Look down at what you’re wearing. Right now, I have on jeans and an old t-shirt. Oddly enough, both were free. Also, I fetched both from my closet this morning thoughtlessly.
However, were I to look closer at my outfit, I would realize how many people’s hands were used in creating it. The Dalai Lama speaks often about how we are interdependent, how even the most simple clothing changes hands between people we don’t know, and will never know. My cotton shirt: first it was grown on a farm, tended not only by a proprietor but also farm hands who picked and deseeded (milled?) the cotton; the cotten was then made to useable thread and knitted in a factory run by strangers; it was dyed by someone running a machine; it was cut and sewn into a t-shirt; the screened print was designed (this time by someone I know) and applied (by someone I don’t). All these hands and thoughts went into something I carelessly threw on hours ago. This always seems to astound me.
The things we use, even the things with no packaging (like veggies or fruits or gasoline) have been made for us. They have been picked, shipped, refined, sold, and packaged for us. Each and every thing I own was touched by someone else, simply in preparation for me to have it.
If I look around my house, I can see how little I actually OWN. That I made myself. Even the stuff I knit (by the way, does knitting stuff for myself count as buying new clothes?) is made of yarn I bought from a store. I don’t have a sheep outside my apartment that I shear and spin.
For some reason, this just overwhelmed me. Whew! But maybe this feeling will give me pause the next time I reach to buy something new. It will at least make me realize that I am not alone, and that my choices affect others. So I should make the right ones.
Loading ...
My mom wanted an angora sweater when she was about 17. She had been raised in the city all her life. Her parents had just moved out to a small farm. She taught herself to raise angora rabbits, gathered their fur (you sort of comb it off them for the fibers; no bunnies are killed), taught herself to spin, already knew how to knit. It took her a whole year.
That story makes me cringe when I realize how callously I buy and give away sweaters.
Anything you construct yourself–sewing, knitting, crocheting–ought to be exempt.
Kathryn,
The charming story about your mother and the angora sweater illustrates how hard we can work to get something we truly desire… and how achieving that goal can be so rewarding. Back in 1981, I went off to college on the East Coast with a Fair Isle-style sweater that I’d knit myself and was very proud of. Imagine how I felt when I visited an acquaintance at another women’s college and she had more than 20 stacked high in her closet! I knew that she couldn’t possibly love those 20 sweaters more than I loved mine.
I agree, anything you make yourself should be exempted, especially things that are “re”-made from already worn items, such as felted pieces of clothing, toys or bags. It’s a labor of love and helps avoid the purchase of an item made in deplorable conditions. The one problem with making clothes – sigh – is that so many good ideas end up in the sewing room as a project that’s never finished.