It is my morning at home.  I just finished working on a special end-of-week treat for The Husband.  It is amazing how anticipation heightens your enjoyment of things – cold brewed coffee included.

Of course, it’s not limited to cold brewed coffee or edibles, like pickles, that may take a few weeks to come into their full deliciousness.

Lately, I have been making the new clothing that I need.  I said I’d do it for a year.  That year would have ended in March.  But I think I’m going to keep making my own clothes.  Why?  Well, as a person who makes things just about every minute of the day – whether it’s food, sewing, knitting, or printmaking, I’m finding it fun.  It is a challenge.  It has helped to develop whichever part of my brain controls 3-dimensional reasoning. I anticipate a finished garment much more when I am making it myself.

Not only is the sense of anticipation and enjoyment greater for every individual garment, making my own clothes helps me hone my sense of anticipation for a more just world.  We frankly just can’t afford fair trade clothing at this point in our lives – but I have plenty of time to hunt down old lengths of cloth and turn them into something wearable.  I know that initially these old lengths of cloth may have been produced in a sweatshop, but it is the best I can do as far as not placing any additional burden on other people somewhere in the world.  I know where to find fair-trade yarn for the socks and sweaters I need.  I have an old treadle sewing machine that doesn’t use any fancy minerals that may have been mined by slave labor.

I can create a closet full of garments that does not demand unreasonable hours, unsafe working conditions, or child labor from any other human being out there.  And that small step, one closet, is worth anticipating with a toast (of some excellent cold-brewed coffee, perhaps?).