Taking care of what you have is the best way of being green. I was raised by my grandmother who raised her kids during the depression. She got every use out of everything and nice things were treasured and treated with loving care. I remember having one new coat in my whole childhood. A red car coat with hood. I was so proud of that coat. I would have never been allowed to throw it over a chair or across my bed and never in my wildest dreams, the floor. It was hung up properly after each wearing. I raised my kids this way and expected them to take care and show respect for the things they had from shoes to crayons.

I learned "green" from my Mom .. it was a money issue more than a eco issue back then. We "recovered" everything from a garment that had outlived its usefulness in our family. Buttons were cut off, zippers removed, you name it if we could make use of it we did. Any morsel of fabric was saved for a potential use . The only thing my Mom purchased was thread and then thought it was an expensive purchase. We purchased "new" fabric for special occasion clothing , and never bought anything that was not in a budget dollar amount.
Being the third girl , my "wardrobe" was primarliy handme downs, and re-constructed. My younger sister was more fortunate that I was much harder on clothing and shoes .. not much made it past me.. so she had more new clothing that my mom made.

Most of my clothing was from rummage sales - actually it was a lot nicer/better than what I have now. Of course, I was a lot trimmer way back then, too.

My Mom also salvaged buttons and zippers from clothing.

And people like that vote to get more 'fair' stuff. It's an upside down society these days. :(

If she can afford fair, so be it, hopefully she took first ones clothes to a second hand store or donation. It keeps people in a job making her new clothes.

You missed the part where I said she was on public aid. In other words, we paid for both her babies to be born, WIC and I have no idea what else. These girls have it figured out. They don't get married until AFTER the babies so that they can get the system to pay for the baby. Then they have a "princess" wedding. Sorry....soapbox again.

Great way to live life - I try to live by the 5 R's Recycle, Reuse, Repurpose, Regift, Refuse to buy "made in China if possible".

nhweaver...we try to do this to.

I am not very good at making clothes, but I do try. I've made some lounge pants for my son. It was so much fun having him pick out fabrics for them. He's been wearing them for months now. I did buy a few more patterns for the kids. I bought a nice pants pattern for my son and a ruffled skirt pattern for the girls.
My mom made some of our clothes when my sister and I were young. My mom said we would pick out fabric and tell her to "whip up a new shirt for school" in the mornings....lol. We still laugh about just whipping up new stuff all the time. :) It's good to reuse items to get more life out of them.

excellent! I do this too :)

I made a lot of clothes for my family when they were young and I was a stay at home mom. Once I had a full time job there wasn't as much time for sewing and I bought more of their clothes, especially jeans and t shirts. Made both of the prom dresses for DD - prettier, cheaper and fit better than anything from a store.

Just went shopping with her this afternoon and she "made" me buy fabric to make her chemise for her RenFaire costume. We got enough cream color crinkle cotton fabric for 4 chemise for under $20. Which is less than the price of one already made. And she can dye them whatever color she wants.