No Clothes for a Year, Part II

My sewing lessons started when I was nine years old. My older sister had already been sewing for four years and I thought she could sew a house if she felt like it. Sometimes when there were scraps she would teach us how to sew and I made mini-quilts for my teddy bear and I tried to sew teddy bear clothes. During a good run we would take over the dining room for a week. Fabric would be strewn about, needles had fallen to the floor, and thread found its way into our food. I wanted to change the world with my sewing.

I sewed until I was twelve. Needless to say, I did not change the world. Sewing involves a lot of math and it was around age 12 that math looked similar to Japanese. The following year my big sister moved off to college and she took her sewing machine and scraps with her. And the year after that a Mall moved in to our town and I no longer wanted to sew my own clothes.

There are two main things I am learning during My Year of No Shopping: creativity and simplicity. On the one hand, the lack of resources spurs me to approach my closet with a new eye. I mix and match and sometimes I am mixing more than matching, but at least I am warm. On the other hand, I have enjoyed watching my closet shrink and I am now embracing the emptiness, the space in my house, and it seems to have opened up space in my head too.

Perhaps you recall that last year I cleaned out my closet and gave away half of my clothes. Maybe it would seem logical to think that I am clinging tightly to the remainder. I should tell you that I am not logical. I continue to find clothes that I am not using, do not want to wear, or no longer fit. Every other month I go on a rampage through my house and I find things I must get rid of. What used to bring me joy and fulfillment now only clutters my life. I want space and I want lots of it. I am not saying that I want to buy a bigger house so that I can take up a lot of space. I am saying that I want my tiny little condo to be full of free space.

Eventually, I want my hall closet to be empty. I want to reduce my life to the bare necessities. This year of No Shopping is teaching me how to get rid of the non-essentials. It was all just stuff anyway, nameless, faceless stuff. I am learning that I hang on to it because I form an emotional attachment to it, not because I think I may perhaps someday in the future use it to make a bundt cake.

I actually feel closer to God when there is no clutter in my home.

I decided that if I never looked at it, played with it or talked to it, I had to get rid of it. This process of stripping down leads me to think about recycling. About 10 years ago I heard a statistic that is unnerving: the average American throws away three pounds of garbage a day. A day. Where does all that trash go? How can I reduce that number? How can I recycle and reuse the things I already have?

Prior to My Year I would have simply dumped clothing as it started to unravel. But now I have to make it four more months and I do not have the freedom to replace things at my whim. I am learning that these are the items I should recycle, these good clothes with stains from the copy machine or the wayward marker at school.

At the tender age of nine when I was sewing clothes for my teddy bear, I also wanted to sew for the women of Ethiopia. This was during a time when Ethiopia was going through a devastating drought and I wanted to sew clothes for people who needed them. I also wanted to buy them all a John Deere lawn mower so they would not have to walk so far to retrieve water and carry those heavy jugs on their heads. I thought John Deere could save the day. Did I mention that I was only nine?

This is when I realized that I needed to start sewing for myself, not the world. I am not going to sew for the women in Ethiopia. I am going to sew so that the people in South East Asia are not sewing for me. During one of these rampages I pulled out several articles of clothing that either needed to be given away or recycled. I turned an old dress into a tank top. There is another dress that is awaiting transformation, waiting to become a skirt. A pair of old jeans is going to become Capri’s, complete with a cuff and ribbons or maybe buttons. I also tailored several items that were too big for me. And yesterday at church my cousin (husband to the sock donor) gave me a pound of Fair Trade Certified Organic coffee if I could fix the zipper on his favorite pair of Khakis. Recycling. I know what it is like to love a pair of pants as though it is a dear friend. Whether I fix the zipper or not I think I get to keep the coffee.

In 1998 I traveled throughout Europe for three months and in every single country I bought fabric of some sort: napkins, place mats, scraps, etc. Last summer I woke up one day and said, “I think I am going to sew a quilt.” That morning I dusted off those old snippets and started to cut them up. I had no idea what I was doing because 20 years had passed since I last felt the power of a sewing machine. Two short weeks later I had produced a lovely queen-sized quilt without even using a pattern. Two months later I made another one.

From taking up sewing not only do I get the satisfaction of making the old new, I experience an unexpected sisterhood with other sewers. For example, Kerri joined my House Church a few months ago. She is a teacher in a rough school, just like me, and she sews. She sewed her own Prom Dress. She could probably sew a car if she wanted to. Several weeks ago Kerri re-read the Little House on the Prairie series (she teaches language arts in middle school). One thing that she learned while reading the book was how everything was used to it’s fullest potential. We now live in an age when we throw things away at the first sign of fatigue. This spoke deeply to her. Kerri realized she had too many clothes in her closet because she read Little House. Crazy. She decided that she only needs 15 shirts for cold weather and 15 for warm weather. When she buys or sews a new shirt she has to get rid of an old one.

Kerri comes over to sew with me on the weekends. She teaches me how to read a pattern (I swear they are written in a language I do not understand) and she gently coaches me. During my first attempt on a tank top, using old fabric first, I almost sewed the arms shut. Kerri warned against this idea. While I sweat away at my machine, cursing and loving it at the same time, Kerri is singing quietly as she sews.

I went to the fabric store last week with Kerri. For $30 I bought three distinct fabrics and plan on making two new spring outfits. I am more than excited. Part of my excitement comes from having Kerri join my journey. At the fabric store she picked out some fabric to duplicate a shirt that she really loves. I mean it. She loves it. She bought it at the mall and she would like another one. When she came over last Friday I actually watched her measure and trace and cut out a pattern using the original shirt as a guide. I could not even sew the elastic to the waistband of my practice skirt.

Sometimes I feel a strange sense of guilt that everyone knows about My Year of No Shopping. It says in the Bible that when one fasts it should be done in secret and not proclaimed loudly on the street corner. And here I am telling everyone what this year of fasting is teaching me. But it seems that I am learning so much because I am willing to share my story with so many. If I kept my story to myself, Kerri would not come over and bring peace to my house. Instead, I would have closets full of useless stuff but not a Kerri sitting at my dining room table.