Rattled

Our baby was a month early and it still sometimes feels like I'm cramming to catch up; he's growing up fast and it's not easy to keep abreast of the changes.  I finally made him a toy rattle, and I'm pretty sure he would have enjoyed it even more a month or two ago, but he still took some time to check it out before breakfast this morning.

As our move plans remain in limbo, I'm trying to stay distracted with projects like this one, which seem to collect both in my brain and in our physical space.  It's always nice to cross something off a list, especially when I can use up leftover bits of yarn and materials.  This project is from a book of knitting projects for babies called Natural Nursery Knits.

Make Stuff and Carry On

Selling a house is a drag, and I can report that trying to sell a house while home alone for a month with a seven-month old is an extreme drag.  I felt pretty good for the first three weeks but this week my spirits are low, I can't lie.  While it may not be a long time in the life of a home sale, this month feels to me like it may never end.

Since my time is largely spent either alone or with a couple of sweet creatures who can't understand a word I'm saying, I have a lot of time to think.  As a result, I have wavered occasionally about our plan...too soon?  Too much?  Not the right time?  At other points, I have started to consider even more drastic options, like keeping the house and renting it out instead of selling it, or just getting an apartment in Minnesota but not really making a final decision about the house in Houston until next year.  We made the hard decision and now I just want to get started on the next phase.

In the meantime, I have stolen a few hours here and there for making things.  I can't get involved in anything too messy or complicated, in case of a sudden house-showing evacuation, so that eliminates a lot of what I was hoping to work on this year. But on the other hand, there are other projects; patterns and projects which can still provide both opportunities for learning and also just the pleasure of making.  I recently made this bag from a pattern in a cool book called Linen Wool Cotton.  It turned out that the pattern had some mistakes, but the book remains beautiful and inspiring.

Closet New Yorker

I'm of the mind that it takes six months to firmly settle into a new space.  Maybe it's just me, but when I review the process of getting comfy in a new home, consistently around the six-month mark, the furniture gets rearranged a certain way, or the kitchen cupboards get permanently tamed...perhaps the pictures get lifted off the floor and hung, which frees up the spare bedroom to be organized.  Something  occurs around that time that makes things click and feel noticeably better.  Also possible is that I have considered these dynamics far more than a normal person, after having set up seven different homes in the last seven years.

Additionally abnormal is that I find few things as soothing as cleaning out a closet or reorganizing a cupboard.  When faced with the unknown, the unruly, the upsetting, or the inexplicable; taking control of an inefficient traffic zone or a dysfunctional office calms me.  Along the way, I find an item or two that can be shared with others, or dropped at Goodwill.  At the end of the day, I have the illusion of being in control of my life, with the added bonus that things run more smoothly in the house.

Maternity 101

I started wearing maternity clothes this week.  I felt bad about it because it seems so early.  Nonetheless, suddenly none of my pants fit.  It was nearly overnight, and for a person like me who views a closet as something to be curated and tended to, like a garden, it was cause for minor mourning.  For some reason, I thought it would be a more gradual and less dramatic transition.  But no.

Let me say this.  I understand that many people in my life have already been through this at least once, or even multiple times.  I am late to the party.  For some, this experience was years ago, and for others it much more recent.  I have come to realize how isolating an experience this is, although I also recognize that to be part of nature's plan.  You aren't supposed to be focused on child-free aspects of your life when all of your body's energy is working to prepare you mentally and physically to produce and care for offspring.  Biology requires that I learn how to put the needs of another before my own interests and curiosities.  Since this is not easy, nature wants me to start practicing now,  months prior to birth.  I have never questioned the fact that my pregnant and new-parent friends kind of disappear, but before this, I had also never examined the minutiae which creates this dynamic, nor how it feels to be the one disappearing.

Wedding Dress Recycle, v.1

I've been designing a dress that will re-use the fabric from my wedding dress.  One possible outcome looks like this:

Stitching Time

There is little to report, but a nice calm before the next life hurricane is cause for celebration, not consternation.

Big Cotton: Light Reading

I've been reading about cotton, and it has a fascinating story.

Here are some of my surprising discoveries so far:

• Cotton was referred to as "vegetable wool" by the armies of Alexander the Great, during a time when the dominant sources of clothing were related to animal fibers and materials.
• Even though Eli Whitney made the cotton industry unimaginably profitable (and indeed, possible) with the invention of the cotton gin, his net profit from his invention never amounted to more than a few thousand dollars, due to ill-advised business decisions, piracy of his invention, and the resulting legal battles.
• The four varieties of cotton which evolved to produce cotton lint originated in present-day Pakistan, sub-Saharan Africa, coastal Chile/Peru, and Central American/Mexico.
• Cotton originally grew in a variety of colors, but after the invention of the cotton gin, only the white-ish colored cotton was selected for production, in order to simplify sorting and manufacturing.
• Upland cotton, or Gossypium Hirsutum, accounts for ninety-five percent of all cotton grown and used around the world.
• The cotton gin revitalized the waning institution of slavery by greatly reducing the hours required to prepare cotton for textile manufacturing and therefore making it again worth the cost of feeding and housing a labor force.
• Seventy percent of early textile mill workers died of respiratory illnesses caused by cotton lint inhaled in the poorly ventilated factories, whose windows were often nailed shut in order to keep humidity levels high enough to prevent thread breakage during production.

Make Clothes, Not Scraps

Since I have been learning to sew, I have accumulated many scraps born from testing fits of patterns, from making mistakes, and from making garments.  I can't bring myself to throw them away.  It feels so weird, and counter-productive, to take pieces of brand-new fabric and throw them in the trash.  As a result, I have a pretty large drawer of scrappy bits.

I recently read a figure that 30% of all textiles get tossed as scraps in garment production.  Given that we currently produce three times the amount of textiles that we did thirty years ago, doesn't that mean that we are currently "scrapping" almost the full amount of textiles produced thirty years ago.  I'm sure that we can do better.

In Partial Defense of Polyester

In an earlier post (Miracle of Modern Clothing), I described some concerns I have about the cozy relationship our closets have with oil production.  My understanding of sustainable clothing, and of ways to improve our system of clothing production is amateur, ongoing, and limited at best.  However, in my continued quest to deepen my understanding, I have recently finished reading a book right about fast fashion and our cultural appetite for it (To Die For: Is Fashion Wearing out the World? by Lucy Siegle).

Recycled Fabric: A Webinar

Future (of) Fashion: White Papers

Some years ago, after I started cleaning up my diet a bit and trying to remove some of the processed stuff that I leaned on too hard, it wasn't long before I started eyeing my closet nervously.  If I was concerned about toxic food, shouldn't I also be investigating the ramifications dyes, processes and chemicals used in finishing fabrics and leather?  I was scared to know the answer, because I have always loved clothes and shoes, but I had to be honest with myself.  When I wore a shirt, it was touching my body just as much as the organic food beauty products I sought.

When I removed a shirt from its regular rotation in my closet, it often went to goodwill.  There is no way that all items given to Goodwill always get used by other people, so many of them probably still go into the ground, whether or not I put my shirt directly into the bin.  Patagonia is a company that has been a leader in thinking about the impact, and the afterlife, of their clothing, with their "Footprint Chronicles" and their Common Threads Initiative, and even their recommendations that we buy less and use what we buy longer.  But I struggle with the sporty style; it does not come naturally to me.  So what to do?

Limits & Boundaries

I've discovered over the course of recent years that I'm more creative when hemmed in by boundaries and limits.  If I can't have more, I have to make what I have feel like more.  Sadly, I wasn't as good at this when I was a broke first-year teacher, but I'm making up for lost time now.