Repair - Diary Entry (1) Green Festival of Making & Mending Leicester

Since September 2014, My main project focus has been on repair.

I have been working with Zina, founder of Footpaths, a carbon reduction project in Leicester to organise the Green Festival of Making & Mending on the 31st October 2015 and a serie of events throughout 2015. Our main aim was to introduce people to ingenious ideas to repair and upcycle items in an environmentally friendly way. The event idea stemmed the recognition of our own vulnerabilities. Zina and I were not really the creative/diy type. For me, personally, my hands were only used as so far for typing and some random drawing but never to make something tangible. Maybe they were but I never appreciated their magnificence.

Is gold in our hands?

A year working on festival and following up to that, I mended all my clothes, darned socks and gloves, repaired a mobile phone, made a rag rug and a banner, painted signs, made sculptures out of papers and christmas decorations, repaired pieces of furnitures, shortened curtains.

My hands saved pennies and more...

They connected me to so many people with the skills in Leicester that are willing to share their knowledge and crafts.

I wish they would save the many people across the planet sewing and making clothes and homeware , making furnitures and electrical items everyday for pennies. But the day will come,- I am sure.

To learn more about Footpaths - www.leicesterfootpaths.org.uk