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Waste Not

Shifting from a buy-it-cheap attitude to thrift-everything-possible has taken me a couple of years, but in that time I've been discovering just how much we waste, especially when it comes to textiles and yarns. I've been able to thrift things that are new with tags that tell me I would have paid ten or twenty times what I did if I bought it retail, and that's always a thrill -- until I think about what a drop in the recycling bucket my own thrifted purchases are.

Don't get me wrong, I appreciate being able to obtain yarn, fabric and other materials for my projects at super low prices. I'm also glad I can thrift clothes and shoes in new condition for far less than I'd pay at stores. Helping the cause by using them instead of having them end up in a landfill makes me happy, too. But there is just so much out there that gets wasted that I feel sick sometimes.

Last month I considered going to JoAnn to get a dozen green fabric fat quarters for a quilting project I want to do this summer, but instead I thrifted 15 lbs. of fabric that had a lot of green pieces in it. I paid less for that 45 yards of fabric than I would have for the fat quarters I needed, but that's not the point. Reusing, recycling, thifting and doing what I can to stop textile and yarn waste means the world to me. I want to live in a no-waste world, even if it's just my own.

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