Category Archives: recycling

September 21, 2016 · 1:00 AM

Work it!

I say I don’t really care about clothes, yet so much of my fiber time is spent on things to go on my body, and I poke around ravelry and blogs from people making nothing but clothing, so perhaps it is more that I don’t give a damn about fashion, but I am interested in what covers my hide – especially plant and animal fuzz in variations not found off the rack.

During our last couple of moves I got rid of nearly all of my warmer weather work-work clothes – most were looking a bit shabby, many never fit well or as comfortably as I’d have liked, and the rest were useless for working from home. I kept a couple of things for the rare warm weather meeting or conference, but the majority of work events in my then field took place in colder times or colder cities so my uniform of thrift store cashmere sweaters and woolen trousers or skirts was vast and has endured. The rest of my current duds were best for actual work (gardening or home improvement), hiking and other outdoor pursuits, or a few “nice” pairs of yoga pants and jeans for running to the grocery.

But…

I finally landed a new job – albeit part-time and temporary, but enough to keep my head above water until I figure out what comes next – but I had exactly two warm-weather work-work appropriate outfits for three days a week, and the late summer heat has kept them sweaty and in the wash.

So I raided my fabric stash for new clothes to sew (still haven’t made anything yet*), my thrifted clothes in the fabric stash for things I could actually wear now instead of cutting them up for quilts and whatnot (a few shirts are good to go, and another few could be altered), and my current clothes that needed to be mended or improved.

A pair of old pants with newly cleaned-up hems failed to make the cut – and I’m thinking about undoing them to go back to their pleasant shreddiness, but my time would be vastly better spent doing other things, right? And there’s a small hole in the butt that will probably send them into the gardening/home improvement only category soon anyway.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BKEcKJ_BN9W/

And linen, once well worn and oh-so-soft and floppy (especially if purchased used to begin with) needs to stay in the hammock or beach.

But now two other pairs of pants have that annoying interior button again (that sometimes causes me to forget to zip my fly since I’ve already just dealt with two fastenings) but prevents wardrobe malfunction and helps the button band to lay flat. And a cardigan has a top button again after a few wonderful hours spent in my button stash (that were entirely for naught since I found the perfect matching spare button still attached to the inside hem).

And I rescued a few of my old blouses for more practicality (rather than just being worn under sweaters) by sewing the button band closed so it wouldn’t gape open – this is something I should have done to several of them even before I had increasing fit issues. And depending on the shirt and/or the temperature and humidity outside, I can’t bear to wear a tank top underneath otherwise, so this was an excellent fix.

I stitched both sides of the button placket closed, with the inside one in doubled thread and ugly but sturdy stitches, and the outside one in more delicate single thread stitches so they wouldn’t show and the edge wouldn’t crumple inward.

(And now I can retire a few safety pins too…)

But in the end, I also went shopping – for a few new things, not used.

And I bought several items for cheap made with dubious fiber blends, made in dubious ways (though a few things were made in USA with “imported” fiber) and I feel bad – but only sort of – I haven’t the time or the money or the wherewithal to make meaningful choices at this point. But now I have enough to tide me over into my old, mostly used, but still in good condition cold weather clothes.

Now that I’m properly clothed, I just have to figure out how not to catch every aerosolized germ from being among other humans in a cube farm again…

https://www.instagram.com/p/BJ8lyeVBLnY/

*There’s just enough air-conditioning to thwart my plans for some easy cotton skits and dresses, but I’ve got a courdoroy-ish skirt that I started years ago and would like to finish now, and a reason to finally figure out how to use my buttonholer.

7 Comments

Filed under collecting, recycling, sewing, thrifting, unemployment

Tagged as altering, business casual, clothing, fashion, mending, not being naked, thrift store clothes, used clothes, work clothes

August 31, 2016 · 1:00 AM

Not a Paris vacation

We headed north to the Adirondacks for a much needed vacation recently.

We packed up our hiking gear, the dog and his gear, and lots and lots of our garden’s bounty.

We usually stay in the High Peaks region where good grocery and produce options are few, so we usually bring a week’s worth of food with us.

N still manages to make fancy stuff with limited ingredients.

(Tuna balsamico is a regular staple either in a sandwich on the trail or stuffed into things, or both).

The trip up sucked, and the weather was somewhat crummy on and off, but thankfully the cabin had a generous covered porch. And the rain brought somewhat cooler temperatures that seemed downright lovely for our heat-soaked hides.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BJbYK08hMsE/

(And mushrooms in the floor.)

But it was cool enough to consider touching wool again, so I immediately cast on for a Paris Toujours.

The beginning wasn’t without incident and I might go into detail later – a very minor pattern issue – and it’s a pattern that doesn’t really need a pattern anyway. And of course I forgot my stitch markers again – and I think I prefer the twist tie now…

The yarn is frogged from a thrift sweater and is kitten/bunny/puppy/mouse soft.

I ended up frogging a few more short sections from between the button holes before we left and I’m glad I did – I got nearly a foot of shawl for it and the yarn easily accepted the spit (hot air huff) splice.

The dog failed as a knitwear model.

And as a trail dog on the busier park trails – he’s still too much of an asshole to be around others – but he made a good porch companion and was so much calmer that week without kids on bikes, runners, dogs, cats, certain kinds of jalopies, mail carriers, and garbage trucks going by.

I didn’t get much time on the trails but I got a good chunk of knitting done – the most I’ve done in months. I knocked out a heel and instep on one of the pair of yellow & teal very occasional socks, a few more rows on the last washcloth, and worked a bit on a very long-term hexagon quilt.

The weather was the most glorious on our last day and I felt like the vacation had only just begun – yes, a common feeling, but this time it was too real.

And now this oh-so-soft shawl has remained untouched since we returned – the garden called for too much tendon-aggravating attention and the temperature has once again soared…

https://www.instagram.com/p/BJWWEr2Bx6R/

6 Comments

Filed under gardening, hiking, knitting, recycling, thrifting, travel

Tagged as Adirondacks, cabins, high peaks, hiking, knitting, mountains, New York, paris toujours, problem dog, rain, recycled yarn, shawls, sweater yarn, tomatoes, tuna, vacations

August 17, 2016 · 1:00 AM

The sewing station south

Hot, humid weekend days sent us to ReStore again over the last month and some. Wintertime usually means thrifting time, but when it’s too hot to hike or work in the yard, it is the second best option to staying cooped up in the house.

I don’t like spending much time in our basement during the day, but I was drawn to it regularly this summer – seeing bright daylight day after day became inexplicably depressing to some degree for me – I yearned for a rainy grey day (then we got a bunch and they nearly killed the garden). But I finally took N’s advice and set up a work area down there despite my earlier protests that I hated being down there in the day and needed bigger windows to work.

On our first summertime run, we encountered a motherlode of old school furniture – desks, tables, horrid attached chair-table hybrids that brought back lunchroom nightmares, and some awesome lime green lockers that almost came home with us, but didn’t because we’d have to rent a larger vehicle.

But this little desk did.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BIdaD_rhWNE/

I thought it would be perfect for my not-used-enough serger.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BIlCKtRh7Km/

And it is – the serger was previously on a nightstand or side table of sorts and I had to sit at it uncomfortably side-saddle. Moving it out of my tiny upstairs workroom freed up some much needed space too and hopefully by wintertime I’ll actually be able to go up there and work rather than spend most of my time organizing and re-organizing it or shifting the piles that covered one rare surface or another… And then pop down to the basement to use the serger when need be. (I’ll also be able to iron fabric more comfortably in the space, and I have my other machines that need work down there, so perhaps it will be the main work area and upstairs will be more for spinning, stash, and whatever else “art” I might get up to).

There was another table that I wanted very badly – a not too wide, but wide enough for quilting cotton, and gloriously long – 8 feet or so, mid century table with a coral formica top – possibly from a lunchroom too, or perhaps an art classroom… It was cheap (I don’t remember how cheap, but at or under $50) but again, we’d need a truck of sorts to get it home (not to mention we didn’t really have room for it – yes, it could go in the basement, but then the basement would have a giant table in it and we already have one largeish library table down there anyway).

So I forgot about it.

But then it was still there about a month later and only $10!!!!

https://www.instagram.com/p/BI9_oD-ByyU/

But I still didn’t get it, but took a picture instead. Someone will be lucky and happy with that thing.

(I’m still having connectivity issues – apparently my phone line is hooked into a buried line at a cookie-cutter condo complex down the road – I like the aesthetics of buried lines, but when I’ve lived with them, they’ve had way too many problems…)

Playing/paying telephone…

I am somewhat resistant to change in general – the big life ones, not the truly beneficial ones – but especially if it costs more.

I still don’t own a smartphone or use a cell phone on a regular basis.

But my landline has been sketchy since a batch of thunderstorms a couple weeks ago, and along with it, my DSL (yes, I’m in the sticks and refuse to buy cable). So I’ve had intermittent service, and just when I think all is well, I realize I blew the only good 10 minutes of connectivity of the day reading ravelry forums and dicking around on my Instagram with my non-phone tablet.

My cellphone is a pre-paid thing that costs less than $10 a month, and I’ve had it for so long and use it so little that I’ve built up thousands of minutes (good thing for when my landline craps out). The company recently sent me a new flip phone because the one I had became obsolete. I hate the new phone – I have to charge it more than once a week and I never remember to do it. It has more options I’ll never use and a color screen I don’t need and all I want to do is make a call if I absolutely have to or get the occasional text if I’m expecting it (or traveling) and I’ll go days without looking at the thing.

Wiping out the old phone was interesting – the camera was entirely shit, so I only used it if I saw a floor pattern I liked…

(first appeared in this post)

…or to send a pic to N if I was traveling without him.

But it’s off to a donation site as well as an international one that only worked for the two weeks I needed it for initially, but not for the next two weeks that were supposed to justify its purchase…

Since 1996, I’ve owned 5 cell phones – all discarded due to obsolescence (I know this number is remarkably low) but I still have a rotary dial phone since then that was already several decades old, and still works fine – nay, it sounds way better than all cell phones now. (I do have another button phone for calls involving menus though).

But I should keep this post short since I may loose it and I was going to go into a full-on rant, but the gist is we’re creating so much garbage with these cell phones, toxic garbage, and though we can think we’re donating and recycling them, they’ve still been manufactured (by polluting facilities and exploited labor) and they’ll still reduce to some unreusable parts.

And they essentially run on coal.

(Unless your electric supplier is clean and green).

Old landline phones don’t use electricity.

And “regular” cell phone plans are needlessly expensive in the states.

6 Comments

Filed under recycling, travel

Tagged as cell phones, connectivity, consumerism, electronic waste, environmentalism, landlines, old fart, pollution, rants, telephone, telephones, waste

July 27, 2016 · 1:00 AM

Zippity do dads

Last winter I picked up another sewing basket full of goodies at an antique mall in the sticks.

I spotted the basket first, thinking it might be Gullah/South Carolina sweetgrass, then saw it was full of sewing notions, then saw that it was priced something ridiculous like $6, then it was in my hands and going to the cash register.

Some of the contents were lovely – I’m not much for over-the-top femininity, but I love the package designs of the things for “women’s work” of yesteryear.

And there were the usual odd spools of thread, mismatched buttons, bindings and zippers.

I disassembled the contents of this one into its like parts to display the basket elsewhere, so I actually don’t remember what exactly was in this one…

But I’m fairly certain it was in this one (or one of the estate sale cigar boxes I unpacked around the same time) that had a little wrapped bundle of steel boning.

I thought that the wrapper might have been a quilt square for a crown pattern…

…but it ended up being a very sweet scalloped pocket either made for something, or removed from something.

(I don’t know what I’ll do with either yet – I can’t see myself ever using boning, but the pocket will go with my little collection of vintage fabric I’m loath to cut into and/or sew, but it’s mostly scraps anyway so maybe a quilt will come of it one day…)

And the zippers made their way into my stash of packaged zippers…

…and wad of unpicked loose zippers.

I love the old zippers with nods to art deco design, sturdy teeth and strong but faded cotton.

I do re-use the old (used and new) zippers for bags and the very occasional skirt, but I’m doubtful I’ll ever make much of a dent in the small stash – mostly the more delicate garment ones. I’m also on the fence about artistic use of them – like buttons, they can appear very “crafty” – I don’t have a desire to make zipper roses and things. Sometimes they can look interesting as trims and whatnot, but not on bags where they can be grabby or scratchy against a bare forearm.

But first, more research on that basket…

3 Comments

Filed under collecting, recycling, sewing, thrifting

Tagged as antique malls, baskets, basketweaving, boning, collecting, gullah, old things, reuse, sewing notions, sweetgrass, thriftscore, vintage things, vintage zippers, zippers

July 20, 2016 · 1:00 AM

Green[bean]sleeves and more deturtling, desleeving

I don’t like wearing tank tops in public – I feel too naked – and our garden is on the side lot facing the street, so it is a bit too public once the neighbors and walkers are out and about.

But I also don’t like tan lines on my arms – a rare petty personal pet peeve of mine.

So I decided to increase my almost-but-not-quite-tank sleeveless shirt pile – now I have 3, and yes, they’re all in the wash, so I’d like to make a few more…

The last time I went a’thrifting, I picked up a couple of thin, lightweight, close-fitting but not too tight, long-sleeved t-shirts for a buck or less for the purpose of desleeving before I started chopping up shirts I already have in case it was an utter failure.

I used that shirt I overdyed last year (that hasn’t faded as much as I thought it would) as a guide for cutting the neck depth of the one to be deturtled.

And stitched up the bagginess at the armhole with an ad hoc bust dart.

And I have to say, the fit is good – maximum sunage with minimal neckedness – and the fabric (though evil and mass-produced likely in a sweatshop) is comfortable.

I didn’t finish the edges, and I don’t think I will – they roll slightly and it looks intentional.

And I realized the cut off sleeves (with pit width reduced and stitched up) would make perfect bean rash guards.

They just look a bit silly when worn together, and they’re not perfect – the knit fabric snags the little bean prickles a bit more than the old man’s woven long-sleeved shirt I usually wear (the shirt is a button-down meant for a man and many years old, not a shirt off an old man’s back) but I can wad up these sleeves and leave them in a handy spot whereas the shirt is often on walkabout…

The turtle became a headband.

And the moon sliver left of the upper chest became an impromptu hair tie but will eventually make its way to the garden.

The second shirt was a tighter fit, so no sewing was necessary, only satisfied snipping.

And I’m left with a spare pair of beansleeves and more needed plant ties.

I’m starting to think that none of my old favorite, but slightly too tight, t-shirts will be safe from the snipping now…

1 Comment

Filed under gardening, recycling, sewing, thrifting

Tagged as bean rash, desleeving, gardening clothes, no-sew, old shirts, recycling, summerwear, thrift store shirts

July 13, 2016 · 1:00 AM

More reused old sock-ish things…

I try not to generate much trash – I’m not aiming to fit a year’s worth in a mason jar – but I get itchy if there’s more than one small bag per week. Having a dog who generously marked in the house the first month challenged the trash quota, the paper towel quota, and my patience for all three. (I mostly use rags instead of paper towels, but I just can’t get past putting bodily fluids in the washing machine.) Add in my current desire to purge, and I was feeling trashy about having too much going into the landfill. (I think it’s a landfill…? I haven’t learned where it goes here yet.)

So I cut out the butt sides of blown out underwear to use as wood staining rags, unraveled that pair of socks, and put to very good use a few pairs of old tights, so what remained was just a fist-sized wad of flaccid waistbands and trimmings.

The tights were a mix of cotton, cotton blend, and synthetic.

I cut them into loops thick and thin, used the thick for hair scrunchies, and the thin were snipped again to become plant ties.

They’re working well with the plants (but they aren’t necessarily biodegradable though one pair was mostly cotton, so they’re not perfect) and I’m hoping they’ll hold up well enough to be re-used – the mostly cotton ones are stretching out a bit but can easily be re-tied.

(I’m still cursing the former owners who used plastic zip ties on their tomato plants that were still left for us to tear out the following April – another example of their assholerly/cluelessness/dumbshitness that we had to clean up – and I’m still finding the occasional bits of plastic in the dirt two years later.)

And I need to do another sweep of the tights and stockings drawer to see if any can become squash slings now…

3 Comments

Filed under gardening, home, recycling

Tagged as butternut squash, garden, low waste, organic gardening, plant ties, recycling, reusing old tights

June 29, 2016 · 1:00 AM

From foot to face

I have a lot of socks – many, and the most frequently worn, are wool, and an equal number or more are cotton which I don’t wear much except the “sport” style for summer walking, more aged ones for home improvement/yard tasks, and a few decent ones for those scarce days that are too cool for bare feet but too warm for wool and perfect for thin wool (but I have the fewest of those). Most are leftover from work and my days of living without a washing machine wherein quality of life meant fewer trips to the laundromat.

But I’m getting more and more organized and for shits and giggles konmaried the whole lot. Folding*, that is – socks don’t spark much joy so I keep them until they’re 100% unwearable/unmendable so I haven’t had to buy new ones in ages, and I still appreciate the broken-down ones.

But I was left with a couple of pairs of 25+ year-old cotton and wool socks that have never quite served a purpose – too much cotton for cold outdoors activities (cotton can kill and/or loose toes), but too thick for warm ones, and not enough wool for warmth and elasticity. (The wool is the thinner grey-brown strand of the marl.)

So I finally decided to kill, rather than darn, a pair with blown-out heels.

But the yarn of the cuff felt nearly perfect still, and useful for something…

So I cut it above the worst of the heel, and it unraveled well from the bottom up.

(It also had an annoying near-invisible thread of elastic that I painstakingly picked out.)

And I was left with a couple of good-sized balls of enough yards to become something.

I didn’t want it to be socks again, nor any other wearable thing, but it hit me that the blend would be perfect for washcloths/dish cloths.

So I cast on for Grandmother’s Favorite dish cloth and knit to 68 stitches wide on US 4 needles

The fabric ended up being better than I’d expected – lovely natural colors and good drape.

So I started on a second, and will try to salvage some yardage from the worse for wear (mostly pilled) feet for a third.

They might be too “nice” for the dishes now though…

*The folded socks ended up returning to their more fluid balled state shortly thereafter – if the drawer isn’t overstuffed, it doesn’t really matter how they go in as long as they’re paired.

1 Comment

Filed under collecting, hiking, home decor, knitting, recycling

Tagged as cotton and wool, dish cloths, easy knitting, frugality, garter stitch, handknits, knitting, natural colors, recycling, reuse, wash cloths, washcloths, what to do with old socks

June 22, 2016 · 1:00 AM

Creeping madness garden tour

I am filled with disgust for my country these days – we’ve often been on tenuous terms, but the politicians (especially the oddly coiffed asshole), some law enforcers, and a few everyday folks are creating this entirely horrific trifecta of ignorance and madness and triggerhappiness…

I think about making things as a response, or a way to process, some of the news, but by the time I put needle to cloth, another something terrible happens and I retreat to less loaded projects.

The garden is back to serving as a place where I can zone out while pulling weeds and waging a calmer, natural war.

I just called in 1,500 ladybug troops to neutralize the aphids.

Releasing them was ticklish.

And reminded me of this book:

Or rather, the cover – it’s a narcotics education book I inexplicably had as a kid.

(I’ve also been mildly interested in dunking my feet into a tank of flesh-eating fish to clean up the dead skin – but while a few creepy crawly nibbles don’t bother me, a dozen or so might. But never, ever centipedes and millipedes – I must admit, I’ll occasionally jump and scream at little at those – especially when they charge.)

And yes, the vast majority of the ladybugs flew away, but a handful stuck around – no noticeable reduction of the aphids, yet…

The gooseberry bush is fruiting away and I tried one at the first blush rather than waiting for it to fully redly ripen – it was pleasantly tart and tasted nostalgic.

We’re eating so much lettuce and greens that our blood and guts seem laden with chlorophyll – I’m expecting a bud or tiny leaf might appear from a popped pimple.

But I was overjoyed to indulge in one of my fleeting favorites recently – garlic scape pesto – followed by a few pickled scapes sprinkled on salads and sandwiches.

N disassembled parts of one of my old (large) wooden sculptures from college to create an industrial-strength pole bean teepee. I’d clung on to the still semi-unfinished piece for more than 20 years – seems ridiculous now – and the rest will become warmth and marshmallow fuel in our fire bowl.

And I don’t want to jinx it, but this year, the ladies have finally taken over in the zucchini patch – last year it was mostly dudes – tasty, short-lived dudes.

I don’t think we’ll get a lusty red ripe tomato by the 4th of July this year, but hopefully it will come shortly thereafter. And the heirlooms are way ahead in the race – the sauce tomatoes might end up flirting with the frosts again.

And N pulled a slightly rotting outdoor settee sort of thing out of the trash, and with a few new pieces of wood and a fresh coat of paint, we can now sit and watch everything grow.

2 Comments

Filed under art school, gardening, home, recycling

Tagged as aphids, beans, crap left over from art school, creeping madness, fruit, garden, gooseberries, grow your own, ladybugs, organic gardening, raised beds, sunshine, tomatoes, zucchini

June 15, 2016 · 1:00 AM

Minimal failure

Perhaps it was because Spring came and went, or for a bit we thought we might have to move again, or because we had to dog-proof the house, or my recent life changes inspired me to take greater control over things I could, but I’ve never felt the pull of minimalism as strongly as I do now.

I’m tired of not knowing where things are – if I use/enjoy something, it should be in a place, not buried in a poorly-labeled box, otherwise I shouldn’t have it… right? This is my mantra of sorts, and is working for me (sort of) now. I’ve blathered on about spending most of my life living in a cabinet of curiosities, so now I’m aiming to cull and contain my most prized pointless objects to an actual cabinet.

Once a year our town has a junk week wherein you put what you don’t want, or what was too big to throw away without paying extra, out on the curb. What follows is a mildly pleasant time of encountering previously un-met picking and promenading neighbors, and scavenging jalopies with faulty mufflers that clatter by at dusk and dawn but disappear the worst of the worst – busted motors from ceiling fans, a single broken shutter, planks from a floating floor that ReStore refused – and by the time the Goodwill truck comes followed by the bulky trash truck, there’s very little, or nothing, left for them to claim.

For the last couple of years I have avoided going on the junk walks – not that I didn’t want to meet more neighbors, I just didn’t want to haul something rusty and broken and utterly useless, but devastatingly beautiful home. I am not acquiring any new [old] things unless they serve a purpose, right? But we wanted to see if we could find anything for the garden and yard – old windows for cold frame beds, bricks/pavers/flat things for stepping stones, or all-weather tchotchkes for whimsy.

Instead I scored a massive bolt of blaze orange upholstery fabric and a couple of pieces of extra thick canvas.

Do I need them? Nope.

Can I use them? Of course.

Will I use them? Eh…..

I haven’t tested the orange fabric yet for content – I’d say it’s likely to be at least mostly cotton and feels nice in the hand. I could make a new cover for the old basement sofa with it, or complete hiking-during-hunting-season in a globally warmed climate ensemble for a family of four, or a helluva lot of tote bags.

(I justify many a cheap fabric purchase or acquisition in the name of tote bags…).

Or perhaps I should sell it.

But I’m thinking of dabbling with painted floorcloths for the canvas – the weight is perfect – perhaps it would make a good runner on our map stairs.

In my defense, when folded, the new fabric takes up less space than the items we discarded – including an extra old microwave oven I’ve been clinging to for purposes of craft or unrealistic thoughts of second workplace abodes…

But I have absolutely no room left for fabric and for now, it’s in the shed where fabric, except tarps and garden stuff, should never be.

But I’m making headway in other areas – a childhood’s worth of seaside souvenir shells have become landlocked in the garden (except for a few extra special ones), I disposed of a cubic foot of (some decade-old) tights, and 4-H trophies have been reduced to parts and donated to the art/craft supply place. The prize ribbons, however, are fiber after all, so I feel obligated to make something from them, but then what? I’d have another thing with memories and then extra making memories I’d want to keep but not store…

2 Comments

Filed under collecting, gardening, home, recycling, sewing

Tagged as canvas, collecting, floor cloth, getting rid of things, junk, living with less, minimalism, orange, purging, scavenging, sewing, upholstery fabric, vintage fabric