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Planning for my end game... |
It's probably my tendency towards always wanting to do a complete job that
motivated the promise. I don't want to have a blog where people keep popping
by, wondering, hmmm.... is she coming back or not?
For those of you who might be anxious about my retirement happening sooner
rather than later, let me clarify that today's post will likely be the first
of several to document my journey to the finish line. (See? It reads "Pt 1".)
So it's not happening yet. Not until I compile a list of things I want to
accomplish before I go, and then hopefully do them. (By the way, this blog
just passed over into its ninth year. If I can stretch out the "doing" part
of the bucket list items for another two years, that would be a great
milestone and a grand ending.)
However, I've also said before that I'm not generally a goal setter, we'll
have to see how this rolls out in terms of whether any of this gets
done. ٩(^‿^)۶
A couple of months ago, I opened up the doors to my dresser and yanked out all of the clothing inside. (It's a cabinet styled unit with two drawers at the bottom; the upper part behind the doors consists of two shelves, which were stuffed full from top to bottom.) When I stopped working, I virtually stopped buying clothes. But over the past year and half — to support the retail clothing industry — I purchased some new stuff, leading to the storage crisis in my dresser. Armed with a black garbage bag, it was time to cull.
Have you heard of the 80/20 rule when it comes to our clothing choices?
Apparently we wear 20% of the clothing that we have, 80% of the time. I can
attest to this; I reach for the same basic items time and again. That said,
those items have changed over the past year and some, as I've transitioned
to wearing my new purchases.
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The 80/20 rule applies to many things... |
With that in mind, I was determined to be ruthless in my culling activity.
Anything that I hadn't worn over the past couple of years — even if they
were somehow still favourites of mine — I threw into the bag.
It was my intention to put the bag away for a year. During that time, if I
didn't look for anything that might be inside, off it would go to
Goodwill.
A week later, I thought about how we "first worlders" dispose of things so
easily and then pat ourselves on the back for our noble recycling
intentions.
For example, my city has had a waste management recycling system in place
for over three decades. We happily sort out items — paper, plastic and
glass mostly — that would otherwise go in the garbage and put them out
curbside in blue bags.
In recent years, however, it has come to light exactly how much of what we
put out actually gets recycled. Then came the embarrassing revelation that
countries that had been accepting our plastics were in fact refusing them
due to improper cleaning and sorting.
My unwanted clothing is not plastic (although it undoubtedly contains
synthetics), but that doesn't mean it's less of a problem in the overall
sense. I've heard that some of our donated clothing gets turfed by the
organizations that receive them. Then once again, the discards get shipped
off to the other side of world to where they are seemingly not our
problem.
We need to stop this crazy cycle by being more proactive... and certainly
by consuming — buying — less.
If you're wondering what this has to do with my "bucket list" topic, here's
the connection. A week after my culling activity, I was on YouTube
looking at the usual sewing channels when it hit me that I had seen nothing
in many weeks that looked remotely unique or that I wanted to make. Hence
the rise in anxiety about running out of things to blog about and the urge
to compile a list of things that I might still want to do.
During one of those YouTube visits, I found myself digging deeper
into the channel of one Don Kim, who often takes thrifted clothing and repurposes the material for his
projects. For instance, he took this $4.20 dress...
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| image courtesy of Don Kim (YouTube)... |
and turned it into this stylin' duffle bag.
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| image courtesy of Don Kim (YouTube)... |
YouTube is awash with sewing tutorials featuring recycled jeans, but
this channel usually goes one better by pairing the denim with something
else. (Which I absolutely prefer, because otherwise my first impression of
the item is that it's an old pair of jeans.)
For instance, take a gander at this "bookshelf" tote bag made out of fabric
scraps and jeans. So cool!
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| image courtesy of Don Kim (YouTube)... |
Seeing his work made me wonder if I could make similar use out of my
unwanted clothing. Not so much the stuff in the bag, but from my closet; I
have pieces hanging there that haven't been worn in over a decade.
A successful upcycle often results in the recrafted item having more appeal
than the original piece(s) of clothing. That's when I decided that perhaps,
part of my wind down plan should be to transform an item of clothing (or two) into something spectacular.
Of course, I'll have to get over the guilt (not to mention nervousness) that comes from cutting into perfectly usable clothing. But when one considers what I've already written above — that in reality, the world has too much textiles already — isn't it just as well that the material be used to create something else? Especially if one is attached to particular garments because of said material?
For example...
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| Back of a short jacket... |
Back in the day, this was a favourite topper of mine. It's designed very much
like a denim jacket, but with a shirt tail hem.
Colour-wise, it matches up very nicely with this coat...
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| Back of a longer coat... |
I have to admit that this has seen very little wear (and is therefore in
perfect condition), but I've always been more attracted to the material than
the coat itself... look at the lovely texture.
Unlike last winter's adventure into
refashioning, I don't need additional pieces of clothing from this endeavour, so the
goal won't be to make something wearable out of these.
With that in mind, should I give myself permission to take a pair of
scissors to these garments? Dare I do so even after the permission is granted??
If you took advantage of Creativebug's free access week last month and saw things that drew your interest,
you may want to take them up on this Black Friday/Cyber Monday promo that's on until November 30...
That's right, they're offering you a
complete one year subscription
(affiliate link) for only $5. It seriously can't get any better than that. And if you're not interested for yourself, think of its possibility as a great gift idea for the crafty person on your Christmas list.
'Til next...
Sewing purses for Sew Powerful Purse Project and seeing all the purses others make and post to Facebook, one thing I have seen a lot is that so many women repurpose clothing and bed sheets, etc. and make purses for the girls in Zambia. That got me thinking that I should start doing that too. Husband gave me a lot of his jeans that are fairly new, but no longer fit him (he lost weight), so I did cut into one pair and used that along with a batik fabric for a recent bag test I made (cannot reveal until January). It turnout great and I have a lot of fabric left from those jeans to make more purses and things with. I also thought I would do the same with some of my no longer worn clothes. I do know that clothing that the thrift shops do not take to sell in their shop, they bundle it up and sell it by the pound to be made into rags, so at least it doesn't end up in the landfill. But the thrift shops also get a ton of donated coffee mugs and I heard one employee say they get so many they throw them out if they don't get sold quickly. But then why not sell them for really cheap if they throw away so many? Or donate to a food bank? That seems crazy! I found a great company that sells products like soap, shampoo, conditioner, face cream, etc. that is concentrated bars in cardboard containers. So I bought a hair conditioner bar and face cream bar, etc. They are really great! No plastic to toss and the soaps you add your own water to to make and use your own containers. Ethique has wonderful products and they give you a free gift with your order so you can try a mini product. I am not affiliated, I just think they have great products that work well and no plastic packaging.
ReplyDeleteI understand you slowly winding down on your blog. Most aren't even reading them anymore and others don't post, even those bloggers that had thousands of followers aren't blogging anymore. The rest of us our blogs aren't growing at all. I still want to continue to document what I make, but when I stop sewing one day, I suppose that will be when the blog stops too. Good luck to you in whatever you do.
Re-cycling fabric from clothing is a practice I've always been interested in. It's not necessarily something I've actually done, but I have saved several favorite pieces because of the lovely fabric. When my mother passed, I saved all of her tablecloths. Some were stained and well-used, and held so many memories. I've cut some to use as backings on table runners and other small projects. Memory pillows are another great project to use shirts and give as gifts to those who've lost lost ones (the wearer of the shirts). Anything we can do to keep from filling the landfills. Oh, I do hope there are many, many parts to your bucket list posts. It's understandable, but sad to see your blog come to an end.
ReplyDeleteYes, take the scissors to the garments. What have you got to lose? Not all of my upcycling projects worked, but I never regretted doing any of them - and I learnt a lot along the way.
ReplyDeleteAm I coming back to my blog or not - I haven't turned the lights out yet.