On Thu, 09 Jul 2009 12:59:11 -0500, Cece Dan <cmacdan@...> wrote:

And if you would only be compensated for you time, knowledge and efforts
at $5 I think you are being seriously underpaid for your talent. Just my
humble opinion.



Thanks, CeCe! Its like a 20-year chemistry experiment I've never gotten
tired of learning-from. I figure $5 would motivate me to wash up my
supplies. I could never 'quit my day job' and make/sell a dozen shirts a
day to net $60 of profit before tax and insurance! As long as Chinese
capitalists can grow, spin, sew and dye a shirt in a factory using
machines and desperate workers, for $4, it suppresses a whole rich
renaissance of local artisans and guilds. That's how globalism is a
natural selection process that leads to fewer tee choices (Basically, 2
commercial designs) locally. I'm from a family of artisans, tailors and
builders (all teachers, too) and feel nostalgic that all women everywhere
don't still wear clothes they've made at home without patterns on the
sewing machine, or that people buy prefab instead of make the pieces of
their homes like cabinets and trim, deck, plaster, etc.



So I understand about having to stay under $35 for a baby thing, as I
have, ie lived homeless with children camping all summer under a bridge
(before law degree). Now I have too much stuff and I'm working on how to
make my buys truly meaningful and stay out of those discount junk and
clutter stores where the purchases are just symbolic, like consumption
therapy or something. <g> I'm trying to do sustainability just as
far-reaching as I can. It takes courage to thin down the closet to just
good stuff. (And to accept that for a lot of people, that's not on their
radar or in their value system). So, when CeCe said she would find a way
to make it herself if something was too expensive, I cheered because it
reminds me there are resourceful people in our Co-op. And that's just one
of the things I love about it.



k

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