Value of work

This week got lost entirely.  I've only made slow progress on a variety of work fronts--I had some medical appointments, and it's been cold, which makes everything seem harder and more tiring.  Today my article ran in the Jewish Independent (a version also ran in the Jewish Post & News earlier this week):
What is the worth of work?

I think about this often because much of my work -as a writer, designer, maker or mom-- isn't compensated or valued in the ways that society sees as important.  (That is, I don't earn much.)  For instance, I ordered two pairs of wool tights and by the time they came to Canada, I'd paid an awful lot per pair.  (taxes, fees for postage and handling, etc.)  But one pair arrived with a big hole on this seam!  The shop reimbursed me for the pair of tights, which was great.  I was able to mend the hole, and now I have what amounts to a $90 CDN pair of tights--which I got for free, because I know how to mend.  Whew!

I also got to fix three pairs of little boy jeans this week...iron-on patch, and then I use the sewing machine to stitch the holes up as well.  This sort of reuse and repair is nothing new, but it does seem less common among their classmates than I'd expect.  These skills are less common now, and seen as something special or an important statement about the environment.  And yes, I care about the environment, but I also hate to buy new jeans when my kids wear through them this fast!

If you're a spinner, are you going to any spinning retreats?  For the most part, I don't go to these--I have young kids and they need me.  Also, these events are expensive and usually on Shabbat (Friday night to Saturday night.) But they do look like fun!  I was recently asked if I wanted to contribute to a "goody bag" for Plyaway, which is happening in April.  I thought it might be fun to include special coupon codes for my knitting patterns.  

The coupon needed to be in black and white.

So, part of my work this week?  Creating a fun graphic to include on the coupon.  I transformed the photos for the Due North Mittens into something new.  Here were some of the steps along the way.  If you happy to get a coupon in April, you may recognize where it came from!!

The making season

 I am showing off my gear...I am getting ready to demonstrate spinning, weaving and knitting tomorrow (Friday) at the Manitoba Hydro Building for “Made in the Middle”-a big curated craft sale put on by the Manitoba Craft Museum and Library.

One of my twins came home with a mitten from his reading teacher with a big hole in it.  Could I fix it?  Yes, I did. Mommy mending to the rescue! (Pro tip: I used my handspun naturally cream colored wool that matched)

I may also have ordered more fabric, since my sewing machine has been serviced and is good as new, aside from being very oily...I am currently trying to teach myself how to line a wool jumper I'm working on.  That's my new sewing project.

 And, I cranked out some challahs, as Friday comes every week and we eat some every Friday!

I find when it is cold-and it is, we have ice and snow outside now-, I do a lot more making...(and a lot less running around outside with twins.)

It feels to me that there is not as much in the publication department to announce, (everything else seems an anticlimax after being mentioned in Vogue Knitting, go figure!) but plenty of things are still being baked, mended, spun, knit, sewn and more.

Thank you to all my readers for sticking with me so long! We celebrated Canadian Thanksgiving this year in October, but I am grateful for you all year round.

The bread machine and the dishwasher

Here's my opinion piece on the CBC-Manitoba webpage today about fixing appliances and why we should do it:
Our disposable culture needs a fix that will help our environment, too

In other, less news-worthy news, we are in the midst of a three day weekend which seems to involve a lot of cold, cloudy flurries outdoors, kids playing in front of the fire, dog walks, warming foods, and very occasional chances for me to knit, spin and sew.  (in between meals, snacks, and everything else!)

Making, behind the scenes

I have been in recovery lately from a lot of holidays,the trip to see my family, and just keeping up with the start of school and our rough snow storm start to cold weather.  It felt like I was not doing much “work” in the writing department but actually, a lot of making was happening,  I have knitted on additions to two kids’ beloved sweaters (they got taller!) and you can see one of them here. I also decided almost immediately after finishing the black jumper to use the same 100 acts of sewing pattern dress no.1 to make a vest.  I did my own “hack” of the pattern, I cannot seem to follow pattern instructions the exact same way twice in a row!  This was all “free” fabric from theArtsJunktion. (A place in Winnipeg where you can donate arts and crafts supplies and also get them for free..It keeps us reusing and recycling and keeps good stuff for art out of the landfill.) I always make a donation and pay for parking, but the fabric did not cost me anything.  This made up for the fact that this vest took me a while!  I cut too low a neckline by accident, so had to teach myself how to make a dart in the back of the vest to raise the neckline.  I think it worked and am excited about wearing this with black dress pants and my new Strippy McStrippit design.

While all this was happening upstairs at my sewing machine, our washer broke.  Yes, this is something no twin mom ever wants to hear from her husband on a Saturday night.  However, I did a search for appliance repair people online, emailed three different ones-and kept sewing.

Imagine my surprise when one wrote back and said he could come diagnose the problem on a Sunday!  (Hallelujah!) We were able to have the broken part replaced and were back in the laundry business by Monday afternoon.  Whew!

Also happening—we received our second Black Sheep Mattress. (We were long overdue here for new mattresses.)  I have now slept on it, and wow, it was a good sleep.  It is made of wool, cotton, pocket coils, and an organic cotton cover.  Of course, five minutes after I made the bed with the brand new mattress, Sadie the dog was trying it out!

Then? There was a sale at my friendly, not so local Manitoba fabric store, ThreadCount fabrics.  I may have placed an order...this sewing thing is very satisfying just now.  I mean, I get new clothes when I finish a project!  Who could dislike that?  (Bottom fabric is a bat print for a friend’s teenager.  It is October—doesn’t every fabric order need bats in it?!).  Actually, the professor really does not like bats, and I am not world’s biggest fan myself...so I covered that up to give to my friend later!

Meanwhile, little boys in grade three play very hard.  The “brand new” start of school size 7 jeans are already getting holes in the knees.  However, I discovered that the size 7 jean legs are now almost big enough to mend using the machine.  This drastically reduces the amount of time spent on each hole, and I am all for it.  I even ironed on a patch today and then tacked it using the machine, but the kid with the size 7 slims better stop making holes by crawling on the playground, as they are too small to be easily darned on the machine. (And now that I have used the machine to do it, I do not want to go back to doing it by hand!!)

Last but not least, when kids play in wet, dirty, sloppy snow, they need a lot of mitts.  And my twins grew a lot this past summer.  I knit quickly, but do not work miracles.  So, I took some old felted sweaters and made two pairs of felted wool mitts, one pair for each boy.  These are not works of art but they are warm!  Now that the snow has melted and the mitts and boots are finally dry, I am hoping I have a few days off before we need to do quick mitten production and wet mitten and boot rotation again...

So, if you were wondering, what am I writing these days?  Well, not as much as usual, but things are still getting done over here in the meanwhile! (And this did not even mention how many meals and loaves of bread I turned out this week, did it?!)

Summer projects

Sometimes keeping everything afloat in the summer time can be tricky.  The professor has been gone for the last week (he just got home last night) as he had a conference to attend.  We were busy.  A lake, two wading pools, a bakery, a book store, a grocery store, two dog walks a day, the human rights museum, a special robot coding workshop for kids...and more.  

When I fit in work last week, it was late at night.  It is a miracle anything work-related gets done at all!  This article just went live on the CBC though:

No need to reinvent the wheel with 'Made in Manitoba' solutions...

It's about how our growing city can come up with urban solutions by simply looking to cities who have already dealt with things like noise pollution, drug crises, and infill strategies.  (We are not the first city to face this stuff!)  It featured this great photo of taxis in NYC.

On the making front, I just mended a small tear on one of the Professor's shirts.  It is 100% silk, so I would not want to just throw it out (think of all that silkworm work!)--and it was a very quick fix.  Hurray for darning...

And, I have just finished the latest Nanodistal.  This is a dark photo of this, as was still wet when I shot the picture.  However, it's one strand of a boucle silk yarn by Handmaiden called Rumple and another strand of Knit Picks Lindy Chain (a linen blend yarn.)

This was my purse knitting project and I whipped it out whenever I was with kids and I needed to do something to stay busy until the next thing....piano lessons, appointments, and playgrounds.  I need a new mindless project to stuff in my bag now!  Must dream one up...

Summer in Winnipeg has been beautiful and --well-- hot.  (I think I maybe am really a Canadian now, as it hasn't been nearly as hot as summers when I was a kid in Virginia!)

Things fall apart

OK, deep breath, we've had a bunch of breaking things around here.

Back in January, we had the boiler problems, and it is fully described in this article that just came out in the Vancouver Jewish Independent: Make me a Sanctuary  Well, except for one thing.  Here is the image they used, and well, our boiler is probably at least 50 years old!  (If only our utilities were so small, tidy and up to date!) Hah.

Then we had a problem with my car--at first, the battery was old and the car wouldn't start in the intense cold.  (no surprise, even when it was plugged in.)  But then, this week, I noticed the tires did not look so good, and when that was being dealt with, uhh, the suspension and a wheel bearing all needed to be fixed.  Not actually surprising stuff considering my SUV is nearly 16 years old.  However, that was a pricey date at the auto repair garage! (Think...over $2400. Yup.)

And it snowed a lot, so we had to get the snow off the roof to avoid ice dams. (An hour and three guys up on the roof of a 2.5 story hundred year old house= not free)

Then today, I went to pick up my mom (who is visiting us, hurray!) at the airport, and I lost the parkade ticket for the first time ever, I think.  (charged full rate of $25.)  I am wondering what my next lucrative career opportunities might be, because writers/knitwear designers do not make enough to cover all this!

However, some things can be fixed.  This lett-lopi Bohus-style sweater is one designed by Norah Gaughan that I knit a long long time ago.  (Probably more than 10 years ago.)  I love this sweater.  It was getting fragile.  I washed it.  It came out with big holes in the sleeves.
The benefits of a deep stash?  I found the exact yarn that will match it.  I can fix these sleeves. And I will still have my beloved sweater.  So, some things can be fixed --and the cost of this repair of my sweater?  (free.)  Can't beat that.

Sale & Freestyle

This fall has been intense--lots of stuff on the homefront to sort out and fix.  This past week, Sally the dog (now, age 14!) had a bad tummy ache and we were worried things were all over for her.  She seems to be on the mend...with a lot of antibiotics, anti-nausea pills, and more.  Meanwhile, things haven't been quiet elsewhere either.

I wrote about some of it in this article that came out last Friday:
Sorting out playground fights

The short version is that untangling what's happening in my twins' lives can take a while. Lots of appointments and drama. Sometimes, it's a lot easier to fix a sweater!  Stripe Freestyle had a major blow-out this past weekend.  This is one of the cuffs, and suddenly, I saw my kid's thumb going through the cuff like a thumb hole...where I hadn't made one when designing the sweater!

He loves this sweater.

So, first I got it off his body. (not easy, actually.)
I waited until all seven year olds were asleep....
I put a piece of white paper behind the enormous hole so I could really see it.

I picked up stitches substantially below the beginning of the hole, using a double pointed needle one size below what's called for in the pattern.  Then, I began recreating the cuff, picking up whatever weak stitches and edges I could on either side of the hole.
When I was finished, it did not look perfect or untouched.  In fact, I even took a tapestry needle and stitched over many weak stitches I'd spied around the hole--after this was knit up.

And making this, and RE-making this, felt good.  He loves this sweater and has worn it just about every other day for the last year, and I have no intention of trying to either knit a whole new one or shop for anything right now.  Instead, I fixed what I'd made previously, and that was the kind of "reduce, reuse, recycle" mantra that I'd like to have more of in my life.

After the big mending job, it needed a bath, and then it dried on a towel on the radiator over night, and is now good to go.  I am, however, encouraging my lovely boy to consider rotating his sweaters a bit more, because this one will not last forever.

THE SALE
If you too are a "maker" sort?
I'd like to invite you to download a pattern from Ravelry, at 25% off, with this coupon code:
Making

The sale lasts until midnight, CT, on November 30th.  Please share this "Making Sale" with friends!

Stay warm.  Happy knitting, cooking, reading, resting on the couch, and enjoying this hibernating season. :)

Handmade life

You may be wondering where I've been.  (So have I!)  Things have continued with a whirlwind pace. This week my kids have had two separate medical appointments (this is usual, things are ok, generally). The temperature has dropped here fast, and as we've gotten out the warm clothes, we've found plenty to mend and repair.

When I haven't been running around, working, or fixing things?  We've been out in the sukkah.  (When it isn't raining, of course.  It's currently pouring and in the 40s (F). Celsius, it is maybe in the 5 to 9 degrees range....

On the web, folks have been talking about 'slow fashion' October and other trendy ideas in the "maker" world.  I sometimes berate myself for not being enough of a joiner.  Then it occurs to me, oh, yeah.  I am making things all the time.  There's the sukkah. I make dinner.  I serve it in the sukkah...when it's not raining.

There's lunch. (leftover salad from dinner, topped with cheese, walnuts, and roasted chickpeas, a balsamic mustard dressing, spelt bread from the bakery, cantaloupe on the side.)

There's one of many emergency mending projects.  Here is the sweater with 9 lives. (or 15, at this point.) I picked this up off the floor to put it away. Note: our twins are supposed to put away their sweaters, but gravity seems to win out quite often at age 7....
I found this scary raveling on one of the cuffs.

The professor started doing some important bedtime reading with the guys. We're currently addicted to these fairy stories, in case you were curious.  I picked up the stitches with a spare double pointed needle.

I carefully knit up the stitches I could with the remaining yarn, and then used a bit of leftover yarn to fix the cuff itself.

All fixed!  Mommy saves the day (and the sweater!)….Hurray!

Embracing Patched Jeans

Hurray!  My first piece went live yesterday on CBC-Parents!

It's in the "Learning" category.
It's live, and on a national CBC website!
Here's a link:
 Why My Kids Have Patches On Their Clothes And What That’s Taught Our Family

In other news:
Sadie the dog had a little run-in with the leftover sugar from canning yesterday.  Rather, she was annoyed that I left home (She was saying, "The nerve of that lady!  Going out for some groceries! Leaving me at home with Sally the dog, the Professor, and both twins---  All on my own!") and decided to do some investigation of our kitchen counters again.  Everyone else was upstairs, getting ready for kid bedtime. This time, Sadie's adventure involved taking a 2 kilo bag of sugar (maybe a pound or .5 kilo was left) and bringing it to the living room, ripping up the bag, and spraying sugar everywhere.  Talk about a mess...OY.  She is paying for it today with a real tummy ache.

It was a lot to clean up but it was also pretty funny.  Oh, we have a big puppy!
Note to self: Do not leave stuff out on counters!  Repeat! (Read that note, again and again.)

She'll grow and learn, but it takes training and time...and I have to train all the other family members to keep better track of her.  (Cause sometimes I do leave home to do things...crazy, huh?)

July-the mending and making edition

The professor was invited to give a talk (lecture) at a conference in Naples, Italy.  For a variety of reasons--the cost of airfare, finding stuff to do with twins alone in Naples while he was at the conference, and well, the fact that I speak no Italian, among other things...I chose to stay home with twins and dogs this time while our professor did a very speedy trip to Europe.  He came home with treats for everyone.  For us though, one of the tastiest treats was the 10 Euro he spent in the duty-free shop on real Buffalo Mozzarella.  He carried it, in a little cooler, through many airports.  We all thoroughly enjoyed it!  (See above for the tomato and basil, plain, and dressed with Italian herbs versions...balsamic vinegar and olive oil were optional, too!)

When he got home, we took a walk in the neighborhood to do some errands, and this bag was on sale at a boutique.  It's made of recycled fabric and made with fair trade workers in India.  I love it-- (I kind of have a bag thing...) but it needs some more pockets and a closure.  I haven't figured that out yet.

Also this past weekend, we had other projects going on.  The twins and the professor picked our cherry bushes completely clean of ripe cherries-and those are now sitting in the frig, waiting for me to make cherry jam.  First though, came strawberry picking.  Usually this is a family trip, but Sadie the new dog is not quite ready yet for long stretches on her own.  So, I hung out at home and they went off to pick berries yesterday.

When they came back, one twin's lightweight gray pants were, umm, trashed.  Mending needs to happen, but when we thought on it, we all concluded that really, he just needed more warm weather trousers that he would agree to wear.

After some discussion, we decided that his most comfortable, holey, patched jeans would make good "long" shorts--essentially surfer length, if not longer.  Three pairs of pants rushed up to my office sewing machine last night.  50 minutes later...2 pairs for the kid with the urgent need...and 1 pair for the other twin.  (Maintaining parity is always good!)  We will see how these work.  In any case, the cut-offs look slightly nicer than some of the patches at this point. :)

Over the weekend, I took a quick trip to a fabric store I love, and I found this Marimekko-style remnant.  It was slinky and a weird shape.  Definitely not super useful, but I had to have it--and at $2.60 CAD, it was a cheap splurge.  While I made cut-off shorts, I pondered.  I had a linen tank top that never fit right.  It was sitting in a pile to be mended.

I hemmed the remnant and attached it to the tank top in a sort of handkerchief pinafore style.  We'll see if it stays assembled when I wear it...but at least now I can look at this pretty block print flower style some more.  The fabric was so sheer and slippery that pins made holes in it.  It was hard to work with--and I am not sure I'd like to try sewing something bigger with it.

Today though, it was all about strawberry jam.  17 cups of jam later, we still have two flats of strawberries left in the refrigerator.  There is one fabulous thing about seven year olds though.  Hand them a cutting board and a butter knife?  And the whole family hulled strawberries at once.  This saved me hours of prep work on my own.
I love making homemade, local "fast food" that goes on my pantry shelves for winter...but it also takes work and a chunk of kid-free time. (I find boiling water baths and kids do not mix, especially when trying out their new palm sized Italian race cars...)

Tomorrow, I start doing the cherries...wish me patience...I might need it!

Little kid clothing

This week I took one morning off to search for new flannel pjs.  Spring's the wrong time of year to look for these, but in Winnipeg, I am just beginning to wear lighter weight clothing...it's finally warming up.

A funny story about clothes you never see:  I recently had a spectacular flannel pajama blow out!  I had three pairs of serviceable, matching pajamas.  (I'm not big on matching at night, I figure who can see the polka dots and stripes and clashing if your eyes are closed?!  Answer? Apparently--Your family.  The professor bought me these matching pjs as a result!)

Anyhow, it was as if these flannel pajamas all said "We're good for 31 washes.  Afterwards? We're done."  Within a week, all three pairs of pants ripped across the bottom in a really irreparable kind of way.  Rag bag it is, then.  I went back to the mis-matched pjs.  Loving partner said, "Could you please find new pjs?"

I spent a whole morning traipsing around stores.  The good news? I found: 1 pair of cotton flannel pj bottoms, no matching top.  1 box of good British tea that I like.  I bumped into one new person I like and talked to her twice. (in two different stores!)  I also saw my physiotherapist, who I also like, of course, and met her three year old daughter.

Many things seemed to cost a lot, but weren't made of natural fibres, or made in a sustainable and/or fair trade way.  I noticed that a pair of new little boy jeans might cost upwards of $15.  (We use a lot of hand me downs and second hand clothes for kids.)  I'm beginning to wonder if I have to figure out how to sew pajamas?  (in my spare time!?)

I was motivated to go home and fix these two pairs of pants that had been waiting for me.  Mending these now has an established process..it takes about an hour.  If I fix two pairs, that is well worth the time spent, when you consider how much a new pair might cost.

1) Collect more than one pair of pants with holes to save time.

 2. Choose boring patches; these get ironed on the wrong side of the pair of jeans, and are bigger than the holes.

 3.  Find fun patches for the right side, and iron those on to cover the actual holes as best you can.

 4.  These iron-on patches tend to peel off after just one or two wearings--which requires me to take the jeans out of circulation to fix and mend all over again.  Now, I just take them right from the ironing board to my sewing kit.

 5.  I stitch on both patches on the front and the back of the fabric.  I've given up making little "hidden" stitches because it is just not worth my time!  It's not a secret that I mended this, right?  And by the time these bigger stitches rip out, the whole pair of pants will be too small or will have self-destructed somewhere else....

6.  At which point it will either find a new home with another kid (if they are still salvageable) or will be used as rags at our house, or will enter the bigger rag trade through a second hand shop my husband has found that will take them.
We tend to wear our clothes hard around here.  We fall, dig, play hard, decorate ourselves with chalk and other art supplies--we're busy.  Slow fashion seems glamorous when you're talking about buying new, organic, fair trade cotton...whatever, but it's rather less so when it means actually fixing, mending, and making do.  However, this is also a bit of a how-to.  I've figured it out, know how long it takes now, and find it worth it to do.  Not for everything, not those ridiculous pj bottoms (formerly lush, warm, fuzzy cotton flannel), but with no backside left in them!
However, this saves money, saves time (no shopping involved!) and makes two little kids very happy.  They get the comfortable, old, worn-in jeans back, but with a novel twist.  I get a quiet hour at home instead of a morning driving around to stores which seem to feature mainly throw-away fashion.  What's that worth?  (Priceless.)

making

Nothing gets me back in my "work groove" better than a little quiet and a chance to do things and make stuff.  This past week has been pretty darn productive.  I've written two articles (and one will go live this weekend sometime), I've done some blocking and knitting, I've mended some clothes--which instantly increases what I can wear again...it's all good.

Both twins are also somewhat better settled when they are back at school, so I love routine.  Part of that routine is getting to do something absolutely crazy beyond producing meals for everyone else--It's eating a homemade lunch, by myself.  Better yet, the lunch doesn't comprise of a calzone or sandwich (things I could eat one handed while trying to feed those babies, for instance) but rather a salad.  here's an improvised delight I ate yesterday.  One cut up leftover baked potato, some spinach, some dilly beans--canned by me in long ago hot summer weather, some leftover 'mediterranean' type salad on top (cut up tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, carrots, with oil, vinegar, and Italian herbs), topped by plain yogurt and some peanuts for crunch.  Eclectic?  yup.  Good?  You bet.  And...I did not have to compete with two five year olds over the salad, which, by the way, is an issue.  I have two boys who love salad but will eat it all before I get to serve myself any!  

 Also on the schedule?  Writing up a pattern to submit as part of my local festival's collection!  Here's the sample, all blocked and tidy.  The yarn?  Handspun flax, from TapRoot Fibre Lab.

That one bead?  Recycled glass, purchased from an African fair trade vendor, at a long ago street fair.  Having a deep stash is great when it comes to finding that perfect bead or button...
Happy Spring Making!
Joanne

Additions and deletions

So, I think the whole #slowfashionoctober movement has passed me by, because I'm not on instagram.  I'm a bit retro: when we moved to Canada, we didn't get cell phones here, and I eventually gave up on the US one I had.  I haven't kept up with the smartphone, texting, selfie stuff that I see people doing all around me.

In fact, I found it to be a relief.  We don't get a lot of phone calls and to be honest, I don't miss it, mostly.  Life with twins and two dogs is noisy.  I don't think I always have to be available--and juggling the folks in my household takes all of my attention a lot of the time.  Truthfully, the only time I really thought I should have a phone was back in the spring time, when I had my little surprise trip to the ER and was too sick to use one myself anyhow.

Although I have dropped in on the instagram conversation as a lurker, I realized I wasn't debating things in the way others have.  I haven't been wondering how I could make all my own t-shirts, or spelling out the origins of every piece of fabric or yarn in my stash.  I haven't sworn off anything much, either.  On the other hand, I don't buy a lot new in the first place.

My only recent purchases have been out of necessity.  I bought another pair of All Birds Wool sneakers when I visited the US.  They are all wool and biodegradable materials, and I have fallen in love with how comfortable they are...and since I am not really up for making my own shoes right now, I'll settle for an ethically made pair, ready for next spring, summer and fall, instead. (winter time in Winnipeg = boots from November to April)

Then, I had (gasp) an underwire pop out of one of those essential female undergarments.  I was down to way too few of those anyway, and had to go to The Bay and check out their lingerie sale.  Now, I think I bought all of "last year's models" and saved a lot of money.  Were all those bras and pairs of underwear made in a place with good working conditions?  With a decent minimum wage?  I just don't know...but Rome wasn't built in a day.  I have to take a middle path about this.  There's no way I'll have time to figure out how to make underwear this month.  It's just not in the schedule.

This month, as usual, I've fixed lots of things.  I mended and patched many pairs of little boy pants.  I knit up an extension on this sweater.  Instead of cutting off the old ribbing, I left it in place, picked up stitches right above it, and knit down.  Luckily, I had matching yarn left over, although I have a feeling the kid in question would have been fine with contrasting yarn, if that were on offer!

I debated cutting off the ribbing at the end, but felt it was risky.  This kid is narrow in the hips, so instead, I just basted down the ribbing on the inside, and it forms a double layer band towards the bottom of the sweater.  It looks tidy enough on the inside.

Now, in this action shot, over a hand me down polar fleece, if you undo the sleeve cuffs, you can see there is still room to grow this season, and the sweater has already been in action again...worn out and about.

The kid in question is pleased as punch to have his sweater back.

I haven't done as much writing about Slow Fashion this month as I had intended.  However, maybe I have some excuses to fall back on.  Pre-twins, I did write a whole book about this back in 2009.  You know, about making ethical and green choices when it came to choosing knitting yarns and textiles in general...Knit Green.

I also realize that while I may not be snapping so many perfectly staged photos, I am indeed spending those moments trying to mend, recycle, reuse, and maximize what we've got at home when it comes to clothing.  Yesterday, I showed someone the knitting in my purse.  It's the sleeve to one twin's fall sweater (each kid gets one handknit sweater a year, if I can manage it) and one half of a handknit kid's sock.  It's all from my stash--no new yarn purchases.  I'm still trying, one stitch at a time, to make things from scratch in a responsible way.

Today, in other activities: I've made 3 loaves of challah, one loaf of banana chocolate chip bread, pureed the soup (and froze some) that I cooked yesterday, put chicken and potatoes into the slow cooker, got my freezer lamb for the year delivered, dealt with another house upkeep issue, and submitted an article on a deadline to an editor.  You know, nothing much... there's still time to fit in a little more mending and knitting, I hope! (and all before I pick up boys from kindergarten, too...)

Priorities

I planned to write lots about slow fashion in October, but we took a big family trip east to see relatives in NYC and Virginia (near DC) and we only got home yesterday. (Priorities here: family travels overruled all blog posts and computer time)

All went smoothly, and I think our twins mostly had a great time.  ...We had one 'throw up on Mommy on the airplane incident' but luckily, I had a change of clothes for everybody with me.  You know, par for the course when travelling with a couple of five year olds...

So, here are a few things to catch up:
Here's my latest piece on the CBC, which ran while we were travelling.  It is (surprise!) about priorities...educational ones.  How do we decide which students get priority?  Why do some misdeeds related to stealing intellectual property get seriously penalized while others are ignored?

International students pay more, get less at University of Manitoba

Also a matter of priorities...how do you know when to salvage something, how to mend it, and when to give up?

This is a mending job I did recently on a beloved quilt.  It belongs to one of my twins, it was handmade for him and has his name quilted right into it!  However, some of the stitching came out.  So, I made a very obvious repair.  I used matching embroidery floss and stitched it a bit like a crazy quilt, so that it was clear what I was doing.  I knew I couldn't make the repair invisibly, so instead, I fixed it like I meant it--in the tradition of meaningful mending that makes beloved textiles last a long time.

By contrast, I've developed a "two time and you're out" method when it comes to kids' pants.  I started by using cloth wipes left over from our cloth diapering days.  These are clean bits of well-used fabric, I hemmed and stitched them across knees as necessary.

Here is the backside of the pair of pants...as you can see, the stitching is not fancy.

Then, as the patches loosened, I went with iron-on patches on the back and front to keep the patch in place longer.  The patches are random; I bought a big bag of them, so I don't always choose a perfect match.  (at this point though, the priority is to keep the pants in circulation, so I don't focus on high fashion!)

After a few more wearings, this may or may not last..we may have to re-use this in the rag bag soon.  While visiting my family, my dad kindly did a third mending/repair job on two pairs of trousers that were worn hard and re-torn while playing at playgrounds.  We have a history of fixing things when they break, and having help on this was really a nice respite!  (This trip was a tour of living rooms, backyards, playgrounds, gardens, and a synagogue, for the most part; no major site-seeing despite the big city locations.)

The thing that I focus on when it comes to Slow Fashion (or how educational institutions work) is this:  What are one's priorities?  What is most important here?  Do we need to waste time or money unnecessarily?  How can we put people's needs first? Can we optimize conditions to re-use, recycle, or learn to make good use of new material to meet the needs of both people and the environment?

Those needs can be basic (food, water, housing) or a little more advanced (higher education tuition, registration, etc.) but it all comes to how we prioritize.  We need to use our ethical and moral values in the mix.  Let's not throw things out unnecessarily- but people's needs (and the environment) come first in the equation to maximize long usage of things into the future.  At least, that's how I hope it works in my house.  What do you hope for?