Category Archives: recycling

January 25, 2014 · 7:37 AM

Darn it pills and lint

I spent an evening this week closing up the holes in some of our sweaters. I’ve been seeing beautiful and skillful examples of mending in the blogisphere lately and though lovely, they make me feel anxious. Must I learn to do everything perfectly? To have textile conservator-level mending skills to make repairs nearly invisible or mad creative ones to do a perfect herringbone in a cheeky accent color? Don’t get me wrong, I love these things and love that someone is doing them and doing them well, but for me, I still embrace absolute utilitarianism and efficiency when it comes to darning/mending/repairing. I also usually wait until I have at least three garments that need to be fixed before I sit down to do them, even though it means I’ll probably need three different thread colors and it would have taken just as much time to do them one at a time. All of the items that got a new lease on life were thrift store finds (some decades old) and I’m always what- amazed, impressed, happy? I don’t quite know the feeling, but that these things have endurance and history, both unknown and our own, and can outlive us.

N’s favorite cashmere sweater is just a few years old and was probably fairly new when it was given up by its original owner. (Unbeknownst to me my sister-in-law gave my brother the exact same as a [new] gift around the same time I found N’s in the thrift store.) He wore it for work and not-work and everything in between several times a week and this year his elbow popped through. It’s now been patched but retired from work-wear.

I’m also chief pill-picker. I hate pills but I somewhat, and somewhat perversely, like picking them off. I’ll periodically give an item a good pick and then a vigorous brushing and I’m always amazed about how much fuzzy detritus comes away… how much crap we carry around on us and how a sweater can continue to shed yet never feel as if it’s going bald overall. But I do really hate pills on hand-knits (I’m looking at you Malabrigo!) especially when you’ve done a textured stitch and the pills hide in little valleys.

That little pile of pills and fuzz got me thinking about hoarders (and my fear of becoming one, though I do draw the line with things that rot and stink as being only for trash/compost). And then N bought some new kitchen towels – some white, some red – that gave off this nice rose-pink lint in the dryer. I know dryer lint has many uses, and once upon a time when I made paper I often used the stuff, but to keep it now seems a little excessive. I can’t compost, don’t have a pet, haven’t spilled any oil, don’t need to start a fire, and I’m not making paper or papier mache at the moment…

…or will I be?

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Tagged as cashmere, darning, dryer lint, elbow patch, fuzz, hoarding, holes, lint, mending, pills, repairing, sewing, thrift store clothes, worn out

January 18, 2014 · 8:34 AM

Caaaaashmeeeeere…

I had a huge thrifting score a few weeks ago.

I hadn’t been shopping for months because I’m too broke now even for thrift stores, and I already have a decent stash of wearables, frogables, and feltables. But I needed just a few more things to complete or begin a few more things.

While there I found my sweater Shangri-La.

I can’t understand why someone would get rid of this: 100% cashmere, a nice shade of grey, and no issues apart from a few easily removed pills on one side where someone probably carried her purse.

Yes, it’s baggy and shapeless, but holy hell, it is utter bliss to wear. It’s perfect for sleepwear or just lounging about too, so why would someone get rid of it? Even if you lost a ton of weight, it still feels nice to wear, so unless you gained a ton, like an actual ton, or died, I see no reason to be rid of this.

I’m not the sort of shameful woman who does happy dances and squeals and all those sorts of public behaviors that continue to set women back decades, but this was one of the few times I came close as I cracked a faint but noticeable half-smile when I found it and hurriedly shoved it securely down into my cart.

And for $5.99 on the half-off day – it was only $2.99!!!

This also solves my need for a new long thin sweater, though I’m still planning on knitting one eventually.

I picked up another one to wear too – merino & cashmere, in perfect condition, also quite cheap. The tag said it was from Fall 2004, so perhaps someone thought 10 years of ownership was enough? The tag also emphatically stated DRY CLEAN ONLY, but it survived and flourished in its sudsy watery bath.

And even more cashmere!!!

Most of these have some sort of damage or kill-worthy preppyness, so they will be harvested for their yarn or turned into linings for hats and such.

And I found a few sweaters made with good sturdy wool or wool/nylon blends in colors I like which will be harvested for their yarn as well. The one on top is another (misshapen and holey) Shetland – I think I have enough Shetland sweaters to harvest an interesting palette of yarn now. I was intending to make a big Hap shawl out of them, but I love the vintage spencer dresses seen here and here and here and would love to make something similar at some point.

I’m looking forward to making something out of the stripey one on the left too, perhaps along the lines of the scarf I made last year from recycled stripey sweater yarn.

And it has already been reduced to a pile of lovely squiggles.

Then a tower (what were you thinking?) of yarn cakes.

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Tagged as cardigan, cashmere, frogging, grey, knitting, re-use, recycled, recycling, shetland wood, stripes, thrift store, thrifting, thriftscore, wool, yarn

January 4, 2014 · 9:39 AM

Swirt, skeater, or skiter?

I love Stephen West’s Swants.

I love wool, I love stretchy pants, I love recycling, I love projects with quick gratification.

However, even though I have a mountain of old sweaters and went looking for more, I still can’t find the perfect Swantsable one (though I’ve already named mine Swousers). I’ve got long-ish, muscular-ish legs so I need a fairly big sweater and I want my Swousers to be more pants than knickers (although I love the shorter style of Kate Davies’s Sweeks) and I want them a bit thicker too – like an adult version of a soaker, only in the reverse rather than being disgustingly diapery – for keeping out cold and damp or snow. I hate snow pants because they swish, swish, swish and are made from synthetics, so I’d like thick wool sweatery pants for wintertime activities instead. So I must wait until the right big, long, thick sweater comes along.

Until then, I made a sweater skirt…

Or Swirt.

But that name already has certain sexual denotations I just learned about when Googling it… so perhaps it should be a Skeater or Skiter…

It started out as a thrift-store-found hand-knit South American sweater that had been shrunken and felted/fulled a bit (by its previous owner) making the body dense but the sleeves short and tight.

I cut off the arms, slit open the neck, sewed a hem at the top, sewed up the sides (put a zipper on one), and added a couple of hook and eye closures. My only complaint is with the sweater itself – the star motif on the front was cropped by the neckline, so I didn’t have much room to spare for the waist.

I was imagining that I’d style it for a photo with a new pair of grey and black wool tights (thanks K!) and a pair of cute but impractical boots I almost never wear anymore since I work from home, but instead I got to field test it in a more rugged fashion almost immediately thanks to Hercules.

In cold weather I literally freeze my ass off. Even with wool unders, base layers, and pants I feel like my southerly cheeks are still flirting with frostbite. And my knees suffer as well, though I hooked them up with a quick fix last winter. But the Swirt kept my bum and knees warm! It was about 19F and I also had on wool long johns, wool-blend leggings, and those bulky army-surplus wool gaiters, and I was fine.

Even the deer were enviously eyeing my woolies.

So one day I’ll have my Swants/Swousers, but for now the Swirt/Skeater/Skiter will do.

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Tagged as canal, deer, Hercules, poles, recycling, sewing, skeater, skirt, skiter, snow, snow skirt, snowshoeing, swants, sweater, sweeks, swirt, thrifting, wool

December 21, 2013 · 1:54 PM

Save me January

It’s been a winter f*cking wonderland out there.

I knew it was coming eventually, but I was feeling a little smug since it hadn’t happened here until a couple of weeks ago.

It’s not that I hate snow per se, it’s the immobility it causes. Or like a bad pet, it’s not the beast itself at fault, but the owner.

Shovel your goddamn sidewalks!

I’m not doing well with the lack of light this year (I’m not sure I ever do, but this year feels like the worst ever) and I’m overjoyed with the arrival and passing of the winter solstice.

I’m not a fan of Christmas* either.

I’m just not into the religion, commercialism, consumerism, greedy children, gifts, worship of fat beardos (Santas, not you my bear friends), waste of materials and electricity, varieties of anxieties, bad music, the pushing of the season to before Thanksgiving, and the food-sharing, traveling, and gathering of masses of breathing, snotting, vomiting bodies during the peak contagion period. But perhaps mostly because it is the deepest, darkest, dreariest time of year – and that is the reason people celebrate and I know worse winter weather is yet to come, but for me, the new year is what I’m excited for, and feel intense relief when it comes. It signifies that the holidays are f*cking over, each day brings a few more seconds of light, and the anxieties and societal ho-ho-ho throat-cramming go away.

I sort of liked winter as a child. However, I hated it as a very small child because of the tortures of plastic bread bags on my feet inside my boots and socks on my hands over my mittens. I looked forward to Christmas, though my excitement was tempered with dread that it would all be over too soon, and a feeling of watching something beloved die. In hindsight, my favorite day of the holiday season was St. Nick’s on December 6th when we woke to a few little presents in a sock – a tangerine, a couple of walnuts, a candy cane, and a little trinket like a flavored lip gloss or novelty eraser. I loved the simplicity and the lack of anxiety surrounding the day and some connectedness with the past. Didn’t the Little House on the Prairie girl savor only a nibble or two a day of her sole simple cookie gift? Or one of those characters in one of those books… Children can bizarrely identify with, and intensely feel, the grand sufferings of others – Anne Frank, dirt-farmer kids, sooty-city orphans – without ever having a moment of true sufferings themselves. Or maybe it was just me and a f*cked-up upbringing in an old religion where suffering and self-martyrdom was supposed to be a good thing. Either way, I still crave and appreciate the most simple aspects of the holiday – not much fuss and some citrus fruit.

And speaking of citrus and to break my no-cooking-in-the-blog-rule, I’ll share my candied peels. They’re tasty but take a long time to make – mostly because of multiple blanchings to temper the bitterness and then the hour+ cooking time in simmering sugar water. We needed some for a recipe but can’t find them in our suburban groceries – and if I did find them, I’m sure they’d be dyed and full of pesticides. I used organic pink grapefruit, orange, and lemon, and cane sugar – and then dipped some in dark chocolate and rolled some in pecans for good measure. (Yeah, the sugar coating is kinda clumpy, but whatever.)

And I am solidly anti-craft for the season. I don’t want to make something only usable for a few weeks out of the year. And I don’t really believe in exchanging gifts (especially to every known person) beyond a few edibles or drinkables. However, over my lifespan I’ve made exactly one ornament, one stocking, and this tree skirt.

N has a soft spot for the holidays, and will occasionally erect a tree. His tree needed a skirt and I didn’t have any appropriate fabric, nor wanted to waste a good yard or so on something that would be rarely used, so I cut up some felted/fulled sweater scraps. I think my original plan was something like a penny rug, but the cutting took long enough, so I just tied it all together.

I don’t know where it is now – probably in still in storage five hours away (and we no longer have lovely wood floors).

But things will be better soon, we’ll have the tiniest amount of more light day by day. And we’ll eventually get out for some winter woods activities.

*Our Christmases are a pleasant low-key affair limited to time spent with just a few family members, good food, dogs, a cool kid, and walks, so I’m quite thankful and look forward to them. It’s the larger sense of the season (and some past holiday events) I abhor. My second favorite Christmases were the years I spent alone with Chinese take-out in a quiet apartment with the neighbors away – sounds bleak, but it was awesome and always the most productive few days of the year for me.

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Tagged as anxiety, bundled up, candied peels, christmas, dipped in chocolate, dread, felted, grinch, hating christmas, holidays, icy, not enough light, over-bundled, penny rug, snow, solstice, tree skirt, winter, wool

December 1, 2013 · 10:23 AM

Doin’ the but… tin…

I had to save my biggest and best tin for a post of its own.

I first saw this tin in a photographic negative I was cataloging in my old job. The tin was on the counter in someone’s kitchen in the 1940s. I read the writing through a tiny loupe and was aghast at the boasts of “scientifically processed” and claims of healthy hydrogenated vegetable shortening! And what is that graphic? A woman on a scale inferring that potato chips were diet food? Hells yeah! I love potato chips, though they’ve done nothing for my figure, unless of course I eat enough to cause severe anal leakage, but I’m a snob for the olive oil chips anyway. I started seeing this tin in antique/junk stores but they were often rusty, or the lid didn’t easily come off, or were just too damn overpriced. Generally, if I want something that isn’t really needed, I wait for serendipity to take over or to lose interest in it. However, after a year of looking for this in the right condition for the right price, I broke down and found one on Ebay, so it all worked out. Maybe serendipity is just an online market.

But in my quest for simplicity and curing former impulses and diseases of the hoarding of neat sh*t variety, I have a general rule for visiting antique/junk shops – buy nothing bigger than what would fit into my hand.* In theory I like some kinds old jewelry so that could be allowable, but I’ve never actually bought any old jewelry and it is usually more than I want to spend. I have more tchotzkies than years left in my statistical lifespan, so I generally resist the cute/weird but useless item. And I have nearly a zero interest level in military, presidential, I-am-man-and-hear-me-roar (or just destroy your lives and countries) artifacts, so old bullets, campaign buttons, coins, pins for distinctions, etc. don’t get the slightest glance from me.

But what else is little and can be extremely practical, and thus 100% approved?

Let’s open that giant tin, shall we?

Oh yeah, hells yeah, buttons!

I buy buttons that I think will look good on knits I’ve never knitted (nor will).

I buy buttons that I think I can re-sell for decent money (though I haven’t yet).

I buy buttons to replace those already on my clothes (which I’ve done once).

I buy buttons to use in my “crafts” (I do this occasionally with singles, but would never break up a set).

I buy buttons to repurpose them as jewelry (though not to make country button necklace shittery).

I buy buttons to one day feed my burning desire to amass them in a giant heap and then catalog them one by one.

And I buy buttons because some are nearly art and quite frame-able or worthy of display on their own.

(I didn’t tear off that one button in the upper left, it came that way)

I’ve had to start a new jar nearly the same size as the tin for the buttons I remove and save from clothing I cut up and turn into other things.

(And yes, I do have another boxful of buttons that you don’t get to see).

*I’ve got some big paws, so my fingers can really wrap a decent-sized find, and I do break this rule constantly if I find things that are fiber-oriented and thus can be considered a business, art, or research expense (but really, I can only kid myself so far…)

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Tagged as anal leakage, antique stores, buttoned, buttons, cataloging, clothing, collecting, finds, obsessions, potato chips, recycling, scientifically processed, sewing, spending, thrifting, tins, vintage

November 25, 2013 · 8:04 AM

Tin, tin, tins…

I love old tins.

I love finding them and I love storing things in them and I especially love finding them with things already in them.

This one is from my childhood home – it looks old timey, but was from the 1970s or ’80s… which sadly, might in fact be old timey to some.

I don’t remember the marshmallows, but I like marshmallows.

It is perfect for the storage of zippers and various purse/bag hardware.

This was a lucky thrift store find of a tin with something in it – mostly needles and a lovely bent-to-fit sterling thimble. I use the needles from time to time but get pissed when I don’t realize I have a rusty one until it leaves a mark in my fabric.

Also inside are some nice bone tapestry needles – I think? And a “Tyton” tool at the bottom. Anybody know what that is? All I get is a Polish football (soccer) player.

This tin came from a thrift store and was probably $ .50 or less. I think I bought it when I only had $ .50 in my pocket. It previously held fruitcake from New Orleans. I thought you got sh*tfaced in New Orleans, not hang around and eat hard cake. But I guess you have to “feed” fruitcake with brandy or rum or something…. that could explain it.

But the loveliness inside is my collection of vintage thread. I got the thread way back when at my old favorite thrift store in a dusty old bag (perhaps once actually belonging to a dusty old bag of another sort). One day I may frame some of these in a shadow box of some sort, but I do use a teensy bit of them from time to time since the colors are wonderful and often match my clothing in need of repair. And good god, I love wooden spools. I know it’s a waste of a tree but they serve so many purposes after their intended one and just look finely aged and patinated on their own.

This is an estate sale find of a tin with something in it. I was excited to find this small stash of embroidery floss until its horrid camphor odor assaulted my sniffer. I got it anyway, cleaned and aired the tin, aired the floss, and thought it was good to go. I added a few odds and ends of my own floss too.

Sadly, it still smells.

And finally, the loveliest tin of them all, and the one I uncharacteristically paid the most for – I believe it was a whopping $12.

But $12 is no longer an insignificant amount of money to me, and I feel pressure to put something priceless and special inside of it instead of the tiny yarn balls and clippings currently in there.

Maybe I should have a candy while I think about it.

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Tagged as bone, colorful, embroidery floss, floss, fruitcake, gadgets, marshmallows, needles, New Orleans, notions, sewing, spools, stripes, tea tins, thread, thrift score, thrift store, thrifting, tins, tools, tyton, zippers

October 2, 2013 · 7:58 AM

Needle in a scrapstack

I’ve been having a run of good bad luck lately. Not luck that is at first bad, but then allows for something awesome to come in,* but good in terms of a good dose of it. Don’t get me wrong, it could be much, much worse, but it is annoying as all get out.

I’ve barely spent any money lately, but my last two online orders involved a bottle of shampoo ending up all over a book, and an item of clothing needed in a timely manner arriving with a giant slash – and I did not cause it myself by opening the box with an evil box cutter or anything so keen.

I’ve been trying to set up a new doctor here and ended up with a $558.00 bill for a physical that should have been free. For the last month, I have been calmly and persistently contacting the doctor/billing office/lab/main office/insurance company to resolve it. All say they can’t but the other guy can. One kind soul read back to me the transcript of the call log at the doctor’s office – I sound like a f*cking obnoxious demanding crazy bitch. In this instance though, I am not – I have been perfectly professional with them, and only cry with rage and shake a little about the potential of having to part with the money that I don’t actually owe when I’m off the phone.

But with bad, sometimes good shows up a tiny bit.

I dropped one of my current favorite sewing needles into a big box of scraps. Bad, but not too bad, but then I sometimes use my scraps to stuff things and what if someone bought something made with them and then gave it to a toddler (though I specifically say my things aren’t meant for kids) and then the toddler sucks it down his slobbery germ-hole and requires a dramatic surgery and then my precious needle ends up accessioned with the other surgically removed swallowed things at the Mutter Museum. Bad (although I like that museum). But after shaking and scrounging and hoping to find it when it penetrated my own digits, I finally located it without bloodshed. Good.

I stitched up a little piece with my own white hairs. Bad? Well, I’ll give you kinda gross, but it is what it is. The bad part was the haircut I got a few weeks ago that was supposed to be an inch and ended up three and more in various hideous feathery layers. And the annoying routine I go through with every hair cutter when she/he tries to convince me to color my hair. I rarely get a haircut, you think I can keep up with roots? And hello, money? And hello again, chemicals? And ciao bitch, I’m aging, that’s what happens! But the biggest bad is that my greys are coming in at an alarming rate and falling out at the same pace. I figure they’re my newest strands so they should be sticking around longer… Needless to say I had more than enough to finish the piece and now I don’t know what to do with the leftovers – I don’t think I want to use hair-thread again though. (And not to worry, I’m not saving boogers, ear wax, and toenail clippings… well, maybe a few fingernails, but they’re for art purposes too.) Sounds scarier than it is.

And the last is a bad me for not finishing the epic summer-long quilt yet. I’m terrified to do the quilting part (and my machines are getting tensiony), so I’m considering my options of finishing the top off and calling it a coverlet. I don’t intend to use it anyway.

And the good?

I found my rotary cutter!

* And speaking of rotary cutters and needles, if one more person/media outlet/memoir tells me that loosing their job was the best thing that ever happened to them, well I just might get slicey and pokey.

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Tagged as bad hair, bad luck, doctors, fingernails, found things, frustration, germ-hole, good luck, grey hair, hair, insurance companies, lost things, Mutter Museum, needles, quilting, rotary cutter, scraps, sewing, stitching, swallowed things

September 12, 2013 · 11:35 AM

Biggest-assed yarn bomb

It’s all over and too late to see now, but Knit the Bridge was pretty cool (and record-breaking).

We went to Pittsburgh for a little jaunt over Labor Day weekend and caught the bridge on a bright summer morning.

(Got the ass-end of one of those obnoxious duck tour thingamawhats too!)

It was quite a bit more Crochet the Bridge, rather than knit, but they certainly couldn’t call it [yarn] Bomb the Bridge, which would have been more accurate, inclusive, and alliterative, but sadly we can’t say such things these days.

The cheery hanging flower baskets were a nice touch too and complimented the bright acrylic yarns.

The whole thing had a campy, homey feel which was nice, but also played a bit into the knitting/crochet stereotype.

But I won’t criticize that too harshly – overall it was a good thing and acrylic had to be used as the blankets will be massively laundered and donated to people and places that don’t have the knowledge, time, space, or frankly have much bigger issues rather than proper care of woolen hand-knits.

(There were actually many people out too, I just chose the pics without them.)

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Tagged as acrylic, afghans, allegheny river, andy warhol bridge, blankets, bridges, colorful, crochet, flowers, knit the bridge, natural stitches, pittsburgh, public art, recycling, rivers, sweaters, thrift score, thrifting, wool, yarn, yarn bomb

September 4, 2013 · 7:25 AM

I am not a sock monkey… I think?

Though I am trying to keep my mouth shut, I’m still angry sad depressed cynical pissed hopping-mad bitter rapidly-aging rabid seething kicked-in-my-imaginary-balls over that house sale f*cked-uppery.

But I will say no more.

Except this:

And excuse the watermark, but I actually spent time modifying that image, so don’t steal it. I need to work on the watermark thing though, so bear with me and get used to it.

In the interest of further experimentation in the art of procrastination, I thought I would check to see if any of my fibery images have been savagely pirated from webworld. I know of one on Pinterest (which I’m largely on the fence about, but leaning on the hate side, or perhaps really really hate side) and I don’t really have many readers here, so I wasn’t expecting to find any gross violations.

So I did some Google Image searches by image.

I started with a pic that I’ve had on ravelry for a few years, and I actually loved the results:

(I won’t get any bigger with these because I don’t want to commit image gankery myself).

What you can’t quite see is my picture of a grey cowl matching images of owls in tree bark, cathedrals, shaggy dogs, rocks, chandeliers, and even a few other faces and knitted items. All of the matches relate to color, texture, and shapes in my image.

Another image that I posted a few months ago – and again, I love the matches:

Golden fall foliage, a fish caught in a net, a Byzantine Madonna.

But it failed to tell me that the picture did exist in webworld and was pinned on someone’s Pinterest board and on this blog. Nothing came up for ravelry either, but I think that has greater privacy settings?

But otherwise, so far so good, no image theft yet.

So I moved on to other images I’ve posted in this blog.

Remember my artsy-fartsy sock monkeys from this post?

Sock monkeys are very popular.

Sock monkeys are everywhere.

Sock monkeys are made with socks and possibly some buttons.

Sock monkeys are for sale.

Sock monkeys are definitely not people (though friendlier).

So why dear Google, did my picture of sock monkeys bring up people!?!?!?!?!

If it’s some facial recognition algorithmic magic thing, then fix it ’cause I’m not buying that the ratios and comparative data and secret science are there.

My initial reaction was that this was horribly, horribly, horribly racist since many of the faces appeared to be from people who are not predominately caucasian. But once I scrolled through more images I saw that it was very much an equal-opportunity free-for-all of people = sock monkeys.

Yes, monkeys are our cousins and they have skulls similar to ours – more similar than that of say a skunk or a horse, but stuffed toys with bulbous mouths that don’t exist in nature? Knitted texture and only three colors? No nose of any dimensions? Eyes made of shoe buttons? Exaggerated floppy ears? No eyebrows, eyelashes, head hair, facial hair, (yes, I know some people don’t have that either) bumps, lumps, wrinkles, pimples, scars, beauty marks, or irises for that matter?

So I slept on it – maybe it was a joke.

The next day I tried the same image again:

More people.

And as a bonus, some soaped up ass cheeks. (It did locate it on my blog though – the monkeys, not the cheeks).

So I tried some more monkey pics – I’ve got oodles of sock monkeys (or perhaps I should call them a troupe or troop).

This was a scan of some vintage monks wearing snazzy outfits made by my great aunt for my brothers:

More people.

At least it picked up on the red.

I had another clearer pic of the same little guys in the first image:

More people.

Though a couple of pine cones add some nice diversity.

So I thought that perhaps anything resembling two eyes and a mouth would always equate human faces and thus I was just making too much of this.

So I searched with an image of a pie with a face:

And I got pies and other foodstuffs for f*cksakes!

So I thought that perhaps there was a sock monkey apocalypse and it will now be up to me to re-populate the planet.

(By sewing of course, not lewd acts with a stuffed sock).

Just to be sure, I searched the term “sock monkeys” in Google Images.

What’s this?

Thousands, perhaps millions, of images of sock monkeys?*

There are so many sock monkeys that you can browse by various categories!

So what’s up Google?

Is this a joke?

Is this an evil plan that only you know about and we don’t and we’re about to become a new of Planet of the ~~Apes~~ Sock Monkeys?

Are we actually just a bunch of stuffed socks?

Is walking on a sock an act of torture and murder?

Should I fear my own sock monkeys?

Should I cut some holes in their box for air?

Please tell me.

*(It’s cool that Rebecca Yaker’s sock monk couture comes up right away).

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Tagged as confusion, google images, image editing, image theft, images, knitting, monks, pictures, pie, piracy, planet of the apes, sewing, sock monkey, vampire pie

August 20, 2013 · 10:29 AM

Child stitchery (not in a sweatshop)…

On a trip to visit my folks (I won’t say home because they tragically (for me) sold it some years ago) earlier this summer, I finally found this little fabric picture that used to hang in my bedroom.

The scene is one I drew, and drew quite often as a slightly obsessive little sh*t, and at the dumbsh*t age when I didn’t comprehend that the sky wasn’t just up there and therefore depicted it as a stripe. So let’s say I was four, or should four-year-olds understand how the sky works? So maybe I’ll say three… Regardless, my mother deemed my “Bird In Flight to Nest” precious and decided to turn it into a sewing lesson. I’ll say that it was my first, but I really don’t know. She cut out the pieces, sewed the margins on the machine, and gave it to me to applique. I do clearly remember getting somewhat bored or frustrated with it, and it is also quite clear that she finished it for me and then added a few embroidered embellishments. I don’t know if this took place in the span of a day or I abandoned it for some time and she got tired of having it only partially completed for weeks or months. I also don’t remember if it was during the one truly massive blizzard of my youth (though I think I was down with the chicken pox then) or in the leisurely long days before I had to go to school. Either way, it was something I did as a child wherein my hands and mind were engaged (and it wasn’t so traumatic that I didn’t want to do it again).

This was before the recent cringe-worthy days of fashionable “upcycling.” Smack in the 1970s when fuel crises, a renewal of the back to the earth movement, thoughts of Silent Spring, and the birth of Earth Day were kicking around. My parents left their urban home to escape air pollution, overcrowding, and to grow wholesome organic food on a few idyllic acres. We were also broke-ass poor, so recycling old clothes into craft projects was both a necessity and entirely practical – how many thousands of years have we just used what we have and then used it some more? Why should this now be a trendy buzzword to help sell our crafty stuff? Convince the buyer that her materialism is ok because it’s upcycled and therefore she is a conscientious fabulous person?

Fabric is fabric is fabric… and is infinitely re-usable. Sometimes the perfect print is on a bolt, sometimes it’s a pair of pants… you’re not special for using or buying either one.

But back to the picture.

The components are:

Sun: I assumed the terrycloth sun was salvaged from a much abused towel, but my mom said it was leftover fabric from some shorts she made for my brothers as small children in the 1960s… I’m not sure I’d like terrycloth shorts… they seem so, absorbent?

Tree trunk: Yep, that’s my dad’s old tie – gotta love plaid neck wear…

Sky: Leftovers from a quilt my mother made for me of yellow, green, and blue gingham to match my wallpaper of the same colors (only the wallpaper also had puke tones in it too).

Flowers, eggs, bird parts: Felt scraps – who didn’t have random felt scraps lying around?

Nest: Burlap feed sack – we lived on a little farm with little animals and a pony. Food for them came in burlap bags.

Bird: This is an odd denim/oxford cloth hybrid that was probably clothing in its former life.

Grass, leaves: We can’t remember what these scraps are from, but I wore various homemade calico skirts, shorts, halter tops (remember, 1970s over here) and dresses.

Background: This could have been leftover paining canvas or material for rustic curtains.

And even though this turned into a rage against the preciousness of upcycling, it was originally meant to be a rage against not teaching children how to sew or make bread or brush animals or do anything constructive with their hands. Yeah, there are a few schools that teach such things, but as a whole we’re becoming such boring dumb-asses with our iSh*t.

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Filed under quilts, recycling, sewing, Uncategorized

Tagged as 1970s, applique, back to earth, bird in flight to nest, birds, childhood, children, craft, earth day, education, embroidery, environmentalism, handiwork, iShit, nature, nests, organic farming, pictures, recycling, reuse, screens, sewing, silent spring, stitchery, teaching, upcycling, youth of today

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