EnviroMom

Rummage Sales: power user tips

We are in full rummage sale mode. In addition to the great Sunday Parkways bike ride we did, we were mighty busy shopping for reuse bargains. There is nothing I like better than a church or school rummage sale. Huge amount of donations pulled from many families, yielding a wide variety of things to choose from. Supports local non profits and features excellent prices! On a good day, I leave with my reuseable bags full of really good, useful junk! This past weekend, I hit a big church sale in my neighborhood. These folks are pros. They've done this sale for years. It's well organized and they price things right. My best buys this year were the stainless steel thermos for $1, and practically new Columbia Sportwear snow boots in my size for $2. I also snagged my kids two Skipper dolls ($1 each), which they have been pining for since we played with some Barbies at my aunts' last winter. One is really old, and the other is a knock-off, but what the kids don't know won't hurt them.

One thing I've learned is that you cave to fewer impulse buys when the kids are not shopping with you. Kinda like grocery shopping. So for the big church sale Friday, I went alone. Ninety minutes after it opened, I exited with two full bags of really good junk, and only things that were on my rummage sale master shopping list (which I've been adding to all fall/winter). Contrast that with Saturday. The whole family went to a neighborhood sale, that featured over 200 garage sales. We shopped. We strolled our 4-year-old, who makes everyone miserable when she has to walk more than 5-minutes in a row. We dispensed many snacks. We purchased hot dogs and brownies. We didn't break the bank by any means, but we sure did get more than planned in the old VHS video, kid trinket and free box departments. No question, it is much better to rummage without kids.

Sizing clothing and shoes without kids can be a problem, however. I often pick up shoes and think they are adorable, and guess they will fit my kids. When I get them home for the CInderella moment, they end up too small. How do kids' feet grow so fast? This year, I think I figured out a solution to that problem. I traced my kids feet on a sheet of paper, and now shop with that in my back pocket. If the shoe print is bigger than the traced foot, then it's a buy. If too small, throw said shoes back in the pile.

What are your rummage sale power user tips?

Ban on banning clotheslines? It could happen!

Almost every time we write about clotheslines, someone comments something along the lines of: 'Oh, how wonderful. I used to always dry my clothes on a clothesline. Love that smell! But, now I live in a place where the homeowners association has prohibited the use of clotheslines. Sigh.'

But all that may change! Good news on the horizon in Oregon and other states. An Oregon bill is in the works to prohibit such condo and homeowners' associations from banning clotheslines in areas maintained by homeowners (i.e., their yards). Can I just say: It's about damn time? Don't get me wrong. I love the good ol' US of A. But sometimes it kills me that these kinds of things need to be legislated. Oregon is not alone. Hawaii and Connecticut are working on similar efforts, while Vermont and Florida have already passed such laws. Check out Project Laundry List for the great work they are doing, and the freaking fantastic photo they have of undies hanging on a line.

Maybe I'm just a weirdo, but I've always loved the sight of laundry on a line. I remember taking pictures of jeans and shirts flapping in the breeze for a photojournalism class I took a million years ago. I think I even got high marks. It was quite beautiful. Black and white. In the age before digital, alas, so it would be a pain-in-the-bleep to track it down, scan and post it. Sorry. I also become bewitched looking out of windows when I travel abroad (again, a million years ago), at all the cool pulleys and lines and loads of laundry being hung outside these old, old buildings. Perhaps they have the same problems too? Gated communities in the 'burbs where the hanging of laundry is forbidden? I don't know. To me the laundry is just part of the charm in all those lovely foreign cities.

I'm going to stop now before I write an ode to laundry lines. But please, if you feel so inspired, add your poetry to the comments.

Baby step: shopping for second-hand clothing out of season

If there's one thing this extremely snowy winter here in Portland has taught me, it's that I totally blew it shopping at rummage sales last summer. At the time, I thought I was doing great. We got some screaming deals on sandals and swim suits, flip-flops and beach towels. Where I blew it was in picking up that great Hanna Anderson winter parka for my older daughter, and those snuggly looking LLBean snow pants, then putting them back down and walking away! Because for crying out loud -- it was 90 degrees that day! Near impossible to spend any of our hard-earned dollars on a winter coat in the dog days of summer! Or snow pants! Or snow boots. Or ski mittens.

Downsides of cold water, no-sort laundry method

Dear Cold-Wash, No-Sort Laundry Method,

I hate to say it, but I'm falling out of love with you. As with all passionate affairs, perhaps I jumped in too fast... I know I didn't pay attention to any of the warnings from friends...

Baby step: Embrace ReGifting

Sometimes the hardest thing about living green is getting over long-held beliefs. Case in point: if the Emily Posts of this world have taught us anything, it's that ReGifting is TACK-Y. Yet, in truth, it's one of the most green things you can do since Reuse is the beloved middle child in the Reduce / Reuse / Recycle hierarchy.

I attended a baby shower for a dear friend last night, that Heather and I helped host. We stated on the invitation that second-hand baby clothes would be more than welcome, as the mom-to-be is a highly evolved EnviroMom and is quite practiced at handing down and up and all around. The whole group of shower participants seemed OK with hand-me-downs (you should have heard the story about the baby bath seat that moved through four of the families in attendance, and was once again returning to our guest of honor). Regardless, it still did feel a bit taboo to wrap second-hand gifts for the baby shower -- despite having posted recently on a green baby shower featuring "tried and true" baby gifts. Funny how hard it is to change old habits.

Yet, by shopping for shower gifts via kids' resale clothing shops, I was able to stretch my gift buying budget from the usual one especially darling and unbelievably tiny infant outfit to five -- and of course, they are perfectly spotless because most infant clothing in this country gets worn once, if that, before they outgrow it. Other moms joked that the five outfits will get through one day of infant wear due to all the spit-ups and diaper blow-outs. Ah, infancy. There were some other lovely hand-crafted and locally made gifts. And some new stuff -- I mean, who wants to use a used bib or wash cloth or teether? Eeee-yuck.

Mending socks

If there's anything bad about the coming of fall and the end of summer, it's that I will have to start wearing socks again. Other than that, I'm really looking forward to school starting and having some semblance of a routine again. Socks will be a problem because all last spring (the last time I wore socks), I'd usually find that if I could locate a matching pair of socks, either one of both of the socks would have a hole in the region of my big toe. In the years before I was an EnviroMom, said discovery would have prompted me to shove the holey socks in the back of the drawer and gone out to buy new socks. In this brave new world of Reduce/Reuse/Recycle I must think long an hard before slapping down any plastic and adding to my credit card debt. Here's a typical conversation I have with myself (and there's nothing wrong with talking to yourself as long as it's not too loud or in public):

Do I really need socks?
Yes, I have bad circulation and I literally get cold feet.
Do I need new socks?
Well, I'm really not excited about buying USED socks.
Could you make the holey socks do??
Yes, I suppose I could. But that would require that I mend them. Can you pass me those flipflops?
OK -- talk to you in September, sista. Enjoy those flipflops.

So here we are. Fall is upon us. Or at least that shortening of the days and the little nip in the air that hints that fall is not far off. Time to mend those socks. I find mending one of those funny dying arts I always seem to be lamenting. No one teaches you how to mend. You either do or you don't. I guess I've always been willing to pick up a needle and thread and give it my best go at darning a sock, whether I knew what I was doing or not (Darn you, sock!). The problem with mending for me is it always seems to be low on the priority list.

In addition to the large pile of socks that need holes mended, there's a sheet that's gotten so threadbare someone is going to wake up with a foot tied up in the hole before too long, various missing buttons and tiny jobs needed on the kids' clothing, some shorts of my husband's that need to be patched. The list just goes on.

Any state-champion menders out there with words of wisdom for novices like me? 

Preemptive pants patching?

It kills me, absolutely kills me, to throw clothing in the garbage. We consign or donate or hand-down clothes whenever possible or turn grubby t-shirts into rags. But, Houston, we have a pants problem.

My kids blew out the knees of every single pair of pants they owned last year. I tried the iron-on patches, but either the adhesive didn't hold or the area around the knee was worn too thin. I would have had to patch the entire leg, which would have been so attractive. I turned a couple pairs of jeans into cut-off shorts this summer, but couldn't persuade my son to wear cut-off corduroys (can't say I blame him). Into the trash they went. This year I'm thinking about preemptively reinforcing the knees before the pants get worn. Is this crazy?

I'm not a terribly adept seamstress, but I could probably manage to sew on a few patches. Does it make sense to patch the knees of pants until the patch gets worn in order to protect the lifespan of the pants? We're talking about several pair of pants here, for both son and daughter (and daughter plays harder on the playground than son). In my mind I can see decorative appliques on her pants, and just regular patches on his (though I'm not a huge fan of the big square patches over the knee). Sigh. I just don't know.

Do you have any pants patching advice to share? Aside from instructing my children to only walk slowly or always remain upright on the playground, I don't know how to handle the blown-out knees conundrum. Any thoughts?

Creative (and cheap) clothes line solutions

A few days ago Becky sent us some photos of a clothes line she rigged up using an old baby gate. She lives in a condo with her family, so she doesn't have a lot of space or a yard to work with. She wrote:

So I have been trying to figure out how I can rig some sort of clothes line for some time now. I also didn't want to spend anything and today I finally realized how I could manage this. A long time ago we hung some candle lanterns from a large support beam on our deck. Since they were already there, I used these loops to attach some bungee cords that I found in my garage, 2 in each loop, and the other ends I attached to my baby gate. We never use this gate and so I am glad to finally be getting its $20 worth out of it. I hung our clothes all around the edge and for the rest I draped over an expandable rack that we already had. Anyway...I know this was a random e-mail, I was just so excited to have finally found a solution and thought that you would understand my excitement.

Yes, Becky, these are the kind of emails that make Renee and I cluck like chickens. We totally understand your excitement, and you actually inspired ME to finally rig up my own clothes line. First, check out Becky's photos:

 

This is a thing of beauty. Free, functional and friendly to the environment. Love it!

Curious about clotheslines? Some power user tips

I've had a number of people ask about how I set up my clothesline, so I'll explain a bit, link to some older posts, and offer a few "solar dryer" power user tips...

Although there are many ways to hang clothes on a line (umbrella lines, retractable lines, and a simple, old-fashioned line strung up between two posts), I'll give you an idea of what we do. I pondered this for a long while, since I'm working with a small yard, the sun is on the mountain view side, and I didn't want to spend a whole lot of money on it. It also helps that I can easily put the clothesline up and down based on when we need it.

For our back yard, I string two lengths of clothesline, with a loop knotted at each end. In each loop, I link a small bungee cord that then stretches to a sturdy branch in between our back and side hedge. I have a shepherd's hook (designed for holding hanging plant baskets) in the center of my line for support. The shepherd's hook cost $11, the cord $4, and the clothespins a few bucks -- all from my local Fred Meyer.

Here's my power user tips:

• Use the extra spin cycle/max extract on your washer so that the clothing starts out as dry as possible. That makes it much less likely to dry stiff as a board.
• Add some white vinegar to the wash load as a fabric softening measure.
• Wash all clothing in cold for extra money/energy savings.
• Turn dark clothing inside out so that it doesn't fade in the sun while drying.
• Enjoy the fact that whites will whiten even more while drying in the sun.
• Socks and undies take a long time to clip to the line, so I don't put them on the line. They dry very quickly in the regular dryer.
• If crunchy towels will bother you, claim a towel exclusion and use your regular dryer for things you want to be extra soft.
• Figure out what will work for your family. Don't feel like it has to be all or nothing. Use your regular dryer when you need it, and just feel good for every load of wash you dry via the solar dryer!

{Edited 6/26/2008:  Our family was featured on a local news station, KOIN, in their KOIN Savers feature yesterday for our laundry line use. You can view the segment via a youtube video:}

101 re-uses for: old clothes

We frequently get asked what to do with old clothes: socks, jeans, sweaters, mittens, intimates, shoes, t-shirts, you-name-it.

We've patched the knees of our kids' worn out pants. We've darned the holes in our socks. Hope, our Eastside GreenGroup leader, made a darling tote bag from an old pair of jeans. We have one friend of a GreenGroup friend who makes rugs out of old wool socks. We've made as many sock puppets as our sock-puppet theater can handle. We've talked about local clothing re-use organizations that we particularly like. We've made t-shirt napkins. Yet, our rag bags runneth over.

What do you do with the rest of your old clothes (the clothes that are too beat up to hand down)? Surely, some creative EnviroMoms out there have some fabulous re-use ideas for old clothes.... Anyone, anyone?