Cracking open the champers

So what am I celebrating??? Two things - I have finally finished Q1 - woohoo!!!! Here are some piccies of the front and back of the finished product - DD1 raced in front of the camera for one of them, so excuse her blurry outline. And also, DD2 has been in 100% cloth nappies for a year now. That's cloth 100% of the time - nights, holidays, outings, everything! I'm pretty chuffed about that. So we cracked open a bottle of champagne to celebrate (thats an Oxfam cleanskin champagne left over from our Xmas stash).

Hey also, in my quest for sustainable online clothes shopping I came across an interesting site http://eco-chick.com/ I get the New York Times by email, and there was an article in there about ecomums with a link to this site. I haven't had a chance to look at it an any great detail yet, but it has heaps of links to sustainable clothes sites (unfortunately they are probably mostly in the US, but its a start). Thought some of you might be interested.

To Op Shop or Not to Op Shop

This is something I've been thinking about for ages. I'm not a clothes person and don't often buy clothes, but when I do, I reckon there are three options for sustainable clothes shopping:

1. Buy from an op shop
2. Buy organic cotton or some other sustainable item from a large department store, thereby increasing demand for more sustainable products
3. Buy sustainable item locally made from small local business.

Anyway, I've been thinking about op shop shopping for a while now, and I've decided that I would aim for number 2 or 3 on the list, as I want my hard-earned money to have a wider purpose - to drive the consumer market towards where I want it to go - to encourage manufacturers to see that there is a demand for sustainably made clothes, and so hopefully they will make more and buy more. My thoughts are (and these are just my own personal views) that at op shops you get good value and your money goes to support a charity but it doesn't encourage any market shifts if you get my drift

But anyway, yesterday I had to go to Big W to get a skort for DD1's school uniform. While I was there, I noticed they had organic cotton t-shirts for sale. They had catchy 'save the earth' type slogans on them and I needed a t-shirt and so did DH, so I bought us one each. I didn't get a chance to look at them in the shop as I was holding a wriggly toddler in one arm and trying to placate DD1 who wanted to go and look in the toy section.

Anyway, I got them home and was really disappointed. They'll get worn, don't get me wrong, but they were just not what I was expecting. They were dyed with a really strong colourful dye and had some plasticy stuff on the front for the slogan. They were made in China and they just had the wrong 'vibe' if you know what I mean. So I'm canning number 2 as an option.

Since I've discounted op-shops, that leaves me with number 3. Tricky! Is there anywhere in Hobart where you can buy locally made (or at least Aust made) clothes made with natural (preferably organic) fibres? I've only found 2 shops that cut it so far. One unfortunately is way outside my budget, but in the other one I picked up a long sleeved cotton top made in Aust - woohoo!!!

Oh and also, before you ask, I can't sew (well, I can only sew quilts!!) so I can't make my own. To be honest, I'm not interested enough in clothes to spend time making them. I don't even want to have to buy them that often. I just want the purchases I make to actually mean something. Phew! Its all trickier than I thought. Anyway, its no more clothes purchases from big stores for me - local and Aust made all the way.