Many of us turned to crafting during the lockdowns of the pandemic, learning new skills, or returning to old hobbies with renewed vigour or in some cases desperation.
Global research shows that the repetitive actions, multi-sensory engagement and satisfaction in creating something physical has a significant impact on our wellbeing, and reduces stress. The meditative nature of repetitive movements, demand for focus and attention in the moment have a restorative impact. Researchers from University College London; Sydney Australia and Finland have found textile crafts particularly result in positive feelings and emotions. Knitting and crochet, sewing and embroidery can, it appears, be real secret weapons in the feel-good fight!
But crafting on a narrowboat needs to come with a health warning. It can add to stress by significantly reducing the space one has to live in! Lockdown found me returning to knitting, something I learned as a young child in Scotland, and which I have picked up from time to time, but this time I returned with a vengeance. Jumpers, hats, scarves, all gleefully flew off the needles.
Crochet had always seemed a dark art to me – ending up in wiggly strands and strings of knots rather than clear shapes, but lockdown changes all that too. There’s a Facebook group for everything it seems, and the gloriously named Narrowboat Hookers and Stitchers community advised me to try some of the YouTube beginners videos (yes, there are videos for everything too), and hey presto – crochet became yet another passion.
Patterns, freely shared by other crafters became sources of new ideas, new stitches, new opportunities. Wool bought from other crafters who spin and dye, gifted by family and friends, sourced from charity shops, became positively therapeutic creations.
One of the joys of crafting is giving and gifting items, but when you’re gleefully intent on producing on an almost daily basis, even birthdays and Christmases just aren’t enough to absorb the output. The shower cubicle had to shrink as a result, and shelves of large boxes filled steadily with colours and items of all sorts. Baby clothes, toys, amigurumi animals and birds, hats, jumpers, traditional ganseys, and then headbands, bags, blankets, ponchos, gnomes, bunting….you’re getting the picture!
Every cushion cover on the sofa has a different shape each being stuffed with wool waiting to be used! What was space under the dining/office table is now crammed with boxes, containers and bags stuffed with buttons, ribbons, threads and stuffing. We’ve become versed in the intricacies of eco-friendly stuffings like buckwheat hulls versus synthetics.
Then the constraint of the boxes was outgrown and on a 50ft narrowboat space really is limited. So we began realising that we should from time to time, hold stalls to sell some of these items. That though isn’t quite so straightforward as it might sound. Setting up a stall alongside the boat in nice weather in a location where there will be passers by sounds ideal and very eco friendly. The transport costs of goods to market are probably a few feet at the most! To do that though requires a trader’s licence from Canal and River Trust. We duly applied, answered what seemed like an awful lot of questions, paid them more money, and began what proved a ridiculously complicated round of trying to get insurance. This presumably not in case our scarves strangle anyone or people overheat in our jumpers, but for public liability – in case people fall in the canal and injure themselves because they get so carried away looking at our goods on the outside of the boat! Finally we found insurance thanks to the support of other traders who recommended companies for us to try, and then we were able to obtain our traders licence.
In between times we took time out to go and see other traders, looking at how they displayed their goods, what they produced, and taking on board their freely, generously given advice. There are informal sales and formal markets, many run by the Roving Canal Traders Association. I don’t think there’s much that can’t be made and bought from a boat – from cheese to dog treats (our Boatdog thinks there’s no difference between those two things) from clothes to curtains, chimneys and culinary delights of all kinds.
We learned quickly that the weather dictates selling outdoors – overheated customers shun woolly goods in a heatwave as they beat a sweaty path to the ice cream boat. You don’t want to put up an outdoor stall in pouring rain or windy weather – no one will stop and stock will get ruined. You also need time to promote what and when you’re available so travelling from place to place every day doesn’t give any opportunity for marketing. We’ve also been talking to fellow boating crafters who want to sell their wonderful makes, but don’t want to trade themselves.
Now we have our licence, and we are settled in Leicestershire to be near and support family, it’s time to bite the bullet and get trading…but where given this weather?
An indoor pre-Christmas market seemed the best thing to start with – and we found one, a stone’s throw from the River Soar (where we had hoped to moor until the recent floods). We won’t be trading from the boat but not far away, and better still, we will be trading at a riverside pub that serves local ale and mulled wine. Seems an excellent alternative venue!
We will dip our toes into trading at The Swan Christmas Market in Mountsorrel on Saturday, 16 December. If you’re nearby do come along and see us – we’re really looking forward to meeting lots of customers, seeing people enjoying and buying our goods, and it will be glorious having more living space on the boat again! If you aren’t nearby, then we will be holding floating pop-up shops as we travel in 2024, advertising where and when we’ll be via our Instagram account @MovingCrafts. We look forward to seeing you sometime, somewhere, before too long.
Pickingupducks 