Tag Archives: recycling

June 5, 2015 · 8:56 AM

Fiber recycling, international edition

This video has been knocking about the fiber sphere

With its lilting life-affirming soundtrack, it straddles a very strange position of being a quasi-anti-capitalism statement and pro-slavery propaganda piece…

See the poor workers in the big factory with wide smiles on their faces?

Don’t you feel good knowing that when you discard your bejeweled panties they end up in the hands of a beautiful woman in India making something new from them?

Recycling is good and right and necessary.

Clothing becomes worn or misshapen beyond repair, and it should be reused for new yarn, moving blankets, and insulation and the like…

But how many of those garment slashers have slashed themselves? Have become unemployed after loosing fingers?

Exposed whirring circular saws and scimitar-like blades…

And oh, good god, the fiber dust – one woman wore a scarf over her face – does she already have asthma or worse…?

And India gets hot, really, really, really hot.

And how many hours for how much pay?

And the kids – do they work there too? Do the parent not make enough for school or their care? (Yeah, there might be cultural differences on that one, but probably not.)

And what about benefits?

And what about retirement?

And what is the environmental cost of all that shipping and water and waste from re-manufacturing?

Oh, but they have hope! And quaint comments about our excess! And big smiles!

Textile recycling should exist and does because we’re wasteful fatcats but it probably wouldn’t be viable to the capitalists unless it’s cheap, and it can only be cheap if it’s done like this…

kinda sounds like that old American cotton argument…

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Tagged as capitalism, excess, india, propaganda, recycling, slave labor, textile industry, working conditions

June 3, 2015 · 6:00 AM

When the drapes became the bedspread

It’s been the time of year when I have to give up my much loved down duvet for a lighter bed covering for a few weeks now.

I have to shamefully admit that we’ve been using a plain green store-bought quilt for the last few summers since buying a bigger bed. (And I still haven’t gotten around to finishing a bigger quilt… yes, that shirt one I started years ago isn’t any further along, and it is even further from my thoughts.)

I’m thinking of other quilts I’d like to make, but I don’t really have the space or patience right now to make one as big as I’d like – at least king-sized, though the bed is a queen – so I accepted another summer of the boring commercially-made thing.

Then a week or two ago, I stopped by the thrift store to find some summer pants to replace the ones I intentionally (and not) turned into paint pants, and happened to wander by the home textiles – a land of either intimately disgusting, or wonderfully fabulous, textilely things. In the past I’ve scored vintage drapes and tablecloths that I’ve re-sold well online, and our current perfect-condition woolly throw blankets are pre-owned.

This time, a set of jacquard toile drapes – two panels and two valances – caught my eye and passed my it’s-pleasant-to-the-touch, seems to be natural fibers, and doesn’t stink or have gross stains test (though the dye had bled and the fabric was a bit puckered from a hot wash or dry). I passed them by, but came back just before leaving, figuring I could use the fabric to make knitting bags…

or perhaps, a bedspread?

Now, the fabric really isn’t my thing. I collected blue and white dishes for only a half a second in my past, once put a cobalt blue wine bottle on the kitchen windowsill for a few weeks, and only have just a few toile pieces in my stash. I like deer, but don’t like hunting scenes, and the over-the-top romanticism?

No, because it falls in with things I don’t like such as the paler pinks and purples, some peach (but not peaches), pearlized things, potpourri, Precious Moments, things with panache, plump, perfume, things with poof and pounce, pathetic romance novels, and most of all:

putti.

And our house is an amalgamation of mid-century modern, late 19th century office, Italian/Moroccan/New Mexican fusion, and art school detritus – nothing frilly or froofy or sickeningly sentimental between our walls.

But I wanted this perfect-weight cottony thing on the bed.

And so it is.

I cut the curtains in half, alternated the right and wrong sides, and added one of the valances.

I wanted it to be reversible, so I sewed twill tape over the seams. I wanted to dye the tape, but I figured that would set the project back days or years. The seams on the tape are a bit wonky due to my impatience and the difficulty in shoving this huge heavy thing into my old machine on a too-small table, but it is a practical piece that will get laundered and abused, so perfection is pointless.

And I think I like the tape side better as the public side…?

So now I can slumber under slaughter-in-progress deer, and hope the putti don’t plunk down in my dreams…

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Filed under collecting, home, home decor, quilts, recycling, sewing, thrifting

Tagged as bedspreads, blue and white, coverlets, jacquard, putti, recycling, repurposing, sewing, textiles, toile, twill tape, upcycling

May 27, 2015 · 6:00 AM

For the birds

I found this in the yard.

It isn’t mine.

[Sniffs and tilts head upwards] I don’t do acrylic.

But in all seriousness, don’t leave this shit out for the birds.

Yes, I know you feel like you are helping your little feathered friends (even though your cat might be killing them too) and seeing a nest with brightly colored bits brings a little puff of joy to make your earnest heartstrings quiver and sing, but really you are polluting our fine earth.

Yes, creatures feathered and furred like to help themselves to our freshly washed fleeces and fluff drying in the yard, but there are millions of us knitting and crocheting and weaving away, and millions more children overseen by overly smug adults providing hands-on enriching [cheap-ass] “craft” projects, that there’s just too much of this stuff knocking about out there now.

Birds have happily had sex and hatched eggs for millennium without our plastic scraps lining their nests – in fact, they are some of the oldest beings on this planet and no doubt preferred life without our smokestack shenanigans and DDT dirt.

This bit of blindingly colored yarn will not break down, biodegrade or otherwise become safe and tolerable in our lifetimes – not to mention it’s already been rejected by the neighborhood birds here and would likely wash down the sewer into the river which drains into the ocean.

If you really feel the need to contribute something to nest building and you are in an area starved for plant diversity, consider the following instead:

Clip your dog’s (as long as it isn’t treated with pesticides, or your own if it’s also chemical-free) hair outdoors.

Leave a few puffs of undyed fleece behind on wash day.

Leave the spiderwebs under the eaves for a few days.

Let a few of the weeds stay and go to seed – hell, I’d like a milkweed bed myself…

And if you must, only very occasionally leave behind a snippet of yarn, make sure it is 100% wool.

And keep in mind too, rodents love the soft stuff just as much, if not more, so you are really contributing to the nesting behavior of rats and mice – do you want rats and mice in your home? Or Squirrels in your attic? Chewing on wires, pissing in the walls, and leaving potentially disease-ridden poops in your precious darling’s cereal bowl?

Otherwise stuff those scraps in toys and pillows and draft snakes and pincushions and pet beds (or give them to someone who will).

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Tagged as acrylic, birds, earnestness, leaving yarn for the birds, littering, misguided good, plastic waste, pollution, public service announcement, recycling, scraps, yarn

March 11, 2015 · 6:00 AM

In like a lion or, a fox…?

March arrived with a couple of little back to back icy storms, but it held the promise of a thaw…

And then we had a satisfying morning watching the neighborhood fox hunt (unsuccessfully) in the yard…

Followed shortly thereafter by more f*cking snow.

So it’s back to the wintertime blues.

Quite literally – I realized much of what I’ve been working on lately is blue, which is a little odd for me…

Like this Sperry sweater (I’m a little afraid it doesn’t have as much ease as I’d like, but I’m not quite far enough along to know for sure…)

And this scrappy little quilt made from clothes that were both mine and not that’s much farther along than this now…

And finally, this big “old shale” stole out of recycled yarn. I wanted to restock my etsy shop with some handknits like this, but I think etsy has gotten too evil for me – do you have a suggestion for a new marketplace site to use for handmade goodies?

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Filed under home, knitting, quilts, recycling, sewing, Uncategorized

Tagged as blues, fox, knitting, messy rooms, old shale, quilting, raglan construction, recycling, sewing, shoveling, snow, sperry sweater, stole, top-down, vixen, winter weariness

June 18, 2014 · 6:38 AM

Old blue quilt

Many years ago, I found this old narrow reversible quilt at my old favorite thrift store. I loved that it was made from scraps, improvisational, hand and machine-sewn, and the fact that it was just plain old, and I like old sh*t.

I sewed a sleeve on the opposite of what I considered the more public side and hung it in my bedroom to ward off the cold seeping through the walls in my old apartment – I loved that place too because it was old – but damn, it was also cold.

It’s tufted with knots of white, blue, and reddish-pink (perhaps formerly red?) wool yarn. The interior might be filled with wool as well as it’s just a mass of somewhat disgusting clumpy lumps now, but I’d need to perform a little surgery to find out.

(And I don’t think I really want to see what’s in it in case it’s nasty).

The reverse has a pinwheel and some nice fabrics not seen on the front. This pinwheel got into my deep brain and caused me to make many half-demented pinwheels last summer, or maybe the summer before… I think I probably have enough to make something from them… I should find them.

I like this squiggly block.

The back has a few stained blocks, but were stained in their former life perhaps as clothing, as the stains were sewn over.

A few faint splotches look suspiciously like blood, or a really robust coffee mixed with a hearty and delicious red wine.

(That is also part of the reason I chose the other side to display).

And there are some lovely hand stitches too.

I also love that delicate blue pattern on the left side.

I can’t date it – there are definitely some old fabrics in it, perhaps from the 1910s, and the red, white, and blue color scheme could place it in WWII times, but some of the other fabrics have a 1950s and ’60s vibe? Though the shape is also older – long and narrow – somewhat too big for a crib and too small for a twin bed. It would probably best fit one of those narrow cot-like beds (don’t they have a name???).

But it seems that it could have been made from old clothes from a number of members of a family perhaps for a notable baby or a soldier – as a memento, or a comfort for someone leaving home.

But things are rarely as they seem, right?

When I was trying to pare down my things after I moved to N’s house, I gave it to him to give to one of his family members who was having babies at the time – I thought it would be nice for a wall in a kid’s room. But he wanted to keep it, though we didn’t get around to hanging it up then.

Or in that apartment of late of which I’d rather not speak or remember.

And we still haven’t put it up in the new house (or anything else yet until the painting is done…

rather, all of the repairs that need to be done to the walls before I can even begin to paint them).

But I rescued it from storage a few months ago, and I’m really glad I still have it.

And I ~~love~~ ~~hate~~ ~~love~~ ~~hate~~ ~~love~~ ~~hate~~ love that he enables me in the keeping of old sh*t.

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Tagged as bed cover, black, blue, cots, cotton, fabric, feed sack, homespun, old beds, old stuff, plaid, quilts, recycling, red, scraps, sewing, tied quilt, tufted, vintage quilt, wool

February 7, 2014 · 8:01 AM

Come armageddon, for everyday is like swants day

The other day N mentioned he was culling some old sweaters and asked if I wanted any – of course I did (all of them). And to my surprise, he had a swants-able one in the pile – a forgotten cosy but quite misshapen semi-felted/fulled thrift store find from a few years ago.

I immediately began to cut and sew.

I didn’t follow the official swants tutorial because I wanted to make some interesting shapes with the pattern, and the shoulder seams already conformed to my hips.

And then I impatiently set off for the beach, not quite accepting the fact that you can’t really shoot your own trousers while wearing them.

I love the beach in winter. I love the emptiness and sometimes the ugliness. I love that the surf washes away the ice and snow and sloggy sh*t that prevents you from walking normally and safely on an inland path or sidewalk.

And when I’m at a wintertime beach in a semi-urban area, I can never stop Morrissey’s Everyday is Like Sunday from playing in my head…

So while the day was chilly, but the sun warm, I filled up a thermos, packed up my ass pad and some knitting* and hit a favorite spot while it was at its most opposite of a smooth summery romping ground.

One of those rusty pipes helped hold the camera, but all of my swants photos are shite.

But the swants aren’t – I love them!

Mine are more knickers though – swickers.

The color is truest here – they are cranberry and maroon. The front has a somewhat provocative triangular point – though how sexy can sweater pants really be?

And the back has a squared-off shape not unlike old-timey ass flaps on union suits.

I practically had the beach to myself, but the boardwalk was busy with those just waking up from cabin fever and those who have jolly thick-coated dogs (who must suffer through the hot summers). But no one bothered me – there’s usually a small motley band of panhandlers and nutters who think being unwashed and under various chemical influences is appealing to a woman – but the swants proved an effective repellant!

Perhaps my new cock socks** helped too…

Now I look like the nut-job.

Maybe on a colder day I’d wear these under my swirt…

Now I can’t get everyday is like swants day to the tune of the above out of my head…

*Yeah, still a little too chilly for outdoor knitting – but it was a good place to take photos of it too – coming soon.

**Smartwool, a gift from N. I told him I didn’t need anymore socks, he told me I needed these. He was right. In the few seconds Morrissey leaves my head, cock socks on the rocks repeated chant-like over and over comes in…

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Tagged as armageddon, beach, cock socks, cranberry, everyday is like sunday, felted sweater, jersey shore, maroon, morrissey, nut job, ocean, orange, recycling, rusty pipes, sand, sewing, swants, thrift store sweater, winter, wool

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 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

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.)