area being reasonably rich in natural flora and fauna, for the Thornhills there was nothing but salt pork and damper to eat as they were unwilling to learn from the local Indigenous experience.

It would be a life of extreme physical hardship and, while I am in complete awe of Fiona Houston's Garden Cottage project, I wouldn't be volunteering to take on a year in a Hawkesbury hut. I think this is definitely a case where it is better to experience it vicariously through the pages of fiction.

A year as a 19th century English lady of the manor, however... I think I would be up to that task.

What previous life would you be prepared to live for a year?