If you ask my mother, she'll tell you the truth: I never throw anything away. Blame it on my hyperactive sense of sentiment and my overwhelming urge to connect a feeling to everything I possess, whether it's just a receipt from a coffee shop 4 years ago or a shirt that hasn't fit me since 6th grade, I hate throwing stuff away. I always see potential in things (to a fault). To me, nothing is really unsalvageable. Every piece of clothing can be worn and every piece of paper can be used. That's why my paper scrap pile is a mile high. It's because I'm a keeper of things other people deem trash.
If you've ever seen me in person for more than just a short period of time, you know that I have a lot of clothes, and if you ask me about those clothes, I can probably explain to you exactly where I got them and how old they are. I love clothes. More than that, I love keeping clothes and having clothes. I love accumulating a large wardrobe. I always have.
But ever since I personally looked through my first thrift store my freshman year of high school, I've seen my impact on myself and the world around me through the things that I buy and consume. Not only could I save a lot of money, but I could potentially save clothes from being made that don't have to be. I can remember finding a pair of converse for $17, a pair of Lululemon shorts for $16, a pair of American Eagle jeans for $9. But it didn't stop there. Any true thrifter knows the feeling. It all starts with the adrenaline you get from a real bargain, but then you wake up and you realize how important your purchases have on the world.
In my sophomore year of high school, I took my first college class through dual enrollment which was Public Speaking. One of my assignments was to persuade an audience of something, and I chose to persuade people on why they should thrift. I started looking into the environmental effects from the fast fashion industry and not one of them is positive. I realized just how much water I would waste from the making of a single pair of jeans, just what kind of chemicals get disposed into the waters from these plants, and just how little the garment workers were getting paid.
And it made me sick.
I was repulsed at the idea that I had had that much of a negative lasting impact on our only planet and I started changing what I was buying, how often I was buying, and from what companies I was buying from. I couldn't stomach the thought of all that being caused by me. Even though it was only me making a conscious decision towards being kinder to the creation made by our God, it was all I had to responsible for at the time.
During my last year of high school, I started Labor Day Weekend. I started cutting up shirts and sweatshirts and blankets to make my first patchwork Madison hoodie for a friend of mine for Christmas. She loved it, she posted a pic of it on her SnapChat story, one girl from Auburn saw it, and then I realized that people actually wanted to pay me for something I've made. I charged a whopping $65. Man, did she get a steal! And it was my favorite one I had ever made. Oh, well. You live and you learn.
One thing I realized during my process was the sheer amount of effort and dedication that goes into making a sewn garment. It was hard work. (It was exhausting at the time because I wasn't paying myself anything, but I've learned.) I realized how much money I could save by salvaging tossed items from the thrift store, but I still had scraps left over that had the potential to never be used again.
I didn't have it in me to throw anything away, even the little pieces of thread, because "maybe I'd use it as stuffing for a pillow or I could use it to card yarn and wool." Or I could never use it again and my house would eventually be consumed by the lack of disposal. One of those options will inevitably happen, but the latter is most likely.
Once I started seeing the amount of stuff that could be disposed of and finding ways to reuse them, I started realizing the money I could save by using the things that would otherwise be thrown away. Paper could be shredded into pulp and turned into new paper. Yarn scraps could be tied together or carded to make new yarn. Scrap yarn could be used for patchwork. Plastic bags could be cut up into yarn.
Everything had a use, and no scrap was useless. Something could always be made out of "nothing." Trash was irrelevant, because trash was no more.
XO,
caroline
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