This past month I got into a car accident and received my first concussion. Yay! My screen time has been drastically reduced because it physically hurts me :)
In this issue…
on my soapbox for a hot minute
When I'm my most anxious about driving, it's because I'm stuck on a specific thought. The thought is that I am at the mercy of the public. A public that operates literal tons of heavy machinery at alarming speeds subject to only their own free will. No matter what I do, sitting in my gay little red car, it's up to the other people on the road whether or not I get home in one piece.
To make a short story shorter: I was on my way to the recycling center, and the other driver was delivering for Meals on Wheels. Like two ships in the night we collided. (And it was not my fault!)
Her bumper sticker read "Outrageous Older Woman" and I couldn't be mad at her. I really do think people are just trying to do their best in the world. But things like this still happen despite all the good we want do.
My gay little red car was totaled, with a hole ripped into my driver's side door. Seeing it a few days after the crash, I finally understood why I felt so terrible physically. I had only a few bruises but still felt like aftershocks were buzzing through me. I went back to the doctor and she said I had a mild concussion. So I haven't been crocheting or keeping up with social media really at all.
Care for yourself at home (2026)
Collage, 8 ½" x 10"
It's been like a summer intensive course in listening to my body. But beyond that, I'm learning that everyone is at mercy to the public. And in fact, no one is exempt from being a member of the public. And we absolutely have the responsibility to make sure one another gets home alive.
Every one and every thing is connected. In my work as an archivist, I often write up the stories that are passed through artifacts and photographs. It' s difficult to know where to stop and start because of the interconnectedness of it all. It's not just me making a crochet bag or sewing a skirt. I didn't write the pattern and I certainly didn't invent the historically ubiquitous bag. I didn't spin the yarns and threads to make the materials. I can't extrude acrylic into fluffy yarn or beat fibers into roving. Do I do anything at all?
The final efforts to make the materials into a finished product feels small when you look backward at all the effort that came before. Instead, I challenge you to look at it as a chain of efforts from people you've never met. Especially when fast fashion meets alterations.
Every item of clothing on the planet is handmade. Yes, every piece of clothing! In case someone hasn't heard it yet, machines do a lot of the sewing and pressing in the manufacture of clothes, but each machine is operated by someone whose job it is to be skilled in those machines. Someone runs the fabric through the industrial machine and someone cuts the pattern pieces with motorized scissors. The volume of work for each person is high, and several people work on an individual garment before it gets to the store. So when the garment rips or gets stained or doesn't fit, it feels terrible to throw it away. That would be the end of the chain.
A circular economy must include a repair and reuse step, and that step should be accounted for in the design and production steps. The right to repair helps to keep nearly new products out of landfills.
But taking that piece and putting the effort in to turn it into something else, even into a rag if it's that badly damaged, adds a link to that chain of human effort. Acknowledging all the work that's gone into the garment already—what it cost people in terms of physical effort, risk of injury, time away from their families, etc.—I see it as a way to take care of each other. No one might see that except you who are altering your own clothes, but it's a practice in mindset.
We can drive safely, be kind, and take care of the things that are already in our possession. I think that's the minimum of what we owe each other, and what we owe to the future.
I've written about it before, but it's worth saying again. The world is far from perfect. But I'm hopeful that it can change for the better. The more people who understand craft, and what it takes to create quality items, the more easily we can shape a conscientious consumer culture. I see it like mending a plastic bag.
Landmark case (2026) Sarah van Sloten
clear plastic bag, scrap fabric, thread, yarn
You can't mend a plastic bag; it'll rip wherever you patched it up. So you would need to cover where it ripped along the one side of the first patch and reinforce the new patch. And so on and so on until the entire plastic bag is covered. The shape is similar, the base function is the same, but it's so much stronger. And because it's bespoke, the bag possibly has a new interior pocket! At that point, removing the mends to turn it back into a plastic bag would destroy the original plastic. The patches would remain but maybe they aren't bag-shaped. Something entirely new could be made from them. An entirely new idea about how clothes are made, purchased, used, cared for, and returned to the earth.
I think changing our current fast fashion consumerism will be like that. It's a beast to begin with but well worth the effort.
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