Hello world, and happy new year! I am so excited that you are taking a moment out of your busy lives to join me. My name is Christina, and I am a wife to a terrific husband, a mother to two sweet little girls (Lily and Hazel), a photographer, a frequent occupant of my comfy couch, and a sewing enthusiast. My days are normally spent sleeping a tad later than I should, playing blocks with my oldest, walking my youngest back and forth down the hallway, cooking, and stealing moments away during naps or while they are occupied to try to get in a few moments for myself.

I started my journey with sewing when I was in middle school. My mother happened to believe very strongly in exposing my sisters and me to as many different hobbies and interests as could possibly fit into a 24-hour day. That amounted to piano lessons,  band, art, clown school, lego-robot building classes, science clubs, guitar, tennis lessons, doll-making and sewing…just to name a few. To clarify, taking sewing lessons in seventh grade was not what the cool kids were doing. To make matters worse, the sewing shop in town happened to be located next to the Mr. Gatti’s, a local hang for some of the cooler kids in school. I remember silently praying that nobody would see me through the large windows in the shop as I sewed together the layers of my Noah’s Ark printed vest. In the end, I walked away with a Biblically-themed cartoonish vest and short set that only saw the light of day for grandparent visits, and a vow to never ever sit down at a sewing machine again in my life.

I’m pretty glad that I decided to not keep that vow.

I picked up sewing again about 15 years later as a way to save money. My husband and I were both in the Navy, and at the going rate of $8 per pop to get patches sewn onto uniforms, I quickly realized that a starter sewing machine would be a worthwhile investment. A visit to WalMart.com and $80 later, I was once again sitting behind a sewing machine trying to figure out what in the world I was doing.

I won’t go into all the rest of the details of how I started picking up sewing for fun. Over the course of the next five years it happened. I opened my Etsy shop, LilyandHazelDesigns, in 2015 with the intent to sell classic, timeless children’s clothes that would photograph well. I am having a blast. The thing about it, though, is that sewing all the time has led to several discoveries. The first is that I absolutely love it. The second is that it takes a bit of effort. I mean, a lot. I am still learning every day, and the more I learn, the more efficient I am becoming. Still, cutting a pattern well takes me anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour. Depending on the complexity of what I am sewing, I can complete an outfit in anywhere from one to six hours. If I were to charge myself minimum wage on the time spent alone, these outfits would be priced so much higher than what anyone today would consider spending on children’s clothes. And these are children’s clothes…they’re miniature. What would be a fair cost to pay for adult clothing which easily requires at least three times the yardage in fabric?

Becoming aware of the process behind making clothes has caused me to begin rethinking the way I consume clothing. In the past, I have bought clothing solely based upon price point. I have even gotten out of the habit of trying an item on if it is low enough, figuring that if it didn’t fit, I will only be out a couple of bucks. The result is that I have a closet of clothing that doesn’t fit well, is not very well made, and I’m not sure I even really like. In addition, where does the clothing end up when I get rid of it? It has to end up somewhere, but I’m not really sure where that is. Where does it come from? Again, I’m not really sure. For something as huge as the American clothing industry, how have we as a society become so removed from knowing anything at all about the clothes on our backs?

I am no economist…I cannot tell you how the pros or the cons of the global economy begin to stack up. But as a consumer, it is in my power to educate myself in an attempt to become wiser and more knowledgeable in regards to the ethics and economics behind the companies that I choose to support. I know next to nothing about the processes or the people who put together the items that I am wearing as I type this. And while that may be true for so many things in my life, I want to become more informed. As I am not yet at a point where I feel educated, I am choosing to take a break from the spending cycle in 2016. I am doing so by setting the following guidelines for myself:

1. To not buy any new clothing for myself or my family unless it is
a.) used
b.) fair trade
c.) American-made
2. To make my family’s clothes
3. To spend this year educating myself about the sources of my clothing and consumerism

This blog will chronicle this journey, including the projects I am working on or have completed, what I learn about the production of clothing, how to spend money ethically and how to identify well-made clothing. Please join me in this journey! I am so excited 🙂