DAY ONE
February 1st. C day - the day our Compact begins. Today, we begin a year of intentionally buying nothing new. It's our hope that we'll get a chance to be creative, build community, raise awareness about other options to consumerism, and most important of all – do our part to help our planet, which is in desperate need of humans who care.
We started off with a bang as two of our group members were interviewed on CBC's Maritime Noon yesterday. Costas (the host) wants to check in with us when the season changes (in Nova Scotia that could be April or it could be June!) and see how we're faring and what some challenges have been. A few people got our blog address off the show and have written in. Thank you for your support and the tips. (Glenda – can you give us the resources you mentioned for assessing, deconstructing, and cleaning? Thanks!)
I also signed up for freecycle (see link below) yesterday and was given a few other resources from a friend that may be helpful for others checking this blog for information. Here they are (and we'll try to figure out how to put these up as links later)
http://ecologyaction.ca/newhome/ - the Ecology Action Centre's website for how to do ecofriendly home renovation.
http://www.100milediet.org/ - Local Eating for Global Change
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HRM_Freecycle/ - this is the Freecycle website where people post things they want to get rid of OR receive. All for free! No money, no barter, no trades.
The thing that hit me this morning as I was reading the parts of last Saturday's Globe that I didn't get to yet, is that I won't be able to buy a newspaper! We only buy one a week and it's kind of a special treat. And we really do read it all through the week. My idea is to ask some of our neighbours if we could read their paper after they're done with it. Someone else suggested an online subscription but I love the feel of the paper in my hands.
Just the first of many questions, I'm sure.
We'll try and update this blog as often as we can.
2 comments:
So glad to hear about your group! You'll be able to find newspapers in coffee shops and on buses. Or ask a friend to pass along the weekend sections perhaps.
peace,
rachel
Hi, Finally back with advice for recycled yarn. Once you get started you'll quickly be able to decide if a sweater is ok for taking apart. Serged seams are bad except if it's going to yield a fiber you really like AND it has a partial serged seam. Then you can decide if it's going to be worth a bit of waste. I look at the label to see what the sweater is made from, then closely inspect the seam. Pull the seam to see if it's stitched and can simply be cut apart. Some commercial yarns are very splitty so I try to pull out a strand of yarn to inspect it. I also always check out the largest sizes first. A really big sweater @ $4.99 yields a lot of yarn. If you do an internet search for recycling sweaters to yarn. You'll find advice and tutorials. I'll give you a couple of addresses later as I don't know how to add them right now! Back to serged seams-the knitted fabric has been cut all along the seam and is useless. I look as well for handknit sweaters. I use a seam ripper and remove the collar first and then the remaining seams. I use my kniddy noddy to wind up skeins and then tie for washing. Soak the skein in the sink for an hour or two. I just use shampoo but you can use Dawn dish soap and then hang the yarn over the tub to drip dry. Some people attach a weight to the skein to straighten the yarn of kinks as it dries. I don't bother.
Hope this helps. I'll be reading your blog often so just ask if you're wondering about anything else. One last thing for now-I save the label & attach to the skein of yarn so I know what fibers the yarn is made from.
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