Making Resources

Left spindle with yarn was made in the wood shop based on the design of the spindle on the right that I bought in the US.

This week we started making our hand spindles in the wood shop at school.  The wood shop manager, David,  has been fantastic in helping us make this a reality. As with all ambitious plans, we realized very quickly that in fact it takes much more time than we had anticipated to create one spindle for each student.  This means that we don’t actually start spinning until next week. I’d say its totally worth it though!  Take a look at the spindles we’re making based on the piece I brought over from the states. Its amazing what a little wood, a few machines, and some enthusiasm can create.

Creating the rounded edges of the spindles base

Smoothing the wood for cutting

While each of the students spends time in the wood shop over the next few days, the rest of the group is working on putting together a DIY handbook. Following our discussions on Monday, the class decided to focus on how to repurpose everyday materials for DIY projects. This idea came directly from our conversations about self-reliance.  The group noted that there are many resources in the immediate area of the school and so much waste that is discarded each day.  What if we could find a way to utilize our existing resources in new ways?   

We divided the class into three groups – each one focusing on a different set of DIY projects for the proposed book:

Group 1: Reuse materials to make new objects

Group 2:  Using existing materials to make tools

Group 3: using existing materials/objects in new ways

As each group develops their projects, we’ll also start discussions about how to make the actual book itself.  More soon on that!