Somehow I found the time to experiment with making felted slippers. Unfortunately, the first couple of tries did not go as planned and left me frustrated, red faced and covered in soap and wool. Hey, we all have DIY failures every so often - this was the lumpy, misshapen result:
Eventually I decided to bite the bullet and ask the internet what to do. I ended up following this tutorial and it worked brilliantly...
But by that point I was exhausted and running out of time so I only made one. I'll put up a more detailed post when I find time to make the other.In other news, my flatmate Helen recently got given her grandmother's old bike. According to legendary and eccentric bicycle expert Sheldon Brown, it's seriously old: the brand is BSA or Birmingham Small Arms, which got bought out by Raleigh in 1957.
It's remarkably similar to Isobel's Raleigh Lady's Sports in terms of shape and style - step through frame, coaster brake on the back hub, 26" wheels and North Road handlebars. The kind of bike made for a time when normal people rode bikes.I took it apart before taking any photos, but here's the frame:
Some beautiful lugwork detail that would move a vintage bike nerd to tears:
And a quirky touch on the front mudguard:
The bad news is that the wheel rims are both heavily buckled and rusty...
... double bad news, in fact, because one of the many quirks of these old bikes is that the front wheel has 32 spokes and the back wheel has 40, neither of which are standard anymore for 26" wheels. In a matter of hours we're going to head down to the community bicycle workshop Mechanical Tempest at 128 Abel Smith Street and see if there are any old wheels we can cannibalise. Fingers crossed we can get this old beauty back on the road, and get Helen on some wheels!
