The other month, at my neighborhood meeting, I was knitting when the couple behind me asked about it. They had never used circular needles. "Can you turn a heel?" the man asked. Of course! His grandmother had raised him and taught him to knit and crochet. He said she would take the cotton string pulls from sugar bags, save them and have him knit them into square wash clothes. She would sell these to the store to buy more sugar!
Now, this is a man who calls the vice present and I, "the ladies," and only suggests men to chair committees or drive the tractors in the community garden. I started thinking about the two things that have changed so much: we don't make boys sit and do things like they used to and we don't use things up like they used to. They had a saying: Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without. Or it is, Use it up, make it work or do without. I might be channeling Tim Gunn on that last one? Anyway, I'll get down from my soap box and just add that we have a very disposable outlook today. Disposable towel scrub brushes (how clean does the inside of your pipes need to be?), disposable bibs for babies, and don't get me started on Lunchables! We are surrounded by waste (and I'm just looking around my dining room at all the crap I have)!
E likes to pull on my yarn as I'm knitting and asks if it's for her, "Dat to me?" Butters has not shown any interest in crochet, knitting or embroidery or even sitting still for that matter. He used to like to visit my craft room and make stuff, but not much lately. Although the other day he tried knitting her hair in the bath, so maybe their is hope!
1 comment:
Totally agree with you! We are definitely a disposable society. When I moved into my house in 1993, it had a Williamson furnace from 1963. It was huge and not energy efficient, but it worked for 33 years until I replaced it. The new furnace is energy efficient and made of lightweight metal, lots of computer boards, and if I am lucky, will last for ten years. Nothing is made to last anymore.
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