Prepping with Fibers

My family and friends call it my obsession. I call it my passion. What it really is is part of our everyday prepping.

It’s been almost 50 years now since I first started knitting and sewing. At first it was just because I wanted to do everything that my older sister did. Then it turned into something that I found I enjoyed doing and that I was good at doing. The more I learned about sewing and knitting, the more I wanted to learn. For my mom it was only practical that I learn, so she taught me everything that she could. I wore the first dress that I made for myself to school on the first day of fourth grade. It’s a wonder that I didn’t wear that dress out. But I didn’t and when I outgrew it my mom put it away and saved it for me. When my daughter was big enough to wear it my mom gave it to her. She wore it until she outgrew it. Then I put it away. Not too long ago I pulled that dress out and gave it to my daughter for her daughter to wear.

My real fabric and yarn stash didn’t really come into being until after I graduated from high school and went to work in a fabric store. Sure, I saved scraps and odds and ends from things that I had knitted and sewn over the years, but nothing of which to really speak. Except for the one piece of pink fabric that had foxes and hunting horns on it. I made a dress out of that fabric my freshman year of high school. A couple of years ago I made my granddaughter a nightgown out of what was left of that fabric. She still insists on wearing that nightgown even though it is too small for her now and I have made her many other nightgowns. While I worked in the fabric store my stash of yarn and fabric started growing as I bought almost every piece of fabric and every skein of yarn that I could imagine using on a project some day.

During my college and grad school days I didn’t have much money to spend on my love of knitting and sewing. Nor did I have the time. So instead I put my talents to work making money to help cover my expenses. I had a couple of people for whom I sewed on a regular basis and as my kids started coming along I would sew things for them and then when they outgrew them I sold the things I had made at second hand stores.

For the most part up until a couple of years ago my sewing has been for my family. Then my cancer got to the point where I no longer had the energy or stability to hold down a regular job. During these years though I had a couple of windfalls. One of my mom’s cousins had been half owner of a yarn store during the 1960s. When she left the business she took out her share in yarn. When she died my mom inherited  everything that was left of that yarn, which was quite a bit. Then when my mom died I inherited all of that yarn plus all of my mom’s sewing machines and fabric stash. Combining these stashes with my own I now have fabric and yarn tucked in every nook and cranny of my house.

Since leaving my job two years ago  spend all of my time now knitting or sewing. Most of what I do is for my three grandkids now, but I also do a lot of knitting for my friends. I have one afghan pattern that I especially like that uses three colors and is a plaid design when completed. These plaid afghans that I have made have found homes all over the USA and one more is about to find its way to Australia.

So, now you are probably wondering what all of this has to do with prepping. A whole lot is my answer.

If something does happen to the world as we know it we are going to need a source for our clothing and our linens and blankets and the like. There are not going to be all of the nice factories to make them for us any more. In fact, look at the labels on your yarn and you will find that a lot of it is made in Turkey. Then look at the labels in your clothing and you will see things like Sri Lanka, China, Viet Nam, etc. Even most of the military clothing you can by now comes from Bangladesh and other such places. We just don’t make a whole lot of our clothing or fabrics in our own country any more.

Two skills that I believe that I still need to learn and have the equipment for are spinning and weaving. Then with the right animals I would be able to produce things from start to finish. I also want to increase my stash on things such as denims and muslins and other fabrics that would be practical for heavy duty use and ease of cleaning.

But even with out those things, I believe my skills and stash could come in very handy. Not only would I be able to continue to clothe my family because I have a wide assortment of fabrics, yarns, threads, buttons, zippers, and a wide assortment of patterns from which I could make things, I would also have something with which to barter.

Bartering is going to be one of the things that will be most necessary when it comes to living in a new society. No one family or group is going to have everything that they need to service long-term. I will have not only things which I may be able to barter, I will also have the skills that I have learned through the years. I will not only be able to do things for others, I will also be able to teach others how to do these things for themselves.

No matter what else we set aside as part of our prepping, prepping for our fiber needs is also a must. Sure it’s not something that we can carry in our bug out bag, but we still need to be thinking long-term and be prepared to deal with what we will do when the fiber things we are using now begin to wear out.

S.C. OR

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