Textiles and Bicycles

I’ve been doing pretty well with my shopping rules, meaning I’ve been doing pretty well sticking with organic and/or local and/or second-hand purchases. The only problem is I haven’t been doing so well on cutting back the unnecessary things I buy, which is definitely the most important of all those goals.

While I have been doing extremely well in dampening that gut reaction to buy something brand new by looking to Ebay or Craigslist for something used instead (like my new tripod or my new sewing book), I’ve recently been faced with something harder, but possibly more responsible in the long run: making used things work (thank you, Tim Gunn). In some cases I mean that literally, like this old Remington typewriter that my Tim (not Tim Gunn, because he’s clearly not mine) got from his now-deceased grandmother’s attic.

It weighs like a million pounds.

That’s obviously an exaggeration. But it weights A LOT. I think it’s cast iron. I know it’s pretty much absolutely gorgeous. Although I feel like I was raised on computers, I was actually on the generational cusp of having to use typewriters. I remember using them for college applications because just a mere 10 years ago not all schools offered PDFs of their applications that you could fill out online.

This is actually a terrible example, because the typewriter isn’t going to keep me from using a computer…it’ll just be a fun thing to test out and play with every once in a while. Could be fun to make prints and art with or something…

There are other things that are a better example of using the old to make something that will hopefully prevent me from buying something new.

Like this dress he also found in the attic:

I think it’s from the 30s (his great grandmother’s). Right now it’s a huge sack, but the rhinestones are actually quite nice–they’re set in brass in a way that, like everything else, seems to be done of a high quality you never see now. The plan is to seriously alter it into a fancy-ish dress. If I ever get my hands on that sewing machine.

So in preparation for my new life of altering old things and making them new again, I thought I would look for some tutorials on altering old clothes…and I found something even better. Did you know you can get incredibly old New York Times articles online? I found one from 1915: “Altering Frock Often More Expensive Than New Suit; Frequent Changes in Styles Likely to Make of No Avail the Hard Work of Reconstruction.”

Haven’t you seen a woman work for over a week over a frock that should have been discarded, and which never gave a moment’s satisfaction after it was finished? This condition implies lack of judgement.

Ouch! That’s totally me usually….

One of the greatest financiers, when asked to what especial quality he thought he owed his success, answered: “The elimination of the non-essential.”

I agree. But 1915 was a different time (amazingly profound, right?)…and the elimination of our non-essential would probably refer more to our purchase of new things rather than our need to more readily throw away old things…which most of us seem to have zero problem with. Remember when people used to fix things?

I guess maybe if this was what I had to make, I wouldn’t be considering rehabbing that old dress.  Luckily I can get away with a simple design and call myself deliberately minimalist.

So I’ve been shopping a lot lately. Italy just got me going in a bad bad way. I bought all kinds of shoes there and now the momentum just has me in a frenzy.

This is a problem for me because something I’ve really wanted to start doing is not buy anything new for a while…
It’s going beyond the fantastic idea that Adbusters puts out there with its Buy Nothing Day, which is meant to replace Black Friday, or the day after Thanksgiving.
There are lots of bloggers leading the way with the concept of not buying anything new and there’s even a Facebook group about it: not buying anything new in 2008.

It seems to be something that’s gaining some traction with a lot of people. For instance, there’s a “Compact” that started in San Francisco (of course) with some “compactors” trying to create a movement–to reduce their unnecessarily wasteful consumption habits (common of pretty much all Americans) and maybe become something other than just a consumer, or customer, by not buying anything new. There are of course, some caveats to the rule, and I did think this was kind of hillarious:

One member recalls asking permission to purchase a new toilet brush, contending that it was a health issue. Overruled. How about a new house key? Allowed. New tubes of shampoo, toothpaste, sunscreen are okay, but skin bronzer would be frowned upon.

In 2006 and 2007, the idea has gotten a lot of attention and apparently this group was on the Today show and other pretty powerful spotlights. While some actually accused the group of trying to ruin the economy (which may be a valid argument if no one ever bought new things ever again, but is pretty unlikely), the idea is obviously about reducing our consumption, which is so above and beyond levels of need that it’s just irresponsible, to put it lightly.

This is a concept I can readily agree with. There is no doubt in my mind that I have amassed enough crap to meet the necessities of me and probably a few more like-minded, materialistic young women.

Nevertheless, I can’t get passed the feeling that in order to make it through my experiment in faux-asceticism I would have to charge my yarn stash (with organics and the like) first…but I suppose there are creative ways to get a hold of old/recycled yarn. It’s all about being creative, like using freecycle.
I think a lot of my inability to stick to principles like these is my own laziness, which I’d like to start owning up to.

In the meantime, one thing I’ve decided to do more of is to rework my old clothes into stuff I’ll actually wear in this day and age. I found a bunch of stuff from the past this past weekend, some posing much simpler challenges than others.  One of the easier ones is a pair of wide leg jeans I bought in Brazil 7 or so years ago, back from my more hippie days. It turns out we’re now finding ourselves in the middle of one of the cyclical wide-leg comebacks, sort of like the locust cycle. Actually I think the legging cycle may be more akin to the locusts.

I hate leggings.

Anyway. I didn’t even have to do much to make them work again.  I guess as a hippie I wanted my pants 5 or 6 inches too long thus making them look less flattering and allowing them to drag enough to give me that natural dirty look…(I swear I don’t remember actually putting the contrived thought into it back then…)

So. I hemmed them.

I (obviously) did it by hand with bright red thread, which I though looked cute with the light denim. They’re nice jeans, so I’m glad they’re not going to waste anymore.

So now I have a “new” pair of jeans.

And the earth didn’t have to cry for them…or else it already did once 7 years ago.