Why not insulation? I just checked the price on that – one roll of R19, 15” wide, is $15.67.

We just did a little project as a final little ‘zip up’ for winter, and it hit me when I went to the ‘large chain building supply place because we don’t have a local hardware any more’ how cheap caulk was in terms of what we were getting versus how much insulation was going to cost if someone were going to try to insulate an attic, for example. I bought a 4-pack of silicone caulk for about $15.00 (a caulking gun was another couple of bucks but we already own those). Now, in the hands of a real pro with non-shaky hands, one tube of caulk will theoretically cover 3-4 standard (not huge floor to ceiling) sized windows. As part of our ‘just a little work in the kitchen and bathrooms that turned into gutting the entire house, putting in beams in the basement and the first floor and basically rebuilding the house while we lived in it nightmare”, we replaced 90% of the windows in the house as part of the energy saving investment. As part of that, they were all caulked on the inside and we recently went around and made sure that they were all caulked up the gazoo on the outside too. We were able to complete 15 windows with that $15 worth of caulk. We knew the doors and upstairs windows had been done, so from that aspect, we are buttoned up.

The trick to energy efficiency and plain old ordinary comfort is keeping the warm air inside and the cold air outside.

Did you know that the word ‘window’ comes from the Middle English word, ‘windeye’ meaning an opening that allowed the wind to come into a dwelling?

No kidding.

One of the first things we did when we moved to Chez Siberia was that we insulated the attic. Hugely. And in the winter, the house always felt drafty, chilly and nasty. We will not discuss the fact that there were times when people could see their breath in the kitchen and would eat meals at an Indianapolis Speedway clip so that they could jump up and run off to the livingroom where a) the sun would come in the south side of the house and b) the thermostat was located so that was always the warmest room in the house. Even with that insulation, we were damn cold.

It was the windows. We tried rope caulk. We tried putting plastic over them. It was amazing how like a ship in full sail that plastic used to look shrunk across the window, bowed out into the livingroom, reminding us just how much bone-chilling air was coming into the house. Living conditions were bleak, to say the least. No one wanted to come visit US during the winter. Sitting at a computer or watching the tube in a room like that is as close to self-induced paralysis as I can think of. First the feet start to lose feeling and it moves up from there. Uncomfortable does NOT even begin to describe it. The fights over the setting on the thermostat were amazing. A lot of energy got used. A lot of energy got wasted.

The attic insulation was basically being overwhelmed by the amount of air exchange that was taking place because of the leaks within the windows and around the windows. That’s why I say that your best ‘first dollar’ investment in terms of energy efficiency (if you don’t have enough money to replace the windows themselves) is on caulk to seal up all the leaks. If, once you’ve caulked around the 90-degree angle where the frame meets the wall inside and outside the windows, you still have infiltration (use the candle or blown out match trick to watch the direction of the smoke), THEN use plastic on the inside of the windows (you can use any form you want – the plastic window kits from the hardware store, rolls of plastic and double faced tape – your choice). If you own your residence, start saving your money for replacement windows. Even if you can only do one at a time, every time you replace the old leaky window with a new window (and new caulk!), you will achieve more insulation quality and more comfort.

While you are at it, look for more opportunities to use caulk:
Around the edges of doors
Where the bottom of the walls of your house meet the foundation
Any place where there is a hole made in a wall such as a dryer vent, a kitchen fan, etc.
Here’s a great little .pdf from Dow with a check list. It’s made for their foam based product but these are good locations for caulk as well. caulk checklist

One thing to remember at this point in the year – if you live with daytime temperatures in the 50s NOW, get this done NOW. Caulk does not adhere well or settle in temperatures lower than about 50. Go to whatever store carries silicone caulk, get it and then the next nice sunny day where the temperature gets into the 50s, “get ‘er done”. If you wait too long, it will be too late.
We made this a family project and got out two caulk guns and went at it so that everything got done while it was nice and sunny. A couple of hours work was all it took and was a great load off everyone’s mind.

The other thing to think about is if you do NOT own your residence – you rent. It is not as if you can replace the windows or put insulation in the walls. But with clear silicone caulk, you can seal around the windows on the inside of the living space. The landlord won’t know and it will add a lot of comfort in the winter.

And it’s cheap. It’s your best first investment when you don’t have the capital to do major insulation and window replacement to improve energy efficiency. And with the drafts cut down, the comfort level will go up and there is less incentive to raise the setting on the thermostat.

Works for me.
(photos courtesy of girly sin and neutral existence)

Why do I say that? Well, part of it is that there are all styles of coats, from form fitting, tailored with lapels and so on, to frankly ones that under different circumstances could be misconstrued as bathrobes. So, finding a simple pattern that an advanced beginner can handle is a possibility. The other part is what it is made of: WOOL. Nice, spongy wool coating is one of the easiest fabrics to work with. Heavy – yes. Requires steam pressing and lots of moisture – definitely. Requires interfacings, shoulder pads, and perhaps some specialty notions – absolutely.

But with a good pressing cloth, an iron that will produce plenty of steam, and a willingness to take one’s time, you can produce something that will a) keep you warm as toast this winter, b) be dressy enough to wear for any dressy occasion up to and perhaps including something like an evening out in a floor length gown, and c) look terrific.

But the ‘looks terrific’ part can be tricky if you choose the wrong pattern. Sewers really need to be fairly conscious of what they require in a pattern to make something that looks good on them – not fall in love with patterns just on the look. I am making a coat this fall and the original pattern I chose and the pattern I will ultimate use are two good examples to go through for this exercise.

The pattern on the right hand side of the picture at the top is a re-issue of one of Butterick’s patterns from the 1950s. Butterick 4928 As interest in vintage clothing styles has grown, several of “The Big Four” sewing pattern companies have dipped into their archives. One of the reasons for the re-issue and resizing is that the actual “printed at the time’ patterns that are on sale at vintage pattern sites are many times NOT in a size that a lot of people are now wearing. Grading them up and so on is a chore than many sewists don’t want to have to tackle. Taking one of their archived patterns and rethinking it for year 2009 bodies is a very clever way for these companies to put vintage style into the hands of sewists in a grading and sizing structure that contemporary people understand and with which they will have a much better chance of succeeding. So, looking at the description, here is what we see:

“Lined, loose-fitting jacket, below hip length, has kimono sleeves, funnel neckline and no closures.”

Now, Aunt Toby actually bought the pattern and wool for this jacket a couple of years ago and has been procrastinating ever since. I was beating myself up about the head about this for a long time until I realized that my procrastination was a symptom of something..something about the pattern that bothered me and made me afraid.

(cue scary music) The Kimono Sleeve.

The problem with a kimono sleeve, especially made in a fabric like woven wool coating is this: There are no ‘fitting spots’, no places where you can look and say to yourself, “Oh, here is where the shoulder IS; here is where the neck is and the distance between them should be thus and so.” I realize that on the face of it, readers will be saying to themselves, “So what? As long as the length between where the neck hits and the bottom of the sleeve is the length of your arm between the two points, you should be good to go, right?” Let’s look at the diagram of the Butterick coat pattern.

Mmmmm, no. See, the problem is that the side seam of the coat SHOULD be hitting directly below where your actual shoulder is located. If you are someone, as Aunt Toby is, who has what is coyly referred to in the sewing biz as ‘fitting issues’, then this might not be the case. Being short, busty, and rather small between the shoulders, with actually much shorter arms than would be usually found on a person of my size (think of T-Rex), if I made this pattern to fit my bust size, the side seam would be about 6” out, leaving me with a huge amount of coat where I definitely do not need it and ending up with a sleeve about 10” too long. And making adjustments to a muslin with a kimono sleeve on it is a nightmare. Trust me on that one.

So, the pattern and the beautiful brown basket weave coating sat in their plastic bag, taunting me until I saw that Petite Plus Patterns Petite Plus has a brand new swing coat pattern out. When I looked at the diagram of the pattern (which you can see in the photo at the top), I realized that this was ‘the answer to a maiden’s prayer’ in terms of my actually completing this project.

It’s got seams. Seams, seams and more seams. And raglan sleeves, pockets, and buttons as well (always good if you live in a place where winter starts at ‘cold’ and goes down from there). This is the pattern I am going to use. Like Snoopy’s chocolate chip cookies, this pattern called out from the screen and yelled, “Eureka!!”

When you have “fitting issues” (and people who are tall and slender have just as many fitting issues as people who are short and not), seams are your friend. The more seams a pattern has for the sewist to work with, the more ‘fitting spots’ you’ve got..places to take things in, let things out, add in a bit of extra fabric if you need to and so on.

Seams like a great idea, hunh?

On the other hand, the Petite Patterns coat is missing two things that I absolutely LOVE on the Butterick coat: a shawl collar that can be flipped up or down and cuffs (Aunt Toby just LOVES cuffs). The cuffs are an add-on – I can transfer that with some adjustments to the Petite Patterns coat. The shawl collar will take a bit more work and I plan to compare the two patterns at that spot and ‘morph’ them (mwa-ha-ha – you did not realize that Aunt Toby was actually Dr. Frankenstein and was capable of creating a whole new monster from odd parts, did you? It’s a great way to get exactly what you want when no one has produced the pattern with everything you want).

So, the assignment for the weekend is this: Make the muslin for the coat and start fitting it so that it looks exactly the way I want, which is nice and snug at the armpit and shoulders level and nice, loose and flared down below.

(To Be Continued)

This has all come to mind because the DH has had a death in his family recently – and it certainly is hitting him quite hard because this is a brother who is very close to him in age and was not the eldest. But the DH has a Mrs. Briggs-Smith in his family too – his mother’s father, who died extremely young of a heart attack. His mother had to leave school at the age of 13 to go to work to support the rest of the family because of her father’s death. There were four original children to live to adulthood – two have already died from heart attacks.

The point here is this: We come into this world with no choices over what DNA cocktail we’ve got. And we now have more information and analysis than ever about what long term effect choices concerning exercise, work environment, types of foods we eat (and their inflammatory effects or not), smoking, drinking, and drug use can have. But the DNA – your genetics – is the environment that has the ultimate effect on how those choices effect YOU.

On the other side of it, however, we tend to not discuss ‘family health history’ a whole lot, especially with siblings and cousins. People are afraid to even know what is out there – and that makes things very dangerous for us. There is always a certain amount of delusion that we all play with, especially when we are young. For the young, people who are not young are old. There is no stage in between ‘my age and how I feel right now’ and “old, sick and ready to die’. Young people do not understand that the decisions they make today and tomorrow and the day after that are going to effect who they are and how they feel when THEY are no longer young. As Satchel Paige said, “If I’d known how long I was going to live, I’d have taken better care of myself.”

And this is where ‘family-based healthcare system reform’ comes in. No matter how all of the broohaha settles out in terms of national healthcare system reform (and goodness knows we need it), we still all need a big dose of family-based healthcare reform and that starts right from the point of looking at our families as far back as we can get, putting it all down on paper and plotting out the possible connections. Do it like a genealogical diagram, with the folks farthest back at the top. Call, write, email, FB..whatever it takes to find out as much as you can so that you can put it all down and look at it from the dispassionate position of a researcher. What happened? Who ‘touched’ whom? It is not just “I’ve got Grandpa’s chin” – it is also “I’ve got Grandpa’s crappy knees and his disc disease and perhaps some other things as well.” Or, ‘Great-grandma died of breast cancer in her 40s; she had three daughters and one died of ovarian cancer in her 40s, one died of colon cancer in her 50s and one died of breast cancer in her 40s. The one who died of ovarian cancer had a son who died of prostate cancer in his early 60s.”

It’s all connected. But if we don’t know about it, there is no way to share the information with our families so that we can help our kids with early choices at home and help them make decisions later on that will help them have better health as adults. We are part of ‘healthcare reform’ too – and we are the part that has a certain amount of control over what happens..but we can’t make informed choices if we don’t know what’s out there.

And that I was DEFINITELY loath to replace by going out and buying new curtains or even making a whole new set of curtains. I figured if I could find something that I could use to ‘freshen them up a bit’ it was a winner. I needed something I could pull everything together with and I found it in the fabric section of Ikea.

Now, Ikea is definitely not for ‘girly girly’ décor fabrics – the designs are very strong on bright colors and Scandinavian feel, but I found some striped fabric in the same weight as the curtains that had the same aqua in it and a good dark brown. Eureka!! I had my color scheme. I got a dark brown cover for the futon and as you can see from the photos, used the striped fabric as a border of the curtains. With the rest of the fabric, I’m going to make cushions for the futon.

So, here is how I dealt with the curtains without taking them apart (The Lazy Aunty’s Method):

1) How to figure out how much you are going to need: Measure one of the curtains and estimate how wide a border you will want to put on and then add two inches on all sides for the fold over. Most home dec fabrics (except for the extra wide ones but this method works for them also) are 60 inches wide so make a sketch for yourself on a piece of paper and call the width 60”. Divide up that 60” by the amount of you borders. Let’s say, to make it easy, that the borders plus their fold overs are 20” wide and 60” long. So, on your sketch, break that up into three sections across the width – you’ll be able to get three of those border across. But you also need 60” long – that is 60/36” or 1 2/3 yards. Now, how many borders are you going to need? For anything over 3, you will need another ‘width’ – another piece that is 1 2/3 yards long. Out of two widths, you will get 6 borders – enough for three windows. So, you trot down to your local fabric store(and I do hope you have a local fabric store..there are so few of them left) and you buy 1 2/3 + 1 2/3 yards of this stuff – that’s a total of 3 1/3 yards. If you want tie backs or valances or anything extra like that, you’ll need more and we’ll discuss that at another time. If you are buying 100% cotton fabrics, buy some extra – like instead of 3 1/3 – get 3 ½ yards because they will shrink.

2) How to make the borders: First, wash the fabric in the hottest water you can get with a little bit of soap to get out any sizing and dry it. This will take any shrinkage out. Then iron. Take out your yardstick and measure across the width of the fabric and mark the borders and cut them out. If you have regularly woven fabric, you will be able to literally snip at the marks and rip them down to size, but if you don’t feel brave enough, mark with pins or a pencil and cut along the marks. Iron down the fold overs.

3) Lay out a pair of curtains on the floor or your dining room table or any large flat surface and decide if you want the borders on the inside or the outside. Lay the new borders on the curtains where you want them (hey, you might even want them smack in the middle – who knows?) and pin them right at the top below whatever header you have (tab tops are easy – if you have pleats at the top, you will need to take out the pleater hooks, etc.). Then, carefully smooth them down the length of the curtain, pinning the two together as you go, until you get to the bottom. If you get to the bottom and it’s a little bit short, then unfold the fold over you ironed down and pin it to match the bottom and re-iron that. If it’s too long, you can refold the bottom, pin and re-iron that. Sew along the edges of the borders and there you are.

4) Question: What do I do if I have lined curtains? Well, unless you want to sew through the linings (which I don’t recommend), then what you do is this – undo the stitches holding the lining at the bottom and on both long sides of the curtain and flip that up at the top before you pin on the border. You’ll need to be a little bit more careful when you run the curtain through the sewing machine to sew on the border so that you don’t catch the lining, but once you have the new border sewn on, you can then catch stitch the lining back onto the back side of the curtain and no one will ever know that your newly refurbished curtain did not always have the colorful border!
5) Question: What do I do if I get tired of the border? Ah – well one of the issues with curtains (unless you are using some of the Sunbrella fabrics or something like that, which is UV treated), is that even with a lining, you will get fading and if you are tired of the border but still want to use the curtains, if you take off the border (easy enough, just take out the stitches), you will find that the fabric that was underneath the border is now a different color. But Not To Worry!! If you are using cotton curtains, you can go down to your local store and buy some RIT dye in a color you like and using the washing machine method on the back of the box, you can take off the borders and dye the curtains a completely new color! Voila!

Mobile Electronics Repair

The DH heard this story on NPR this week and told me about it – he was fascinated by the major aspect of the story: A guy turning a personal need into a business that is growing like crazy – a mobile ‘small personal electronics repair’ business. From the description above, of people coming up to his van to ask for help when they see the advertising on the side, another thought comes through.

This is the 21st Century version of a hot dog cart. Or the late 19th or early 20th century pushcart guys found in every major city. “Strawberries!!” “Rags..Rags..we buy Rags!!” “Pots and Pans – we fix pots and pans!”

The other thought is this: In the midst of what some economists claim to be the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, some people have found a way to build a small business based on repairs, which is a very ancient profession indeed.

People who can repair stuff have a skill that is very useful when times are bad because – people are not in the financial situation where they feel comfortable just throwing something away and buying new. Before the ‘throw away economy’ was produced by the Wal-Martization of manufactured goods (and Wal-Mart is not the only ‘villain’ of the piece here – I fully admit that), there were a lot of things that due to the way they were designed and manufactured and the amount of their cost, people would have them fixed. Electronics such as television sets and stereos, shoes, clothing, electronic appliances, small engine goods such as mowers were all the basis of a thriving sector of the economy: Service and Repair.

The cheapening of practically all goods basically put that out of people’s minds. When it costs almost as much (or perhaps even more) to repair than what the item could be purchased for, then it made no monetary sense (we won’t discuss the whole issue of ‘life time cost’ which includes disposal and landfilling) to have something repaired – it only made sense to throw it away and buy something new..whether it was a pair of shoes, a tee shirt, a pair of blue jeans, a toaster, or a laptop.

What Leontaris (and others who are doing the same thing) has found out is that there are a lot of broken small electronics around with owners who actually just want the damn thing repaired. People have become so dependent on their personal electronics that having the item out of their possession for even a couple of days causes upset(how many people do you know who actually wear a wrist watch now? How many people do you know who turn off their cell phones to go on vacation? How many people do you know who have repetitive motion disorder from using their PDA? How many people do you know who refer to their PDA as ‘a Crackberry’).

The other thing is this: The prices of some of these items new have now become high enough that having to replace it now is going to cause a certain amount of ‘wallet pain’.

Enough so that repairing an Iphone makes sense. Even when repairing a cracked screen will set the person back – 10 minutes of time…and $99.00 for parts and service (which is what Leontaris charges). Enough so that Leontaris not only has this mobile business, but a shop where techs repair other items such as laptops and so on that he can’t keep the parts in his van.

I’ve talked before about businesses that got their start or got really growing in the Great Depression. One of the biggest and most famous is HP – Hewlett Packard, which got its start in the Depression in Mr. Hewlett’s garage. In my local area, a safety pin business which was struggling even before the depression (basically because they were trying to compete in what had become a commodity market), took the opportunity to morph themselves into a tool and die manufacturer, which survived on holding the line on costs. They then evolved into an electronics ‘pick and place’ machinery and systems manufacturer and now they are all over the world. Their headquarters is still in my home town here.

Things are very bad right now – let’s not make any mistake. But for people who are interested in ‘finding a need and filling it’ – now is as good – or as bad – a time to start a business as any. Who knows, perhaps you could be someone who can be a success, help people with their needs, and make more jobs for others.

Now THAT’s a plan we can all get behind.

(Ipod clinic photo by Dan Theurer)

The best part of the job, though, was when we were able to place people into jobs. Most of what we did in those days was what was coyly referred to in the jargon of the agency business as ‘temp to perm’ (of course now, it’s more than likely ‘perma-temp’), so I knew that when I asked someone about their business and what was the one person I could find for them that would help them grow, that if I was able to find that person, I was doing a definite ‘good deed’ – I was getting that person a job.

A paycheck. A way to buy groceries and get health benefits for themselves and their family, pay the bills, pay their rent or mortgage. A way for someone to maybe even get a promotion and a raise in pay.

Despite the pay (which was actually not the greatest), I loved that job. I saw it as a homely combination of ‘good deed’ and ‘local economic development’. No matter how frustrating the cold calls or unanswered phone messages were, I always felt that what I was doing was good. At the end of the day, there were people who were genuinely better off for what I was doing.

Right now, there are a tremendous number of people in this country who are NOT better off than they were a year ago. For some of them, their bad times started several years ago and their jobs got offshored someplace or downsized out of existence. And they’ve had to take whatever they can get and it’s probably less than what they made before. And to pay the bills and the mortgage and the orthodonture, they’ve taken on huge levels of debt and whatever job they could find. And for a lot of them, an increasing number have lost their homes and are wandering the countryside, like high tech (and sometimes low tech) Tom Jodes.

And I know there are people out there who feel that it’s ‘all their own faults’ or ‘if they’d kept up they’d still have a job’ or ‘if they’d been smart…” or ‘if they’d worked harder’ or …and so on. And I can tell you, because I come from a place where our local economy was run on the fly-wheel of a huge high tech wonder..which decided one day that they no longer wanted to be in the business that they ran in our little place (and thereby causing over 20,000 people to lose their jobs), that for many many people in this country, they did work very hard, and were very educated and smart, and they did keep up with training, and they did the best they could for their families and their community.
And it didn’t make any difference because it was decisions made thousands of miles away by people who did not care about the families and the community – that is what caused them to lose their jobs.

And for many people at the top of the heap out there, that is an appropriate thing – free market competition, movement of capital and assets to the lowest cost areas and so on and so forth. But for the millions of people who are either now out of work or who have not been able to get a job in their fields for the last 5 years, it is not an appropriate thing.

It is bitter and it is demeaning and it sucks the very life out of the soul of people and of a community and out of the country.

And right now, we have an administration which really is struggling to do something right. It might not be what all of us admire or believe in or accept or agree with. But they really are trying to do the most good for the most people, because that is what is required now. But the economy is not responding, at least at the community and personal levels, the way people need. Because..people need jobs. There are millions of people out of work already..and this spring, there are millions more young people who are graduating from colleges and graduate schools..and they don’t have jobs either.

And maybe Aunt Toby’s readers do a lot of charity work already, and for that I thank you sincerely. But at the moment, charity is not just what we need. What we have the greatest need for right now are industrial and commercial patriots.

The greatest, most patriotic thing anyone who owns or manages a business can do right now is not to lay off workforce – ask your employees to find ways to save money, work smarter, to keep everyone working and paid. Additionally, if you can find a place in your operation, an even greater good would be to find one person who can help you grow and hire that person. Even if it is a young person with little experience but a lot of energy. Even if you are a plumber and all the young person could do would be to crouch next to you and learn. To give one additional person a job, teach them a skill, give them the opportunity to help you grow and be more productive and competitive – that would help your business..would help the economy…would help the country.

And all you bankers who got the bail outs – it’s time for you to step up and start lending to business. We all know that you are hoarding the money that the tax payers gave to you. Many of you are using it to buy up other distressed banks. The country needs you to be patriotic too – help business grow – give them credit.

A lot of talk out there about patriotism revolves around the phrase ‘love of country’ – we need to love the people in the country, too. And for that, we need to help business grow, so that they can hire people HERE so that payrolls flow out into the community and help other businesses in the communities. That is when people at the local level will honestly know..in their very bones..that the recession is over.
(photos courtesy of diP and Joan Thewlis)

One thing I have not written about is how I feel about credit card companies targeting people who not only are not in a position either psychologically or financially to take on debt, but the effects of people such as these groups who end up with huge amounts of debt at times in their lives when they can least afford to have it.

These people are college students. At one time, even Aunt Toby and her beloved DH, both working, could not even get within smelling distance of getting a credit card. That was before the banking laws were changed in the early 1980s. Soon thereafter, we were inundated with credit card offers. We were not the only ones. As banks and credit card companies started to realize the overwhelming amount of money that was to be made by sticking a hunk of plastic into people’s hands and encouraging them to go shopping, they started to look for other groups of people to market debt (woops, credit) to – and one of the first was to college students. They not only went after college students with mail, special events, advertisements in college newspapers and so on, they also marketed themselves to colleges and college organizations themselves. They gained access to college student records, their home addresses, phone numbers and so on. Students were inundated with multiple card offers constantly.

Students who don’t have any visible means of income. Students who more than likely already had Guaranteed Student Loans and other forms of financial aid.

Students who could not afford to take on any more debt.

“In each year between 2000 – 01 and 2006 – 07, an estimated 60% of bachelor’s degree recipients borrowed to fund their education. Average debt per borrower rose 18%, from $19,300 to $22,700 in 2007 dollars over this time period…. In 2008, 84% of undergraduates had at least 1 credit card, up from 76% in 2004, the last time the study was conducted. The average number of cards has grown to 4.6, and half of college students had 4 or more cards.
Undergraduates are carrying record-high credit card balances. The average (mean) balance grew to $3,173, the highest in the years the study has been conducted. Median debt grew from 2004’s $946 to $1,645. 21% of undergraduates had balances of between $3,000 and $7,000, also up from the last study….The average outstanding balance on graduate student credit cards is $8,612, an increase of 10% from the 2003 average of $7,831.”
Student Debt Stats

We’ve discussed what credit card debt really costs Atkins For Plastic

Now we can discuss the new federal legislation that changes the way that credit card companies can approach college students from now on:
“The bill also addresses some of the worst abuses of credit-card use on campuses. Without a co-signer, full-time college students under 21 will be confined to what amounts to credit-card training wheels, with credit restricted to 20% of a student’s income. The presence of a co-signer protects college students from sudden rate increases; under the new law, a student’s co-signer has to approve any such hikes.”
That’s the good news. 20% of a student’s income. If a student has no income of his or her own, then that student can’t be given a credit card. On the other side, however, the bill did nothing about the access that colleges give to credit card companies in the first place:

“,…the sweeping law, which takes effect in nine months, doesn’t address every college credit-card controversy. Most notably it does little to address affinity-card contracts, which encourage colleges and universities to sell students’ contact information to credit-card companies. These often confidential contracts bond hundreds of schools across the country with credit-card companies eager to sign up undergraduates. In some cases the school’s financial reward increases handsomely when students frequently swipe their cards…”

Indeed, many students, under increasing pressures of exploding rates of tuition and fees and moribund financial aid programs, have turned to using their credit cards to pay for education.

“College students aren’t just swiping their cards to pick up pizza tabs or buy school-spirited sweatshirts. They are increasingly using them for such big-ticket items as college tuition. Just five years ago, 24% of students charged a portion of tuition to a credit card — a number that has grown to about 30%, according to Sallie Mae.”
College Students Debt

Even a college loan would not be charging the rates of interest that credit cards do. And in today’s economy, where this year’s graduates, it is estimated, only have a one in five chance of having a job at this point, how will recent graduates pay off these balances, which will be growing…and growing…and growing with all the late fees, and increased interest as we saw in the example on paying the minimum balance.

In any economy, young people just starting out are actually a vital part of the economic engine. Whether it is buying a car, furnishing an apartment, getting married, having children, or saving up for a house – young people between the ages of 22 and 30 are a vital part of the economic pipeline. Anecdotal evidence suggests that this vital piece of the machinery has actually been stalled for quite some time, as young people, burdened with huge amounts of debt upon graduation and largely without high paying jobs to repay that debt, cannot afford to get married, cannot afford to get an apartment of their own, cannot afford to buy a car..cannot afford to participate in any meaningful way in growing the economy.

The vibrant economy really does require people to spend money. Hopefully they are spending it on sensible sorts of things and saving and investing for the future.

But they can’t do it if they are starting out their lives with something approaching $30,000 in debt, most of which they have to pay off in ten years.

Here is an example
Loan Balance:
$30,000.00
Adjusted Loan Balance: $30,612.24
Loan Interest Rate: 6.80%
Loan Fees: 2.00%
Loan Term: 10 years
Minimum Payment: $50.00

Monthly Loan Payment: $352.29
Number of Payments: 120

Cumulative Payments: $42,274.24
Total Interest Paid: $12,274.24
Note: The monthly loan payment was calculated at 119 payments of $352.29 plus a final payment of $351.73.
The loan balance was adjusted to yield $30,000.00 after deducting the 2.00% loan fees.
It is estimated that you will need an annual salary of at least $42,274.80 to be able to afford to repay this loan.
Student Loan Payments

For me, the lightbulb moment is that last sentence: ‘need an annual salary of at least $42,274.80 to be able to afford to repay this loan.” How many students do YOU know who, upon their bachelor’s degree graduation, have a job in hand that grosses over $42,000? Me neither.

Something much more dramatic must be done to deal with the relationship between colleges, college students, student loans and credit card debt. The current bill is already being screamed about by credit card companies and banks and even this does not go nearly far enough. President Obama has already talked about student loans – Aunt Toby is sincerely hoping that that situation can be radically changed, otherwise, we truly will return to the days when college was affordable only to the rich.

Learn to do one thing really well. Make that a bunch of times…and then learn to make another thing really well and make THAT a bunch of times.

Example One: Men’s shirts. I make men’s shirts for the DH as an act of love (ok, I admit it), but also because he has a sort of shoebox shaped body and the tails are just not long enough. Men’s shirts, from a sewing and design aspect are like Japanese pen and ink drawings: the buffet of design opportunities is pretty narrow. The items that are usually seen when the man wears it with a suit or sportcoat are the collar, the cuffs and the band (and even then, with a tie an observer doesn’t get to see much, actually) . The only other place to do anything is the yoke in the back and the chest pocket and even then, there is this really thin line between “Oh, that’s nifty” and “Oh, you’re subbing for The Tumbleweed Boys” this evening?” THE item that separates a shirt that looks really good and professional and one that does not is the placket in the sleeve where the cuff opening is. I’ve made a bunch of shirts for the DH and I STILL have to open up David Paige Coffin’s book, Shirtmaking: Developing Skills for Fine Sewing to the section on this. Every…single….time. I literally have the book open on my ironing board while I’m flipping the pieces around, ironing them, pinning them and so on. I figure after three or four more shirts, I might feel slightly more competent. I’m a whole lot better at sewing up these shirts now, so I use my time in a more efficient way.

David Page Coffin’s Shirtmaking Book

Example Two: The TNT. For those of you who are not ‘sewists’ (that’s what we’re calling ourselves these days), “TNT” is not going to have a whole lot of meaning. It stands for ‘Tried and True’ and refers to a pattern that someone has gone to the trouble to work out all the fitting issues with, and then has made numerous times, in various permutations, until frankly they could cut it out, in the dark with only the light from the weeny bulb in the sewing machine to do it by ..and sew it the same way and still come out with something that looks fantastic. The two dresses above are the start of a TNT for me. The pattern is McCalls 5701. McCalls 5701

This dress is described as: Pullover dresses …have side front panel and pockets, back pleats and self faced bands; dress A has contrast bands; dress B has optional jewel trim; length for dresses is 2″ above mid-knee.
If you go to the link and then scroll down so that you see the line drawing of the front and back views you will see this is not a terribly complicated dress but it does have several redeeming qualities that have endeared it to me:

1) No zipper. Aunt Toby has, over the years, conquered many of her sewing fears: buttons and buttonholes, lapels, boning. She still hates putting in zippers. This dress has no zippers.
2) It’s got some seam interest in the front AND usable pockets.
3) It’s got some action going on in the back. There is actually too much fabric for someone as short as Aunt Toby is, so I’ve modified it but it is still interesting coming…and going.

What I can do to make this into a true TNT:
1) Redraft the pattern piece for the back and take all that extra fabric out.
2) Put a seam in the front that mimics the seam in the upper back that is in the back
3) Take out the pockets completely and just continue those seam lines that are in the front right down to the hemline.

My inspiration for making the commitment to a TNT is a wonderful sewing blogger with a great site called Diary of a Sewing Fanatic

Carolyn is the absolute queen of the TNT – actually, that is wrong. She is the Mozart and Beethoven of the TNT. Her ability to riff theme and variations on one pattern is truly phenomenal.

Carolyn’s TNT Dress, Episode I
Carolyn’s TNT Dress, Episode II

She saves a ton of time and money by using a pattern that she is extremely familiar with. She knows exactly how much fabric is necessary to do this pattern – no ‘well, just in case, I’ll get another half yard.” She knows exactly how much time this is going to take her to do it, lined and unlined. She knows how this pattern is going to behave if she makes it in various kinds of fabrics. She’s been ‘married’ to this pattern for ten years.

I can’t think of one sewer who has not fallen into the stash trap – after all, most of us fall in love with fabric even before we fall in love with a pattern. But one sure way to waste money is to whack away at pattern after pattern after pattern that just…doesn’t…work. There are a few companies that actually draft patterns well; Burda is famous for its pants for example. But all patterns can give you trouble, which is why a lot of sewers make a trial item in muslin first to work out the fit and any technical issues before they cut into the real stuff. Once you have that muslin, you can put the changes into the paper pattern and off you go. Once you’ve made something enough, you can let your imagination loose in terms of interpreting what is the latest ‘on-trend’ item from a top designer…using your TNT as a base. We all like to be in fashion (yes, I realize this is hard to believe that Aunt Toby is someone who loves ‘teh fashion’ but I do) and look well – one way to get the look AND have it fit, look smart, and save time and money is by having a TNT.

When you have a pattern that you’ve committed to – and have made several times and can see the possibilities with…ah….THAT’s a relationship that can last and can save you money in both the short term and the long haul.
(a note on those two dresses: the one on the left is made out of 100% wool gabardine and is lined; the one on the right is made from stretch cotton sateen and is not lined)

Creative Outlet. This is the ‘my eyes are bigger than my stomach’ situation – sometimes it is merely that people see clothing that they could not possibly afford to buy and feel their skills are such that they can reproduce the look for less. At other times, it is a case of people falling in love with fabric (whoever dies with the biggest stash wins) and are inspired from the fabric up. Another factor is actually practical: If you are someone who actually looks on a wardrobe as something that can be freshened up with the addition of certain more ‘on trend’ items (and by that I mean items in certain colors or prints or shapes) and you can’t find them in the stores (a situation your Aunty finds herself in many many times) in your size, or in a style that flatters you, sewing is an option. If you are the sort of person who would be wearing high end looks AND also have the skills to pull this off AND you value your time at $0.00, then you can definitely save money. As for stash-a-holics – as someone who not only has built her own ‘fabric edifice’ but inherited a stash from her mother and great aunties, Aunt Toby has to say, “I feel your pain, Sisters.”

Fit and Selection Issues: We discussed this in the first installment, but suffice it to say, a large majority of people who sew in 2009 are doing it because they are too something to fit into standard manufacturer’s fit sizing: too tall, too short, too round, too thin, low knees, high rearend, short arms, sloping shoulders, all the weight carried in the front, all the weight carried in the hips and thighs. Narrow shoulders with a big bust (Marilyn Monroe Syndrome). Wide shoulders and no bust. For everyone who ever stood under the merciless greenish yellow lighting of a try-on cubical, learning to fit and sew a decent shirt or dress will open the heavens to the glorious singing choir.

But let’s return to the ‘myth of the advantages of deep discount retail” and our illustration of the $30.00 dress (actually I got a catalog today from a mail order/on-line retailer which used to purvey $20.00 dresses – these dresses are now their $39.00 dresses. Such is the effect of rising expectations in China, where manufacturers having to pay their workers more – not appreciably more, but more nonetheless, thus giving them another excuse to increase their profit on each item). So, we are looking at the $30.00 dress, which frankly is mostly a fairly simple affair in cotton or nylon/rayon/polyester/cotton knit. It may have a zipper in it or may not. It may have a cheap lining in it; more times than not, it will not. It will be run through a ‘cover stitch’ machine which as you know, if you catch one of the threads and pull, you will end up with hems loose, seams popped and facings flipped out. This is a simple item to make – as long as the fitting has been done in the first place and the changes necessary to be made done on the pattern (or a muslin made and fitted), even someone with basic technical sewing skills can produce something that looks BETTER than what can be bought off the rack. And it will cost the same…or less.

The cost to make this sort of dress (unless it has a very full skirt, lots of pleats, fancy sleeves etc.), including fabric and a zipper would be something in the neighborhood of $20-$25.00.

Here is a nice simple dress, with or without sleeves, simple little dress

The amount of 60” wide fabric to make this dress is, depending on one’s size, 2-2.5 yards. I went to a couple of my favorite on-line fabric sites and the range of pricing can be anywhere from $4.00 a yard to $7.00 a yard, so let’s split the difference and go with $5.50. So the fabric is going to cost me about $12.00-$15.00, plus the thread and zipper, which will run another $3.00 together for a total of $15.00-$17.00. I’ll be able (because my local chain fabric store always has patterns on sale) to get the pattern for $4.50. And here is another secret to saving money with sewing: buy a pattern you like a LOT and make it multiple times. You get better at it and also it reduces the cost per use. But let’s say for the moment that you don’t. So this will cost you
$12.00 – 15.00 fabric
$3.00 zipper and thread
$4.50 pattern
Total: $19.50 – 22.50 plus your time

As long as you have the skills. This is the nut in this entire discussion. If you do not have the skills, you either have to acquire them (which is a joy in itself) OR you must pay for them. For what it will cost for you to get someone else to sew this for you, you may as well find a source of lessons, whether it is the local school district (some actually do have classes), a local fabric store (quilting lessons are usually easier to find than clothing sewing classes, but depending on where you are, this can vary – in larger cities this is easier to find). You can, if you are very very patient, make this dress with a needle and thread, but it might be better to find a good used sewing machine. These can be located everywhere – whether it is a school getting rid of their HomeEc sewing machines, or on Ebay, or a local sewing store , an estate sale or your local paper. Look for a good basic machine – the only stitches you will need are a straight stitch, a zigzag, and a stretch stitch. Those will carry you through sewing anything short of sail canvas and industrial work. If you feel uncomfortable looking for a machine, find a sewing machine repair shop and ask them to keep an eye out for a good basic machine for you.

Now, looking at the illustration above, you may be asking yourself, “Well, I’m still not saving as much money as I’d like – why shouldn’t I still go to the ‘naughty retailer’ and buy the dress for $30.00? Making this is going to take several hours – I’d rather use my time …blogging in my pjs in my basement.”

For those of you saying that to yourselves at this point, Aunt Toby says, “Go in peace…and keep rolling the bottom hems of your slacks and wearing your tops over the waistbands of your skirts and pants because the waistband does not fit..” I can’t fight that sort of argument.

But for those who are intrigued by the idea of this, Aunt Toby says, “Come closer – we will continue this conversation tomorrow…in the meantime, dream…dream of the perfect white blouse..that buttons nicely all the way down the front and does not gape right in the middle of your chest…”

(photo at the top is courtesy of …. ME — that is a shirt I made recently for the ever-stalwart DH, who deserves as many custom shirts as Aunt Toby can push through her trusty Kenmore sewing machine)

I am told time and again that I am wasting time and money making clothing when I ‘can buy it at deep discount at Wal-Mart, Target, Kohls, H&M’ etc. I am not going to get into an ‘ethical clothing’ discussion here. Your Aunty is going to stick to bottom line issues, which deal with ‘true cost’ of an item – what it costs from the time you acquire it until you pitch it into the rag bag, the bag for the charity, give it away, etc. Studies have shown that most clothing purchased from deep discount retailers (much of which has a high petroleum content) are actually worn very little and then thrown away. In the UK, which has a well developed ‘charity shop’ retail sector, this sort of clothing can never be resold and ends up in bales going to Third World Countries. In the US, a lot of it ends up in landfills. So, if we go to a deep discounter and buy a dress or a pair of pants for $30.00 (and let’s not get into the whole “I saw jeans at WalMart for $15.00 thing, ok? This is by way of illustration) and wear it twice, whereupon it falls apart in the washer or dryer, then the per wearing cost of that item was $15.00 a time.

So, let’s say you avoid shopping at the ‘naughty retailers’ and always try to get quality. There are plenty of places to buy clothing, but one of the almost universal problems that people have, unless they are of a certain shape and size, in terms of buying clothing is finding clothing that fits. When clothing does not fit well, people do not wear it often and it oftentimes ends up at the back of the closet or off to the Salvation Army. Again, another high cost per wearing.

We won’t get into the issue of ‘fashion’ or even ‘likeability’ – just ‘do the buttons gap in the front’ or ‘can I raise my arms over my head’ or ‘is it too tight when I sit down?” I do not care what size or shape anyone is – for all the petite, missy, plus, women’s whatever out there in retail-land, finding things that a) you want to wear, b) that actually fit and c)that you can afford is almost an impossibility. For those of us, ahem, of a certain age, the memory of clothing available in sizes such as: Child, Pre-Teen, Teen, Junior, Junior-Petite, Petite, Missy, Women’s, Half-sizes, and Plus sizes is but one indicator of what has happened in manufactured clothing. Child, Pre-Teen, Teen, Juniors and Junior Petites have been amalgamated into Child and Junior. Either you are 8 years old, or you are Britney Spears. Either you are 15 years old…or you are ready for the boneyard. And the loss of fitting opportunities has gone along with that because people change dramatically between the ages of 15, 20, 30, 40 and so on. So, finding things in styles that you want, that will fit you, and at a price point that you can afford is the Holy Grail of clothing. No matter how little or how much you are willing to spend or can afford to spend, the vast majority of us are faced with stuff that is not going to fit, which produces a situation which most of us are very familiar with: people who wear clothing to fit their largest measurement and then it is either too long in length, the shoulders are falling off, the sleeves are too long and so on. People are not looking or feeling their best in retail clothing. The answer to this many times is to have alterations done. If you have THAT set of skills, then you are home free. If you do not, the cost of them for most of us can be equal or more than sewing the item from scratch ourselves.

So, what can we do? That couple at the beginning had a goal of a sweater. The goal in clothing(besides coverage, warmth, protection from the elements, etc. – for the moment, we will not discuss ‘fashion’ or ‘managing perceptions through clothing’) is to be able to obtain clothing people are going to like and that they will actually wear – a lot. When you are able to do that, then you will not only save money up front but also all the way along the lifetime of the garment as it gets worn over and over again. It is a commitment and investment of time to do so but the alternative is a waste of money and time. Aunt Toby is going into this (and I am biased – I admit it) with the philosophy that the US retail clothing sector has nothing to offer those of us who are not built like the companies’ fit models and I also resent things falling apart in the washing machine. Being able to build fit and quality into a garment from the ground up, to me is an answer that works. It might not work for everyone, but I do think it works. So, what are the key areas to being able to do this?

1) What do you know how to do already? Producing clothing that looks good AND fits well takes two different sets of skills: fitting and sewing. There are millions of unfinished and finished but unworn items in bags on the floor at the back of closets all across America because the item did not fit or the item did not fit comfortably. Being able to fit a pattern to yourself or a family member is crucial to being able to turn out clothing that looks good and feels good. This goes double if you have kids that are entering their teen years and you want to sew for them or teach them how to sew. So, if you know how to put clothing together from your home ec class or 4H in high school but are not sure about fitting, then you need to buy a book, find a class, etc. As far as Aunt Toby is concerned, anything else you do in the technical sewing area is totally wasted if you do not know how to fit because all your work will end up wadded up in a bag at the bottom of a drawer or the back of the closet. Especially when you are sewing for or with teenagers (who have all sorts of body consciousness issues) you need to be able do this or guide them to do it themselves. If all you are able to do ultimately is produce a prom gown that your daughter loves, you will have saved a boatload of money. I devoted a lot of time and effort learning fit so that I could do this for my two daughters and probably over the six or eight formals I made for them, I saved several thousand dollars and the girls had gowns that passed the ‘twirl in front of the mirror and with smile on the face’ test.
2) What sorts of clothing are you interested in making? If you are the sort of person who needs more formal business clothing, it is definitely worth the trouble to take a couple of tailoring classes so that you can get jackets looking correctly. A skirt or pair of slacks does not require nearly the amount of fitting or technical expertise that a jacket does. If you can learn to make a solid tailored jacket with chest pieces, shoulder pads, under collars, bound buttonholes etc., then you will be able to make coats as well. These items are a major expense when bought ‘off the peg’ – it’s worthwhile learning how to do this. Some people feel that learning to make really expensive clothing items such as this is the only reason to learn how to sew.
3) Alterations? What if what you want to do is just to alter ready-to-wear? Doing alterations well is an entirely separate set of skills because what the sewer is doing is basically taking the clothing apart in the areas that need altering and grading in the alterations. Learning what to do and why and for what reasons (sloping shoulders, large bust on a narrow chest, large rearend, and so on) is an almost completely separate set of skills and experience. Most alterations folks come to it from a tailoring background anyway, so I’d recommend taking classes.

So, here is your homework: Think about the issue of clothing for you and your family. What are your needs now and for the next five years. Would being able to fit, sew, or alter clothing that your family will wear a lot be something that you’d be interested in doing? Would you like to gain a skill that you can share with your children? Let’s not get into the details now of “I don’t have” or “how do we do..” Just think about it as an family expense issue.

(Dressmaker’s form photo courtesy of misswired)