07 August 2010

A serger for a greener world!

I have not posted on my blog in a very long time, but I am posting today to enter a contest being held by the sew mama sew blog. They want to know how winning a serger would make my life better. I'm not going to only answer that question, but I will try to convince them that a serger will make everyone's lives better since it will help my family and my friend's families become greener, more environmentally responsible people.

First of all, it would make my life better cause I would have a serger, just owning a serger would make my life better (you can tell you're an over the top crafter when just owning the equipment makes your life better!) I would make clothes for my little one (I live in a small town and our only affordable clothing option is Walmart, their clothes are fine, but sometimes I just want my daughter to wear something other than Walmart clothing!) Here's my first tie in to how my winning a serger would make the world a better place. For those times when I do not want my daughter wearing Walmart clothes, I can go downstairs to my fabric stash, or drive a mile down the road to one of 2 quilt shops, pick out some fabric, and sew something cute with my new serger. The environmental impact of me driving 2 miles round trip (or not at all if I have something in my stash) is far less than me driving 110 miles round trip to the nearest city to buy an outfit!

On to the other environmental benefits of me owning a serger. I am already a cloth napkin/towel/diaper user. I made my own napkins with the old fold over the seam twice and sew method. Far too tedious! When people come over and say they love my cloth napkins, I'd love to have a few sets on hand to hand out to people. For a few bucks I could make multiple sets, but not with my sewing machine! I'd need a serger to whip out napkins fast enough to keep up with the demand that is sure to follow once the word gets out that I give free napkins to friends and family. I have not made my own towels, I have store bought ones. I hate having store bought items when I can make them instead. My store bought towels are ugly bar towels. I could buy some beautiful beach towels at the end of the season and serge them to make some gorgeous kitchen rags/towels. Oh, I guess that's not going to help the environment much to make new towels but it will make me happier when I'm doing kitchen chores. And the same goes for cloth diapers. Right now I use prefolds with plastic or handknit covers. I'd love a stash of fitted diapers but just can't seem to afford them. If I had a serger I could take my current prefolds and turn them into fitted diapers in no time! No more strain on the environment by producing more cotton and no strain on my wallet!

And last but not least, I am a knitting podcaster. Our podcast is huge! Like 300 people listen to each of our broadcasts. Oh, I guess that's not as much as some other podcasts that get millions of listeners or some other knitting podcasts that get thousands of listeners, but it's huge in my mind! If I win, I will gush about how great Sew Mama Sew is and therefore win over a loyal following of 300 crafty people.

I hope I've convinced the beautiful, talented, and bright selection committee of my worthiness for a serger. If not, will a set of cloth napkins do the trick? (Of course, I'll need that serger first!)