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Amelia: The link between bloomers and women's suffrage. I took my Witch's Britches to the Wychwood Forest Fair earlier this year. It was one of the best fairs I'd attended in a long while, and the perfect blend of country show and vicar's tea party (The latter possible only because the sun shone so gloriously). My stall was situated opposite a most inspiring woman who displayed heavy horses that she worked, single-handedly, in forests and woodlands of Wales. But, I digress...             As I slowed at the entrance to the ground that morning, gave my...

  Meet my circular sock machine... It's a British turn-of-the-century antique Cymbal machine. The photo here, shows a cylinder with 86 upright needles. This one was beautifully cleaned and oiled for me. As a complete beginner, I was advised to buy a brand new machine, as they don't present so many quirky challenges. But this antique machine is just stunning, isn't it? It sits in my sitting room and doesn't look out of place at all. This means I can sit and crank when I fancy, and I don't have to set up and put away every time I work....

So, what logo, I wondered.... Let's have a goddess, but we'll be careful of copyright. Maybe I'll find a picture to draw... What should she be? Sexy, free, in her own power, natural and wild. All of these things, and more. Let's add 'soaring' and 'inspirational'. I might have typed 'enchantress', or 'fairy', and being a lover of the woods and forests, I might have added these things, too. As my tick box list got longer, my search got smaller. And there she was...The perfect witch for my britches, but she didn't have britches... I'll put britches on her, change...

At quite a young age I fell in love with Thomas Hardy's novel, Tess of the D'urbervilles. It was possibly the first book that had so vividly and completely filled my mind's eye with another harder, but very romantic lifetime. Tess, a beautiful and strong character, so hard working, and so hard done by! Wouldn't we all have changed her fortune if we could have? I was already knitting, sewing simple clothes and selling soft toys, etc, for Christmas money. I also spent a lot of time in the countryside and on my smallholding with my beloved milking goats. My...