Since having the sprogs I have become lazy in the execution of my personal goal to live sustainably, to live with consciousness and absolute responsibility. I’ve decided to reassess my consumption of “stuff” in general, and the two areas I’ve decided to really focus on right now are plastic and clothing because they’re the two areas I think I’ve been most lax in recent years.

Taking off the blinkers of convenience and really seeing the amount of unnecessary plastic that comes into my home, I feel quite ashamed. Then looking at the mountains of washing we’re able to generate before we start to run out of clean clothes to wear is embarrassing.

The clothes we own are largely poor quality, especially the sprogget’s clothes – cheap clothes designed to be worn a few times before they wear out. Clothes that have been cut and sewn with no concern for the direction of the fabric grain. Clothes that look old and shabby after just one wash. I used to op-shop with glee, but then it became all too hard to rummage through op-shops for clothes in the right size and style with first one, and then two children in tow. The convenience of rack after rack of the same item of clothing in various sizes, so reliably available, became too irresistable.

With some changes in the air for my family that enable us to do more than just (barely) make it through each day without dropping the bundle I once again feel able to take on a more conscious approach to treading lightly. I feel able to be more aware of the impact of my choices and actions on my environment, and on other people. Now is a great time to create some new habits and reclaim some old ones.

PLASTIC

Questions to ask at the point of purchase:

•  Do I need* this?
• Can I source something that isn’t made from/with plastic to do the same thing?
• Will this last a long time, or is it designed to be thrown away?
• Is it made from/with recycled or virgin plastic?
• How likely is it that this will be reused or recycled when I dispose of it?

Actions to take:

• Take cloth bags to the shops every time.
• Choose products with no (or at the very least, less) plastic packaging.
• Give preference to non-plastic products eg. wooden, metal and cloth toys; metal and silicone food containers.
• Choose recycled plastic products & packaging where plastic is unavoidable.
• Recycle all plastic that comes into my home and into my hands.

CLOTHING

Questions to ask at the point of purchase:

• Do we already have adequate (and seasonally appropriate) clothing in our cupboards?
• Will this last?
• Is it well made?
• Can I make this?
• Is it natural fibre?

Actions to take:

• Make our family’s clothing myself, excepting socks because I can’t knit (yet!).
• Buy from op-shops and local artisans only, avoid chain stores.
• Buy natural fibre fabrics to eliminate reliance on oil for synthetic fabric production**.

So help me out here folks, what other questions can I ask, and actions can I take, to consume less and consume what I do with mindfulness?

Anyone else keen to reassess their consumption of stuff and set some personal goals too?

*Obviously I don’t need anything made from/with plastic like I need water, air, shelter and food, so in this instance I mean for “need” to be read as more than a want, more than a frivolous “because I like it” purchase. For example: buying food in plastic packaging.

**I already choose natural fibre fabrics for myself and the sprogs, I consciously chose to do this 7 years ago, but it’s something I think is important enough to note here in case someone else is taking inspiration from this post…

Last Spring, somewhere between it being cold enough for jeans & too hot for jeans I cut the bottoms off one pair of jeans to make some knee length denim shorts. I kept the cut off denim to add to my extensive fabric stash, thinking I’d maybe do something with it one day…

So a couple of weeks ago, “one day” came.

I have another pair of jeans in the same dark denim so I decided to unpick the outside leg seam to the knee & sew in a triangular panel of the scrap denim to give my jeans a more flared, retro look.

I’m not going to turn this into a “how to” blog post, since I am still very much a beginner seamstress & there are plenty of resources online that explain how to add a panel into the outside leg seam of pants far better than I would.

Instead, I’ll just show pictures of the finished product. I didn’t even get any action shots of me & my sewing machine so you’ll just have to take my word for it that it really was me who did it!

This was a great learning experience for me, I unpicked, I straight stitched, I zig-zag stitched, I top-stitched (a first for me), and I made a feature hem with scrap fabric bias binding.

Photos courtesy of Bean, www.liamwilde.com

Look what I did!

I did part one of a two part quilting course on Saturday. I’m learning how to make half square triangle patchwork blocks. It’s fantastic, the possibilities are endless. I’m using different fabrics from 2 colour families for the quilt, I have chosen blue & brown.

I’ve decided that for this quilt, since it’s meant to be a scrap quilt, I don’t want to buy any new fabric, I want it to be made entirely of fabric already in my stash. This decision has led to me using a lot of fabrics I don’t particularly like and some that I love. A lot of the fabric in this quilt has been given to me by people who know I quilt & have responded to my request for scraps. Some of it is fabric from my Mum’s stash, the print I find the most ugly is one my Mum used to make matching dresses for my younger sister and I to wear to our Uncle’s wedding about 18 years ago! The rest is scraps of fabric that I have chosen in the past to make quilts or clothes for myself, obviously these are the prints I love the most.

I know it seems so odd to use fabrics I don’t like but I wanted to give those fabrics the chance to be something I can like. I wanted to challenge myself to think outside the square, to push myself to consider things I may not otherwise have bothered to use.

In the class on Saturday while looking closely at the quilt Trish (the teacher) has made for the class I realised that there were a heap of fabrics in her quilt that I wouldn’t have chosen off the shelf. Some of them I’ve even seen as a fat quarter & thought they were too bright, too “yuck”.  Seeing them in the quilt though, as a small piece, surrounded by other fabrics I realised that I do like them. That made me feel better about some of my more revolting prints, I think they could look good together, especially when they’re pieced with some prints that I love.

From now on I’ll be looking at a broader range of fabric options when I buy fabrics for quilting because something that I don’t really like could become part of something that I love!

EDIT 25/10/10 Here’s a photo of my pieces on the design board in class. Photo taken by my teacher

Liam and I are going to do a joint photo quilt project. Liam will provide the photos which we’ll print on to fabric & I will turn them into a quilted wall hanging.

We’ve decided to go with a theme of gardening since it’s something we both get a lot of joy out of.

As we select photos we’ll upload them to this post, and as the project comes together we’ll upload photos of that too.

I’m really excited about this joint project, I think it’ll be great fun!

Today the Perth Upmarket was on at UWA so we (and just about everyone else in Perth) decided to go along for a look.

It was great! The crowd was a bit overwhelming but I tried to ignore that because there were some fantastic stalls. Ironically, my favourite stuff was to be found at Liam’s friend Karrie’s stall. We got a pair of cut pants each for the children and an awesome A-line skirt for me. The skirt is a dark purpley-maroon with 3 butterflies appliqued onto the front, it’s lined with the same fabric used for the applique. I love, love, love it.

We bought the sewing machine! We decided to go without some other stuff for the time being & now we have the machine at home. I’m so thrilled!

Liam promised me a few hours of child-free sewing time at the weekend & he delivered. All I had to do was breastfeed Babyman when he wanted it, which wasn’t so often because I locked him in the cupboard…

Putting Babyman in the cupboard so I could have some uninterrupted Bernina time...

He didn’t seem to mind.

NO! Really he was being happily entertained by his Dad, Bruce (the man who drove us to Leonora in his bus), The Bubble & Bruce’s daughter while they assembled Bruce’s new camping solar system on our back deck. Oh the peace and quiet I had inside, music playing & the sounds of Aurora steadily sewing… Bliss.

I got about 4 hours sewing time all up, I managed to get quite a few more blocks finished for the quilt I’m making The Bubble. Then we went to visit detainees at Perth Immigration Detention Centre, after we got home I did a little more sewing when The Bubble was in bed & Babyman was happily playing on the floor in front of a mirror. I didn’t get as much sewing time in the evening because Liam dislocated his shoulder (again) at Perth IDC so he couldn’t carry Babyman.

Before Sunday Liam hadn’t dislocated his shoulder since I was pregnant with The Bubble, at least 3.5yrs ago. He dislocated it twice in a 4-5 week period then & he’d been careful with it since. Before he dislocated it the first time (which was before we were together) he played A-grade volleyball, at Perth IDC he was invited to play volleyball with some of the men there, he forgot about his pre-existing shoulder injury but remembered how good he used to be at volleyball… One shot & his shoulder was dislocated. He popped it back in after a bit of messing about trying to find a suitable pole to use as leverage, then went on to play cricket! Foolish thing to do! His shoulder is quite sore now & it’ll take a little while for the inflammation to go down so the next week or so of evenings may involve more Mama-Babyman cuddles & less Mama sewing. Oh well, I’ll have many years to sew & not so many years to cuddle my fat little Babyman.

… because soon I’ll own one!

We’re investing in a sewing machine. I’ve chosen the Bernina Aurora 440 Quilter’s Edition. SQUEE! I’m very excited.

I’ve wanted a Bernina of my own for such a long time. I’ve done a lot of research, spoken with a lot of experienced seamstresses & quilters, tried one out and been to a couple of different sewing stores.

The Aurora 440QE is not a cheap machine, it’s a layby jobby, so it’ll take a while before it’s in my hot little hands. I’m so looking forward to stitching many a night away…

Stay tuned for pictures of the loverlee work I’ma goan do with it