Ode to my Favorite Coffee Shops

I got down to business last night and whipped up a new crop of laptop cases from my latest supply of coffee bags. I got these great bags from Gimme!Coffee in Ithaca, NY. Thanks again, Gimme Coffee. In fact, thanks to all the lovely independent coffee shops that have given me bags and kept me caffeinated:

B.B. Bean Coffee, Colorado Springs, CO. All they serve is coffee here. No lattes, no espresso, just really, really strong, really great coffee. My favorite is the Earth Friendly Sumatran Gayo Mountain blend. I wrote many papers at top speed propelled by BB Bean coffee alone. In fact, I think in order to get through college without BB Bean coffee I would have had to learn to stop procrastinating and sleep more. Good thing there is coffee instead.

Newport Coffee, Lake Forest, IL. Great lattes. Nice midwesterners.

High Grounds, Baltimore, MD. This is a combination coffee shop, coffee roastery, and used bookstore. They have a really great selection of books here, and they even roast the coffee beans right in the back of the shop. They also sell their coffee at Whole Foods in Baltimore, and feature local artist's work on the packaging.

Stagecoach Coffee, Cooperstown, NY. This is my hometown local coffee shop. They are a great family-run business. I often go there to manage my etsy site and use the internet when my rural, snail-pace-slow internet connection at home goes down (which is constantly). They serve good sandwiches for lunch, but my very favorite thing here is the soup.

Here are the new laptop sleeves. You can also see more of them at my etsy shop:

Consume Less, Buy me.

In my recent quest to learn more about sustainable fabrics I have had one nagging thought that keeps creeping back to gnaw away at my do-good intentions: it seems like perhaps the most sustainable, ethical way to buy clothing is to just not buy so damn much of it. Buy a few, high-quality, versatile things that you love, and stop over-consuming. “Buy less” doesn’t exactly seem like the best business strategy for a budding clothing designer, but it does seem practical. Is the command that people be satisfied with less an unavoidably anti-fashion edict?
This issue reminds me of an article from the New Yorker’s financial page about piracy and fashion:

http://www.newyorker.com/talk/financial/2007/09/24/070924ta_talk_surowiecki

The gist of the article is that fashion actually thrives because of the high rate of piracy. This is how it works: Once a new trend emerges on the runway, thousands of copycat versions come out within weeks, and this ensures that the fashion-savvy public becomes sated and bored by the trend as quickly as possible. And this quick-acting ennui fuels the desire for something new. A design that looks fresh is only exciting in the context of its opposition that that which is tired-looking; high fashion’s value is constantly in relation to its quickly approaching expiration date. The article also points out that fashion is one of the few industries where consumers are still willing to pay much more for authenticity. The thing that strikes me as important here is the pervasive atmosphere of overconsumption as a precondition for the production of value in the clothing industry.

So, how do I go about justifying the value of my own products? I do ask my customers to pay more than they would at the Gap, but it isn’t high fashion “brand loyalty” that I’m looking for. I believe that people should be willing to pay more for responsibly made, thoughtfully designed garments. We tend to produce things so far from ourselves that we forget or erase the means of production in order to consume at the rate that we do. Producing clothing by hand is slow, it is labor intensive, and more prone to variation in the results. But, there can be a deep satisfaction in this intimate production model. As Michael Pollan points out in his writings on the food industry, we can begin to counteract the industrial model with more locally-based alternatives and there is greater pleasure in knowing than in forgetting. It seems logical that people who value handmade products should also be concerned with where the materials come from, and that cost should be secondary to these concerns, or further, that value should be based in them.

In the handmade economy, authenticity and sustainable production are definite selling points. But handmade products are not immune to the ironies inherent in trying to promote environmentally responsible spending in a capitalist system. It is somewhat paradoxical to use sustainability as a marketing tool. At the heart of any real attempt at sustainability ought to be the sincere effort to buy less. On some level, marketing a product as “sustainable” screams “consume less!” and “buy me!” simultaneously. The obvious way to get around this hypocritical standpoint is to point out that people will continue to buy things whether we like it or not, and that more sustainable products are a step towards lessening that impact. But it doesn’t exactly demand that we alter our over-consumptive outlook. I think it is important to consider the extent to which the imperatives of fashion and those of sustainability are compatible, and what underlying attitudes need to be altered to bring the two closer together.

Sustainable Fabrics, Part I

I’m starting to do some research on sustainable fabrics and am coming up (not surprisingly) with mixed reviews. I was really interested in bamboo because it has a really beautiful look to it, and it gets a lot of hype as a “green fabric.” From what I understand bamboo is good for a number of reasons, primarily because of the way in which it is grown: farmers don’t need to use pesticides on it, it grows close together, doesn’t deplete the soil as much as cotton, and eats up way more greenhouse gases than cotton per acre. Bamboo also is naturally anti-microbial, resists odor, and has a great weight and sheen to it. The downside is that once the bamboo is harvested it takes a chemical intensive process to break down the fibers and make them into textiles (it’s really not astonishing that it takes some heavy duty chemical processing to turn a woody reed into a soft, stretchy luxury fabric). The process uses lots of ammonia, and not only are the leftover chemicals dangerous, but the process causes neural damage for people that work in the bamboo processing facilities. Also, bamboo is only grown and processed for textiles in China, so, if buying locally is a concern, which it ought to be, bamboo doesn’t make the cut. Perhaps United States manufacturers just aren’t willing to sacrifice their employee’s neural systems for the greater good. Some people are so selfish.

I did end up buying some bamboo fabric (jersey knit) to try it out, and I love working with it, but it’s too bad that after doing some research on it, I feel that using bamboo doesn’t really absolve me from very much environmental guilt. Plus, it feels a little disingenuous to tout its “greenness” in my product descriptions. So, for now, I am trying out bamboo and looking around for some better alternatives if they are out there. Anyone else who wants to weigh in on this issue is very welcome.

Ok, now if I could ask you to put away all the moral ambiguity for the moment, here are some pics of the really cute tops I made out my first few yards of bamboo fabric (in sunshine! What a great color)



















I’ve also used raw silk, but I’m not sure what the sustainability issues are with silk. I know that lots of little worms die in the process, but I’m not sure what the wider environmental impacts are. I’m inclined to think that killing a lot of worms (which must have fairly short life spans anyway) is not as big of a deal as dumping huge amounts of chemicals into the environment. Maybe if I got to know some worms better I would feel differently.

Hippie meets Hipster

This is my tagline on my Etsy site: "Hippie meets Hipster," and it is sometimes met by smirks or confusion. So I thought I would explain myself a bit. Why invoke two opposing stereotypes and call it a motto? (Maybe it's just my over-powering affinity for dialectical argument. And alliteration.)

First, there is something attractive to me about hippie sensibility. Thrift and sustainability are important to me. Part of the impulse to make things is the problem solving; I like figuring out how something was made and trying to duplicate it. But part of it is economical. There is a lot of waste in the world, and lots of ways to reuse things if people would only use their brains and some creativity. One example is the coffee bag laptop cases that I make. Coffee bags are leftovers, but they are beautiful. It is important to rediscover the value in rediscovering old things.

Second, I strive to make things that are hip. Reusing and recycling doesn't mean things have to be frumpy. I like the challenge of searching for discarded, unloved materials, but my ultimate goal is to make them into something cool. Aesthetics are important. I seek to use materials thriftily and value the challenge of making something out of nothing, but in the end, the things I make are not necessarily meant to be the product poster-children of sustainability, but they are made with both design and resourcefulness in mind.

Hello there blog-o-sphere.

Welcome. I'm starting this blog partially because it seems like everyone else has one, so why not me too? So then I figured I had better come up with some reasons for having a blog. Mainly I would like a space to write about issues relating to my small business on etsy.com, (www.labudde.etsy.com), where I sell all kinds of things that I make: laptop cases, clothing, accessories, etc.

One of my dreams since about the age of 12 was to be a fashion designer. Ok, granted, 12 year olds have lots of silly dreams that aren't actually worth pursuing, and wanting something when you are 12 isn't necessarily a good business plan. But, I am post-college and find myself always making things of some kind, and additionally, jobless, so I decided now was as good a time as any to make this happen.

I also like writing and thinking, so this is a good space to record some ideas, and to do some reflecting about why I do what I do. And maybe someday other people will read this blog too, whether they be friends, family, or (someday?) fans.

About me:

I have dabbled in all kinds of art and craft; drawing, printmaking, painting, knitting, weaving, crocheting, jewelry making, woodworking, sewing, and bookmaking. I am thrifty. I am also by nature a collector. I collect old books, coffee mugs, pebbles, buttons, secondhand fabric and beads. I love to cook, I am a beer conoisseur, I like rock climbing, and tea is often an integral part of my seduction strategy.

I am from upstate New York originally, I work for Outward Bound in Maine, and I went to college in Colorado. I have one sister, also an artist, and two wonderful parents.