Fairly receclenty, I have gotten into crafting various things, mostly sewing small bags and other items. It gives me a sence of purpous to have smally easly atanable goals in my life like that, its a sort of small gratification that last longer then just beating a game because you can see your resultes and they are useful. I mostly scrounge up good-will and the like for old sheets and curtians that I can use for my projects. One day I decided to stop in at The Sewing Basket in Plymouth, a shop that speicalised in quilting, to see what they had for scrap bags. Every bit of fabric there was outlandishly expensive, a bag of scrap that only contained 3 diffrent types of fabric and was only about an half yard total was $7. For me that is an outlandish rip off, i can get about a half yard out of an old pillow case for 0.50.-1.00$, and i can get close to two yards out of an old sheet for 3.00$. I am sure that the fabric at Sewing basket is quality fabric, but so are the old bedlinins I get from thrift shops, its allready pre-washed, pre-shrunk, pick out a few hems, do a but of ironing and your good to go. I am sure the quilters of old never would have dreamed of buying new fabric for there quilts. How did quilting, an art that rose out of thriftiness from saving old scraps of dresses and shirs and the like become such a yuppietised expensive hobby for rich old women?
Its the same with everything. Doing these age old activities has a somewhat 'rustic' feel don't ya think?
ReplyDeleteIts this romanticism of a pre-modern approach to life.
Spending ridiculous amounts of money on things that were invented to be cheap just makes me laugh.
Strangely you see this happening a lot with food. traditional dishes that were intended to use the leftover crap now consist of prime cuts of beef and 'organic' vegetables, prepared to perfection and drowned in expensive herbs.
People are prepared to spend indefinitely on trying to attain a lost purity and rustic feel that we are losing with the conveniences of today.
It only highlights society's corruption.
Quarterly, as it is, money reproaches me:
ReplyDelete'Why do you let me lie here wastefully?
I am all you never had of goods and sex.
You could get them still by writing a few cheques.'
So I look at others, what they do with theirs:
They certainly don't keep it upstairs.
By now they've a second house and car and wife:
Clearly money has something to do with life
-In fact, they've a lot in common, if you enquire:
You can't put off being young until you retire,
And however you bank your screw, the money you save
Won't in the end buy you more than a shave.
I listen to money singing. It's like looking down
From long french windows at a provincial town,
The slums, the canal, the churches ornate and mad
In the evening sun. It is intensely sad.
Philip Larkin,"Money"