Forewarning: soapbox ahead. So I bought that older but very nice serger last week from Craigslist. It had been sitting in someone’s home unused and is practically new. I was so excited about it that at church Sunday I wanted to get some ideas from a seamstress acquaintance. I humorously mentioned it took me a whole day to learn to thread the machine and she said, “Well, I have a such-and-such with an air threader so I don’t have to worry about that.” I was immediately disheartened. Instead of helping me with ideas of what to CREATE with my new serger, the biggest, best and newest seemed to be more important. I am so anti-big, anti-best and anti-new lately that it saddened me. Why do we always need to upgrade? Why can’t we appreciate (heaven forbid WORK and LEARN) how to use older things do they don’t end up in landfills? Really threading my old machine isn’t so bad. You just have to – gasp – look at the manual and use it enough to remember how to do it. I realize there are times when we really do need to upgrade (our friends, perhaps? okay, just kidding) but we need to start thinking more about the consequences of our choices – even in sewing machines. Just because you CAN, doesn’t me you SHOULD. That has been my mantra of late and it applies to so much more than sewing machines. I like to think that if I had millions of dollars I still would not indulge in $1,000 per night hotel rooms. There are so many better things to be done with money. Children are starving. People are living in poverty. I just can’t personally justify that kind of excess. I love this Repair Manifesto found on Replayground but originally from Core 77 via Platform 21. It’s all in the little things because those little things add up – if we all were more aware and tried just a tiny bit harder – we really could have a big impact. One of my favorite scriptures is in the Book of Mormon, Alma 37:6 “…by small and simple things are great things brought to pass.” Go small. Go simple. A big hurrah for restraint (if only I had a little restraint on my blog…ah, I’m not perfect, either). Off. Soapbox. For now.
P.S. This little episode regarding sewing machines comes after a couple of times when I heard women at my own church who should know better bragging about the biggest, newest, and best type of stand mixer a person could buy. Viking, Kitchen Aid, Magic Mill….please. Do whatever works for your family – bread is just about as good made by hand.
