Lakefield Herald Special Report

From trash to treasure at the Lakefield Farmers’ Market

The Lakefield Farmers’ Market is home to local food, talent, creativity, and social conscience.

Ruth Dyer, one of 40 vendors at the market, is no exception.

A resident of Lakefield, Ruth takes recycled materials and found objects and turns them into something new and beautiful.

“I like looking at things and thinking what else could that be,” she says.

One of the many creative items that Ruth makes is rag rugs.

She gathers colourful old bed sheets, tears them into strips and sews the strips end to end to create the basic materials for her rugs.

Then she hand crochets them into useful and lovely rugs.

She began crocheting rag rugs four years ago when Marilyn Kerr, another resident of Lakefield, handed her a partially finished rug and suggested she try it. Ruth has been making them ever since.

“I’ve sold hundreds of these rugs in every colour of the rainbow,” she says.

Rag rugs aren’t the only thing Ruth makes. She also creates traditional floor mats by painting flooring remnants with many coats of acrylic paint and applying urethane for a durable finish.

They are great in the kitchen in front of the sink and each one is one-of-a-kind.

“It’s a win-win situation. I make something unique and lasting, and I prevent those flooring remnants from ending up at a landfill site,” Ruth points out.

Ruth’s latest creative venture is hooked chair pads. To make the chair pads, she cuts old discarded wool clothing into narrow strips and hooks those strips into primitive designs that she draws onto burlap.

And that leads to another cooperative recycling story: another vendor at the Lakefield Farmers’ Market, Tracy Cosburn of Kyoto Coffee, who sells only organic, free-trade coffee that she roasts herself, is beginning to supply Ruth with the burlap coffee bags that her green coffee beans come in.

Because the weave in the coffee bags is more open than the burlap she uses for chair pads, Ruth hopes to use the coffee bags for more primitive design hooked rugs that employ wider cut wool. The two women work together to avoid waste and to help each other.

Ruth Dyer’s recycled treasures, as well as many other interesting agricultural, food, and craft products are available each week at the Lakefield Farmers’ Market.

The Market is held every Thursday from 1-6 p.m. in the parking lot beside Isabel Morris Park from now until October 14.

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