Virescent

For an event tonight, the organizers requested we bring the flowers- made ones, by hand, please. I sewed mine, and it’s all recycled- made of fabric scraps from various projects, and some beads from a broken necklace. I modified a template for kanzashi, which are Japanese folded fabric or paper flowers worn mostly by Geishas. Here’s the chain of inspiration: I first saw the fabric version on etsy, then found a website with plenty of links to different tutorials for both paper and fabric versions. I adapted the instructions at this site, since I was using a flimsier fabric for the petals. And, voila:

I had a petal base. Basically, I cut triangles of fabric, and folded them twice (so you have two folds at the top, and two loose ends and one fold at the bottom), then sewed a couple of times through the four layers at the bottom of the petal. I stitched each new folded triangle to the same thread, until I had a long chain that, when I held it in a loop, formed a solid flower circle with no obvious blank spaces yearning for its own petal. I then sewed through the circle at the bases once more, to space them a little more neatly.

You can see the “hole” in the middle, where all the petals meet, and it looks a bit uneven. I needed a bud, which I made by stuffing a little square of fabric with some leftovers, and sewing on the beads. I also made a stem by rolling a bit of rectangular cloth and sewing up the sides in a spiral- when it was long enough, I trimmed the top to make a neat circle. By poking the bud through the middle of the hole from the top, and whip stitched the sides of the petal to the top folds of the petals. This allowed me to flatten out the bud over the entirety of the messy middle, and to hold the petals evenly in place around the bud. I then stitched together the mess at the bottom of the flower center- all of the folded bases together with the bud base poking through- then whip stitched the stem over all those to the single fold at the bottom of each petal, to space the bottoms of the petals neatly. The results:

As you can see, I added a few more beads and a little stitching to the bud, and leaves (folded the same way as the petals and sewn to the stem).

If I get a chance, I’d like to try and add some thin wire to the beads, so they poke up perkily- I’m going to dig out some twisty ties after this and see how that works. And the bud looks unfinished, since I’m no good at embroidery (yet). I’d like to finish it with some cool contrasting beads, and I haven’t got any of those. But otherwise, I’m quite happy with it.

I found other instructions for fabric flowers here, through a post at Crafting for a Green World, and they look pretty cool, too. I went with the kanzashi for this project because I liked the more defined petals, and thought they’d look good in larger sizes.

So, one handmade thing finished! I should have a few more over the weekend for you. If you have any questions about my methods, feel free to ask, of course.

Actually they’re not flip-flops, really, they’re nuno-zories. At her blog, Ecosamurai has translated the instructions and posted some in-process pictures of her new-no zories. (Har har! Forgive me.) They’re adorable and so practical! Having just spent way longer than I meant to in a shoe store, I do feel the need to sit down and contemplate life and consumer choices while weaving my own from all those free teeshirts that I no longer have space for. Plus, making a pair of these will isolate you from dirty floors- you’ll never sweep again, or suffer while waiting for someone else to do it first.

Thanks for the post, ecosamurai!

I’m adding it to my list of handmade things to do. And in a couple of days, I promise pictures of what I’ve done so far.

At the Salvation Army, yes. I found this sweater there this afternoon while I was dropping off a load of unnecessary apartment stuff, and had to share. So classy and soft, and if the price and quality won’t convince you to browse your local second hand shop, nothing will. Finding something at a thrift store is way more exciting than finding something at a normal retailer- the element of surprise, the thrill of the chase, etc. Less chance of getting a winner, true- I saw plenty of ugly sweaters made with gorgeous yarn, so maybe next time I’ll try out this advice on recycling sweaters I found through another blog (which I’ll link soon, they’re nifty).

After that ecofriendly success, I balanced my day by getting caught in a rainstorm on my walk home from work, while carrying my bag of groceries. Fortunately it was the perfect warm evening and light rain, and I only stepped in the big puddle and soaked my socks a few hundred yards from my door. But it was a good reminder that practical hippies should carry umbrellas.

I can already feel the swell of righteous anger- I know, I know. Valentine’s Day is a dreadful prospect for everyone involved. You’re either under pressure to come up with something really special- flowers! roses! diamonds! dinner reservations! all of the above!- for your snuggly-pumpkin, or scared and wondering if your snookie-poo is coming to come through with something really special for you, or if you haven’t got a cuddle-woogums then, well, you’re cranky. About this time of year, I start hearing the anti-establishment rants from males of my aquaintance- Valentine’s Day is created by advertisers to convince women that we have to buy them things and then they get mad at us when we don’t and everything’s pink and those candy hearts are gross and I hate it and etc.

They’re right, except for the candy hearts thing. Apparently the greeting card industry has an award named for the lady who invented the Valentine’s day card. And now they’re capitalizing on haters by selling Anti-Valentine’s day cards! Genius!

Plus, all this shiny red waste. Big packages for little waxy chocolates, plastic wrap, cheaply-made toys, forests of obnoxious cards, tons and tons of dying flowers shipped all over at exorbitant prices…and all the hippies crying green ecotears. Why are we making love so unsustainable?

Some go so far as to declare their non-participation in this non-event: I will not bow to the follies of popular culture, I above the red and pink pressures. Works perfectly if you’re single, but you try explaining to your wimbly-bipple that you’re not going to be extra-sweet to him/her/it for one little day just because somebody had the gall to suggest that you do so. (Here’s a helpful tip: this will always go poorly for you. If it doesn’t go poorly for you, dump him/her/it and look for someone with a backbone.)

Me, I like Valentine’s Day. I’m looking forward to it. I think you’d like Valentine’s Day, too, if we made a few rules for it. Here’s my proposal:

1 ) No gross, over-processed red and pink-wrapped chocolates/candies. “Gift Food” is not a gift, nor is it food. Try making something actually tasty.

2 ) No stuffed animals (ok, unless it’s your best friend from forever and you compete to see who can come up with the most ridiculous one even though she always wins, even the year you found the purple snake with heart spots, because of that one vibrating pink lion…).

3 ) No store-bought cards. “I Love You” doesn’t count if it was written by a committee, mass produced, and purchased. (Try making a pop-up card. Fun, and demonstrative, and just think of all the things you can…never mind.)

4 ) Both halves of the couple must plan nice things for their hunnie-muffins.

5 ) If you do buy jewelry, don’t symbolize your love with a product of bloodshed, underpaid sweat, and intestinal delivery. Go vintage, or fair-trade, or lab-grown, or recycled, or at least certified. And similarly with flowers- why are you killing so many pretty things to tell her she’s pretty? Get her a live plant if you can (let her kill it). But really,

6 ) You don’t need to spend money at all. This is about love, and celebrating strong relationships, and taking the time to appreciate having your puddle-widgkins. So do that in a way that’s just for the two of you, and not for Hallmark/Godiva/DeBeer’s, also. Two’s company, three’s just wrong.

7 ) Call your parents and grandparents.

8 ) If you haven’t found your ookle-dumpling yet, see 7). Then don’t take it so personally (statistically you’ll find your mumbly-cupcake someday, and it’s not like angst makes you more attractive, unless you’re one of those people), take a deep breath, and go hang out with cool people and do fun things.

What do you think? A dash of anti-consumerism, a pinch of anti-advertisements, and a shot of self-confidence makes Valentine’s more sustainable, and maybe even bearable.

UPS finally allowed me to have my package today, so ta-daa!

She’s a NatureMill Plus, and she’s surprisingly soft and light. The deal is, I put stuff in the top, along with sawdust (or other “browns” like all-purpose flour), baking soda, and dirt, then I plug it in. In two weeks, all that undergoes a messy metamorphosis into very strong dirt. There’s a picture of it open- it’s got a heating element and a mixing bar, then I push a button and it dumps itself into a tray to “cure”.

Now, I am aware this is not “real” composting. I am aware that I should build a container and put it in the sun and dump in some worms, then watch it lovingly and take its pH level and turn it and drain it and coddle it and all that rot. (Hah!). My parents taught me how to for-real compost, though since we lived in the woods it was actually more like “put this in that pile and let nature occur”. In this apartment though, and my next apartment, I have no woods or even yard, and very little sun, and no place to experiment. Plus, let’s see how the new housemates handle rabid guerrilla recycling before I spring worms on them.

What’s in it for you? Why, you’ll receive fresh pictures of my first few batches, of course, plus I’m now taking applications for loads of uber-dirt, to be delivered every two weeks or thereabouts.

I need to go dig up two cups of regular lame dirt to get this baby going- but then, I can eat a banana, cut the peel into 4in-pieces, and watch the magic happen.

Gratuitous accessories shot:

I hope that the success of my Halloween party will be measured by the heft of the recycling bin afterwards. It was both more and less difficult than I expected to make the shindig ecofriendly. Fortunately it was a simple affair- a few snacks, drinks, and a nod at the reason for the season (refined sugar and the color orange). First, the decoration: I used some heftier paper streamers that made it through last year’s party and a string of paper pumpkins from a late seasonal gift that also escaped said melee. Inexplicably, these were in a box under my bed, along with the leftover orange plastic ware and napkins and a few red ribbons- it looks like Christmas will benefit from my packing tendencies, also. I found a few other decorations on clearance, but I didn’t purchase anything that wasn’t useful in itself and that I didn’t like enough to use regularly. Orange and black aren’t my color scheme of choice, but I found non-garish dark orange placemats and a few sparkly black bowls whose Halloweenic nature will be completely hidden when dispersed among the contents of my apartment. None of the snacks required silverware, and only a few napkins were needed in anticipation of party fouls. All the decorations were packed up afterwards for next year.

Comestibles were almost as simple to green. I stuck with mostly canned beer, since aluminum cans tend to contain a good amount of recycled material and can be fully recycled themselves. The available glass bottles had their caps collected for my jewelry-inclined friend to experiment with as threatened. Solo cups remaining from the last party (and cleaned!) were put out for the other available liquids. Soft drinks were purchased in 2L quantities, since those are shared and come with less packaging than canned sodas, though their tops are not recyclable. In the aftermath, the surviving cups were collected and washed for the next bash. Grist has advice on whether to go reusable and wash after parties, or use paper products and dump, and this was the toughest decision due to the complex calculations of life cycle analysis and comparison of different resources depleted. We’re not in a drought, so I used a little bit of water washing the cups by hand. There are biodegradable partyware lines, but “not having to buy new stuff” trumped exploring for those items. I didn’t serve food, just organic chips, organic salsa, and candy, and picked candy for it’s addition to the color scheme and lack of bulky, redundant packaging (MnMs, candy corn). In the latter, I was partially thwarted by my thoughtful and well-meaning gentleman friend, who showed up with a bag of doubly-wrapped candies for me. No worries, though, those are best for party favors. Stuffing handfuls of MnMs in your guests’ pockets as they leave is not quite the same as a contained box of Nerds, despite being much more entertaining (for you).

The final touch was the aggressive recycling box, which, after it has been emptied, will be available for me to bring to any parties that I may, in the future, be invited to. All in all, we ended up only tossing out the sales tags on the bowls and place mats, a few napkins and paper towels used for spills, packaging for some of the candy and chips, and a tangle of toilet paper turned upon an uncostumed guest- I run a strict costume party, and he knew the chance he took.

How naive of me to assume recycling was a straightforward and simple process! Instructions: 1) wash your glass, metal, paper, and plastics, 2) dump them in the right bin, 3) feel accomplished. Except that’s not it. Regulations at the Alexandria recycling website have some pretty odd restrictions on the glass, metal, papers, and plastic that aren’t acceptable for recycling in this county. Most notably, aluminum foil doesn’t make the cut. Now, cue the creepy theme music: Arlington VA also does not recycle aluminum foil, but Bowie, MD does, along with Kensington, MD. Statewise divide, maybe, but Alexandria recycling is taken to recycling centers in MD to be sorted and processed. Whoa! What’s the deal? Also, in Alexandria all manner of plastic bottles with necks may be recycled, whereas in Arlington only plastic types 1 and 2 (check the number inside the arrow triangle) are eligible. The restriction on plastic to necks-only seems uniform- so your hummus and spinach dip containers are no good. (Fortunately, they can be reused for Tupperware once you rinse them out, but if one likes spinach dip then one best prepare for an overabundance of Tupperware. Sure saves doing dishes though!)

This sort of regional divide must give rise to guerrilla recycling tactics: MD folks, I’ll be sneaking my foils into your recycling containers, and Arlington folk, I would be happy to get your non #1 and #2 plastic bottles (but not their caps, those aren’t allowed anywhere I saw) to where they belong. If you haven’t yet, check out your local recycling rules. If not linked here, they can usually be found somewhere near your country trash web pages. If something you think ought to be recycled isn’t covered in your county, check surrounding counties, or states. Then, get a ninja mask (recycled from Halloween?!) and dump responsibly away.

Ahh, the flimsy plastic grocery bag! Since 1999’s American Beauty, it has been renowned as a symbol of the magic found in everyday litter. Whether dancing along the sidewalk, impaling itself in your favorite oak tree, or choking adorable sea otters, the sight of that mystical, mischievous little petroleum byproduct always fills me with a sense of wonder. Refusing these plastic bags at the grocery store in favor of stronger, longer lasting, and reusable fabric bags is the latest way environmentalists want us to clean up. Poor, maligned flimsy plastic bag. This opinion piece from the NYT catalogs a host of reasons Americans don’t want to give up the bag yet-reusing them as trash bags, not wanting to stop the eager bagger, forgetting their other bags- and makes an uncomfortable point.

Plastic bags are a small part of the picture…But you think, if we can’t change our behavior to deal with this one, we can’t change our behavior to deal with anything.

Other countries around the world are dealing with the grocery bag issue- with more or less success. Apparently Ugandans like their bags as much as we do. Ireland’s government is taxing each bag, leading to a 90% reduction in their use, and Bombay banned them outright in 2001. Some local governments in American have banned the bag, notably in San Francisco, but the vast majority of the country isn’t bound by the hemp rope of hippie rule, so we may forget our own shopping bags at home and use as many of the little non-biodegradable sacks as we please.

Don’t feel too intensely guilty at still taking the bags. You can recycle them after use- most Giant grocery stores in this area have bins to collect them for you. And, if you’re at all artistic, or know anyone who is, it’s a cinch to convert your bags into yarn and crochet them, or make your friend crochet them, into various items. That site has some pretty awesome sea monsters. Be all ironic and crochet your plastic bags into a larger, cooler, better plastic grocery bag. Some helpful tips for working with the plastic yarn are here, as well as link to finished projects and crocheting instructions. I’ve made a few balls of the yarn, and I’m working on crocheting a square that doesn’t look like a triangle. I’ll post pictures when I succeed, or just distribute the wobbly fruits of my labor to loving relatives.

If all that recycling and crocheting sounds like a hassle, though, practice what Reagan preached, and just say no. The baggers may stare, progressive grocery stores may give you a discount, and you’ll need either large pockets or an empty purse, but I promise that soon you’ll wonder why your plastic dvd case in plastic shrink wrap needs that third layer of plastic baggie, and carrying an extra bag into the grocery store will be second nature.

So as to not bore you with frequent, fruitless checks for new material, I should let you know how to get an RSS feed of these posts (in case you don’t already know). Basically, 1) get an RSS reader, and 2) insert http://virescent.wordpress.com/feed into it. If you don’t have a feed ticker you like, I can’t recommend one right now (I don’t know of any “good ones” myself). However, if you use gmail, you can insert my feed into the RSS ticker at the blue header bar. In gmail, go to Settings (probably in the upper right corner of your screen), then select the Web Clips menu tab, and search for “virescent” or “virescent.wordpress.com”. Stuff will pop up, find and add my /feed site, and then my posts will pop up on your gmail with some frequency, depending on how many other news feeds you also have.

From now, I’ll be more frequently updating, and I’ll try to warn you of any long delays between them.  If there is any interest, I’ll add an email function that will email you my latest posts, and I’ll be on the lookout for RSS tickers to recommend for those who want a separate one or who don’t use gmail (if you know of any useful ones, do tell).