quality

July 8, 2016October 20, 2017

The End of an Era

I saw the light – and I wish I hadn’t. I am normally in favour of illumination, mind you, but not through the side of my slipper.

You see, these are no ordinary slippers. I have had these sheepskin slippers lo these many years. I wore a mould of my foot into the fleece so long ago I can’t even remember. I wore right through the fleece in places some years ago, and now, it appears, I have worn right through the leather as well. The stitching, can I just point out, is as firm as ever.

These slippers have been a largely unnoticed part of my life for so many years. I have worn them in tropical climes and in allegedly temperate climes. I have worn them in winter and I have worn them in all but the height of summer. I have even spilt ink on their tops while refilling a fountain pen (for that personalized writerly look).

Since I don’t wear shoes indoors (regardless of what FlyLady says), they are my feet’s near-constant companions. If I’m at home and awake, I am probably wearing those slippers. (Now, for instance.) I have rather low blood pressure, which means my circulation is not all it could be, which means that my feet are easily susceptible to cold. Therefore, the slippers.

I have had them for so long I began to take them for granted. Now that I think about it, I’m pretty sure I’ve had these slippers for about fourteen years, give or take half a year. Going on for half my life. Good quality, yes? They’re Paddy slippers, made by Golden Fleece, if anyone wants to Argonaut forth to secure a pair of these wonder-slippers for themselves.

And now, alas, the end is nigh. In accordance with the old motto of “Make Do and Mend” I considered taking them to the cobbler for a patch. However, not only have I worn most of the wool right off the sheepskin, I have also worn the grip right off the sole. I am therefore compelled to admit that it might be more sensible to acquire a new pair. After all, “Use it Up, Wear it Out, Make it Do or Do Without.” I’ve done the first two, at least.

But the guiding principle of simplicity does not knock off for the weekend, simply because an item has worn out and it is time for a new acquisition. Far from it. Simplicity steps up and scrutinizes the possibilities with a gimlet eye.

Now, Dean Koontz may go for bunny slippers (or one of his characters may; the internet has not divulged) but I am not of that party. For one thing, if you leave them together on the floor at night you’ll wake up to a room covered in bunny slippers. Cheaper than carpet, perhaps, but easier to trip on.

The other – slightly more serious – reason for turning down novelty slippers is that they don’t tend to be designed for durability. I myself have owned both tiger-foot slippers and punk dinosaur slippers, back when my feet were still growing. I remember them with fondness, although not enough fondness to want to get a pair now.

Nor do I want to get a pair of slippers made of artificial materials. Artificial materials do not, in my opinion, come anywhere close to the natural marvel that is wool, when it comes to keeping yourself warm. I want warm feet, not overheated sweaty feet, thank you kindly.

And since, according to Statistics New Zealand, there are nearly 30 million sheep in this country, acquiring a new pair of sheepskin slippers should not be too difficult. My dying pair are of the classic style with a seam up the front of the foot and a ‘ruff’ around the ankle.

Now I am thinking of trying a different style for a change. I am by no means a proponent of change for change’s sake, but after a decade and a half of the same thing, even I am feeling that a bit of variety – a change of scenery whenever I look down – would not come amiss.

Perhaps a sort of moccasin style, and perhaps in chocolate brown instead of the plain colour which is I believe known as ‘cane’ in the sheepskin slipper industry. I shall have to consider the options and see what is available in my size (usually not much).

While it might take me some time to look at all the possibilities, instead of dashing down to the mall for the first slipper-shaped thing my eye falls on, I think that something I will use every day is worth the investment of time (and a decent price). After all, these will hopefully be part of my wardrobe for the next fifteen years.

What will not be in my wardrobe for the next fifteen years are the things I pruned in June:

pruning shears and gloves

a skirt
a pair of skull and crossbones sleeves (adapted from socks)
a scarf
a bandanna
some cotton undershirts
some cotton leggings
a wool dress
a brown dress
an embroidered top
a t-shirt
a denim jacket
a pair of woollen gloves

May 6, 2016

My Simplicity Heroes

I don’t really go in for hero-worship, but there are always going to be those people who make me think “Gosh! What a life! I wish I was a bit more like them…”

Number one on the simplicity charts is Jesus Christ (also the exception to the hero-worship clause). Jesus had so little that he once pointed out to a would-be follower that he didn’t own so much as a place to lie down. Foxes have dens, birds have nests – but if you’re going to follow me, don’t plan on being as comfy as them. Famously, he was so poor that when he died they had to borrow a tomb to bury him in.

But he wasn’t a grim, joyless race-to-the-bottom kind of person either. He often got criticized by the establishment for going to parties (first miracle: turning about 600L of water into 600L of wine to spare some newlyweds the embarrassment of having under-catered their reception) and he once laid into his followers for lambasting a woman who poured a bottle of expensive perfume all over him. Thrifty it might not have been, but loving it was.

And while he might not have owned much but the clothes on his back, they weren’t the lowest rags available. He wore a seamless robe, which, as any weaver will tell you, is not the easiest thing in the world to make. Like the perfume, it was probably a gift. Medieval art suggests that it was made by Mary, although rather than getting into the technicalities of weaving, they just depicted her knitting in the round (using DPNs, not circulars).

I learned from his example that why is often at least as important as what; that good things are gifts to be enjoyed, but not expected; and that you should always give your grave back when you’re finished with it.

Fast-forward a millennium or thereabouts and you encounter Francesco Bernadone, better known these days as St. Francis of Assisi. Francis was crazy in love with “Lady Poverty” (his term) and hey, people in love do weird things. Francis took a vow to never refuse to give anything that was asked of him “for the love of God” and his followers had the greatest difficulty in persuading him not to give poor people the clothes off his back.

When he retired from leading the order, the new leadership made him promise not to give his clothes away any more – it looked bad, having your founder running about in his underwear – and Francis obediently promised. So the next time he encountered a beggar wearing less than him, he sorrowfully informed the fellow that he couldn’t give him his clothes – and then suggested the beggar should mug him. Possibly the first recorded instance of legalism being used in a good cause.

I learned from Francis that having little or nothing can be as full a life as having much – or even fuller. As he pointed out, as soon as you start having stuff, you start worrying about people nicking it. No stuff? No worries.

#3 on the list is a group rather than a person: the Quakers, a.k.a. the Society of Friends. (Mostly the historical Quakers. Richard Nixon, not so much.) Unlike #1 and #2, they didn’t generally divest themselves of all possessions, up to or including their clothing. They took a slightly different approach. Instead of reducing themselves to a level of poverty where they were dependent on the kindness of others, they aimed to be the ones whose kindness others could depend on.

In order to be able to be generous, they worked hard and developed businesses along sound ethical lines. Many were wealthy – bankers, manufacturers – but unlike the wealthy of today, they shunned luxury and conspicuous consumption, believing that no one was superior to anyone else and it was shameful to act (or dress) as though you were. Instead, they poured their time and resources into social justice causes, such as the reform of inhumane conditions in prisons and – famously – the abolition of slavery.

However plain – or rather, Plain Quakers were, they weren’t against the good things of life (apart from being teetotal). They were industry leaders in the chocolate business – need I say more? Plainness was a hallmark of the Quaker, yes, but so was quality. A Quaker would, for example, infinitely prefer to wear the same plain, good quality garment for years, than to have a never-ceasing cycle of cheap fashionable tat filling their wardrobe.

The point for the Quakers was not that it was wrong to spend money, or even to spend money on things for yourself. The point was that it was wrong to spend money on things for yourself that you didn’t need, when others didn’t have the things that they needed.

I learned from the Quakers that #1’s command to “Love others as you love yourself” can be taken as a practical instruction for living; that living simply so that others can simply live really does make a difference; and that being thought odd is no barrier to making change in your world.

History bears witness that their simplicity brought great good to many. I hope that one day that can be said of me.

December 18, 2015

My grandmother believed in buying quality: the best you could afford. The idea of buying an item simply for the status of the label would have been completely foreign to her. What she would have said about buying an item simply for the status of the faked label, I don’t know, but it would have been short, sharp and unflattering.

Buying good quality is, to my mind, very sensible, and probably the reason why a lot of what the Caped Gooseberry and I own comes from our ancestors. Not just big things like furniture, but the sorts of things which these days are subject to obsolescence and its more evil twin, planned obsolescence.

We still use my grandmother’s VCR for watching videos. We still use my grandfather’s heater. They’ve been gone for ten and twenty-one years, respectively, but they bought quality, and it shows.

I still wear their dressing-gowns, too. Admittedly, the cord on my grandpa’s wool dressing-gown needed replacing this year, but that’s not bad after more than two decades of wear.

It’s the same on the Caped Gooseberry’s side. He regularly wears some of his grandfather’s clothes (his grandfather’s been gone more than thirty years now); and I use his granny’s teapot (made in the early ’20s) on a regular basis, pouring tea into my gran’s teacups.

We are still using my gran’s everyday crockery set – despite years of wear it was in much better condition than the set I bought new (and cheap). The same goes for her oven dishes, and my grandfather’s china jugs.

One of my favourite winter hats (très chic) originally belonged to the Caped Gooseberry’s granny. I also have one of her summer hats, which she wore to meet Prince Charles back when he still had hair. Dark hair.

I wrote the entire first draft of my WIP (158k words) with a fountain pen dredged up from somewhere in my husband’s ancestry. I still use it every day. It just keeps working.

We still use my gran’s lawnmower (with my grandpa’s WWII petrol tin). It wasn’t working so wonderfully well lately, so I took it for a shamefully overdue maintenance visit to the mower man. The blades were not only blunt but actually broken. (I shudder to think what my gran would have said.)

Mercifully, maintenance and spare parts are still available for mowers. The same cannot be said of everything. Time was, you could pop down to the local stationers to have your fountain pen nib sharpened. These days, most of them don’t even sell real fountain pens, just fountain-looking pens with disposable insides (which do not count).

I do worry about what we are going to do when these practical heirlooms eventually wear out or break down. It’s very hard to get things repaired or mended these days – you’re just expected to buy a new one. Where will we find another such heater? Where such a perfectly dripless teapot?

Time was, if you were prepared to pay, good quality was available. These days it is perfectly possible to pay a high price for something which is still of inferior quality, and which will not last. Gran would not be pleased.

I’ve reached the stage in my life where I’d rather pay more for something I know will last – though as things stand in the world today, it’s not looking good for the grand-kids.