It's August and I'm Already Making Christmas

Someone at a market table asked me what I was working on. I told her Christmas. It was July. She had a wee laugh, then clocked that I was not joking.

So here we are in August, and my bench is covered in samples nobody will see until November. Half of them will not make it that far. That is just the job.

I get why it looks daft. A big-box store can pick a product in October and have a container of it landing in December. I cannot. There is one of me, a pile of retired climbing rope, and a lot of hours.

Why handmade Christmas starts in August

Rope does not turn up when I want it. It turns up when a climbing wall retires a batch. Some months I get a mountain. Some months I get nothing at all.

Ropes get retired after five to ten years even when they look perfectly fine, because the core wears out where you cannot see it. That is a safety call the walls make on their own schedule, not mine.

So when a wall hands me a big lot in August, that is the rope that becomes December's gifts. I cannot reorder it. There is no second batch in a nicer colour. What I have is what you get.

Then there is the making. Every recycled climbing rope belt is cut to an exact waist size, anywhere from 22 inches to 50 inches. Nothing is stamped out in a run of a thousand. It is measured, cut, sealed and finished by hand, one at a time.

What four months of lead time actually buys you

Four months of lead time means I can throw things away. That sounds mad, but it is the whole point.

If I started in November I would have to sell whatever came off the bench first. Starting now means the first version can be rubbish. The second can be nearly right. The third is the one that goes in the shop.

It also means I can match colours properly. Rope comes in whatever the wall had. Getting a belt where the strands actually look good together takes sorting, not luck.

The best gifts for climbers are not bought in December

Here is the honest bit. Come December I will run out of things. Not because I am playing hard to get, but because I only ever had one bench and one pile of rope.

If you already know who you are buying for, the gifts for climbers collection is the easiest place to start. Bracelets are £12 and made to wrist size. Keychains start at £2.90. A dog lead is £24 and outlasts anything from a big-box store.

If you do not know their waist size and you are not about to ask, a Forma gift card starts at £10 and never turns up in the wrong size. And if you just want to see what is on the bench right now, everything ready to go sits in available now.

Buy early and you get the pick of the colours. Buy in December and you get whatever is left, which might be nothing. I am not being dramatic. That is just what one pair of hands looks like.

Anyway. Back to the bench. There is a prototype sat there that I already know is wrong, and August me is the only one who can fix it in time.

Stay classy and remember,
Make Waste Useful.

George