I'm fucking dying at this page someone shared on Bluesky.
Behold, the Embroidery Trouble Shooting Guide that forgot to close its <h3> tags.
ALT
Anonymous
sent a message
Your wardrobe just isn't accessible. All of your recommendations are so expensive.
Hmmmm, what kind of reaction are you looking for, Anon? I am not your enemy.
You need to rethink what “accessible” means wrt clothing. (Especially bearing in mind you are on the blog of a guy who likes to wear vintage style suits, which puts us firmly in “luxury items” territory.)
We are currently living in an era where those who make clothing are criminally under compensated, with ever increasing demands to cut costs, yet produce faster. Fashion is both a sustainability and labor issue.
We are also living in an era where even the raw materials for clothing are undergoing enshitification and this has fucked with people’s perceptions for how long clothes should last.
But I am determined to build a wardrobe where pieces last for 10+ years, if cared for properly. And I know I have some things that absolutely will outlive me.
For these reasons, I am not going to recommend $15 or even $50 dress shirts, especially given they will fall apart after a season or two.
My wardrobe is a 25+ year long project of discovering what I like, how to assess quality, and getting my finances in a place where I can buy good pieces. My closet is not meant to be achievable overnight or even within a few years, because it sure as hell didn’t happen that way for me.
Trying to build a fashionable wardrobe (again, the word is *fashionable* because presumably that is why you are here) on a budget?
1) Thrifting and garment swaps are still options (be sustainable and get the quality of the past!), with more choices if you can get garments altered. Gem.app will always be high on my recommendations list for this reason.
2) Making relationships with sewists and tailors and working out fair compensation (be it money, trade, being a pattern tester, etc) is an option
3) Saving up where you only buy 1 or 2 new, quality pieces of clothing a year is an option and should actually be the norm for everyone - we all buy too many clothes (myself included) and need to reset our expectations for how big a wardrobe should be + how often to change clothes
4) Learning how to make garments on your own is an option (one I am taking), especially given free resources such as libraries, YouTube tutorials, the Internet Archive, etc.
Good clothing does and should cost money and time. Especially if you want to wear tailored garments made from nice fabrics, which is my style and presumably why you came across my blog. (It’s important I reiterate this point.) Honestly, the fact I can find a 3-piece wool suit new, in a vintage cut that fits me off-the-rack for $1k feels like stealing.
I spent most of my adult life climbing the Old Navy > Gap > Banana Republic fashion ladder, not realizing that nearly all of that clothing is cheap crap, especially things made post-2005. Now that I can afford nice stuff, there is a world of difference between my $15 flannel shirts and the $90 ones. Vimes Boot Theory, but with the caveat that the $15 shirt should not even exist.
(I love Vimes Boot Theory, but it needs a companion theory from the perspective of the bootmaker.)
It may sound shocking to you, but nearly all my wardrobe recommendations sit on the low end of price vs quality. I still have to mend my clothes, fix poor workmanship, and alter things to fit.
If you want decent quality clothing (“decent” = lasting for years), you honestly should be expecting to pay at least $100 for a new dress shirt, $300 for new boots, $300 for new woolen trousers. And yeah, $1k for a suit. These are bare minimum fair prices for off-the-rack.
You have to get comfortable with the fact that you will be paying some combination of time + money if you want nice things. (Even inexpensive things that are good quality take time to learn about, find, and maintain!) But the outcome - longer lasting stuff that makes you feel good - is hopefully worth the investment.
Garment construction deserves fair compensation and if your current salary is locking you out where you cannot get a few good, new things a year, the problem is that your own labor isn’t being fairly compensated. Scold your boss, not me.
Again, I am not your enemy. But you need to recalibrate your thinking about what our standards for clothing should really be, with all the labor involved to achieve those standards.
And one more time - you’re also complaining that my luxury fashion wardrobe is a luxury. Please also learn how to prioritize your wants vs your needs.
Oh, hey, Derek did an entire thread for someone with an attitude similar to Anon's.
Yall be careful!
"it's all fake looking ugly slop! Weird fingers! You can always tell!"
I need you to realize that literally none of these things are true, and that by continuing to believe them, you are making yourself gullible.
This is so important. AI is ever evolving, especially with trillions being invested into it. There are no more weird fingers at all.
I have run into several videos into my feed thst I wouldn't have been able to tell they were AI if it weren't for the watermark alone. Especially ones posing as police body cam, security cameras and other similar low quality cameras.
okay so I'm having a debate with my flatmates
are these all different things and if so what do you call them
Anonymous
sent a message
hello :) do you have anything suitable for owners to read about the thyroid issue to kidney failure pipeline. my cats are around ten so it's not an issue today but it's something I'd like to be informed of for the future
Absolutely!
This article is probably the most approachable one I know of. This article goes into waaay more depth and can be a bit harder to digest.
I really like this one, since it goes right to the meat of the matter.
HEY are you still using Etsy?
Are you a small business owner, artisan, and/or crafter? Or are you someone who likes to buy from those kinds of businesses?
Are you sick and TIRED of Etsy charging exorbitant fees that eat into your bottom line, while you compete with a flood of AI slop, drop shippers, and people mass producing plastic garbage?
DUMP ETSY, TRY GOIMAGINE.*
ALTGoImagine is not beholden to investors trying to carve off "value". It was founded with a vision and a mission.
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ALTAnd benefiting the maker community and small businesses is not their only mission. When you open a shop with GoImagine or buy from a seller there, 2% of every transaction is going to child focused charities.
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ALTAnd you can make sure your money is going back into your makers' and your local economy, because GoImagine let's you narrow shops by state.
ALTShops are super affordable! Entry shops are FREE, they come with 12 listings, and GoImagine takes 6.5% off orders (2% of which goes directly to the charities listed above). They also handle calculating and charging shipping for you, and automatically remit sales tax. All you have to do to is send out your orders! The next level up is $5 a month and gives you 200 listings. they also drop the transaction fee to 5%. and If you're a major mover who has lots of product? At $15 a month you get A THOUSAND product listings, and a free customizeable storefront website. Sales through the GoImagine marketplace have a 2% transaction fee (that's right, only taking out the charitable donation) but sales through mosaic don't have any fee at all. Still hesitant to make the switch because you spent a lot of time and effort getting your Etsy shop set up don't want to have to redo your online shop all over again? GoImagine has an Etsy shop import feature. Boom. Done.
Seriously. Give Etsy the boot. Especially with the winter shopping season coming up, you deserve to have your money doing more and better work. Support small business, local economies, and good causes and fuck Etsy, Amazon, Temu, and all the rest.
*Currently USA only, but they are planning to expand into other markets. If you know of Etsy alternatives for Canada, central and south Americas, Europe, and/or Asian markets PLEASE reblog this post with info!
forgor
My favorite thing to say when someone won't do something for me is, "Aw, c'mon, it's my birthday this year," and if they catch on and say, "What are you talking about? This YEAR? Everybody has a birthday this YEAR," respond with, "You're really gonna act like this on everybody's birthday?"
The thing is, even if you were lucky and your parents taught you how to clean, they probably didn't teach you how to clean the stuff you clean stuff with, like brushes, mops, sponges, rags, and so on. Or how to clean your cleaning appliances, like a dish washer, clothes washing machine, and clothes dryer and its ducts (if you have a ducted dryer), or a carpet cleaner, vacuum, Or how to clean up clean messes, like spilled bleach or detergent.
My parents threw away all of these things (even the vacuum cleaners and the dryer) when they got too dirty to function, because no one even told them THAT they could be cleaned. Cost them thousands of dollars over the years.
All I'm saying is that cleaning is not intuitive, and not knowing how to clean is not a moral failing, but it is something you can learn.
I'm going to reblog this post with resources for learning how to clean things and how to clean cleaning things (I'm not at my desk at the moment). If you have any favorites, please feel free to add them in too!
I like this video because it does a great job of introducing the basic foundations of house cleaning (and because he doesn't use bleach, which is a common allergy in addition to being awful to inhale). He also talks a little about how to clean a vacuum. And why you shouldn't put grease from your pots and pans down the sink drain. I also love that he mentions that different houses and different people have different needs and different versions of what clean and cleaning looks like.
He doesn't mention though that the toilet seat comes off. I take my toilet seat off to clean under the hinges and clean the seat more thoroughly once a quarter.
This is another video from the same guy about cleaning and depression. This advice, especially at the beginning, can feel really really difficult and oppressive to hear. However, I find that it's generally pretty solid. But I'm autistic and so is he, so that gets a massive Your Mileage May Vary stamp on it.
I have a favorite part of this video. It's from 10:52 to 12:36. I think we could all use to hear that. There's a HEFTY pause after that one. I promise the narration does come back.
I'm also going to recommend KC Davis' book "How To Keep House While Drowning"
This is a pair of videos about how to correctly load and use a dish washer.
The first one is a quick 1 minute 30 second overview on loading. I can't find the exact video I'm looking for, so consider this a substitute for that. If I can find the one I'm looking for, I'll swap it in.
The second is a half hour deep dive on dishwashers and detergents. The short form of that is you shouldn't need to pre-rinse anything, detergent pods are overpriced and can cause problems, some dishwashers have a filter in the bottom that needs to be cleaned (but most don't), run your sink until the water is HOT before starting your dish washer, and put a little detergent in the pre-rinse dispenser when you're washing extra dirty dishes (or on the inside of the door if your dishwasher doesn't have a pre-rinse dispenser).
Here's a blog post about scrubbing brushes and how to clean them.
And a video for all cleaning tools, including scrub brushes. This video does use bleach. I'll try to find some alternatives to that.
How to clean a front load washer (with bleach). This should be done monthly or every time you wash really soiled clothes.
How to clean a top loader (without the removable agitator thing). This should be done every 1-3 months depending on you unit, or every time you wash really soiled clothes.
How to clean a top loader (with the removable agitator thing). This should be done every month, or every time you wash really soiled clothes.
This video is for pet owners.
These carpet brushes are a LIFE SAVER if you have dogs. This thing allows me to go from vacuuming about 4 square feet before my vacuum is full to vacuuming half the living room (I don't vacuum often enough. You should vacuum weekly, and I just can't.). I have to unclog the vacuum less often. It fluffs up some of the flat spots in the carpet. And I also use the brush to shampoo my rugs in the spring.
A spot cleaner (or a carpet cleaner with a spot cleaner attachment) is another life saver, ESPECIALLY if you can afford to splurge on a heated one. I see them at Goodwill or at yard sales occasionally, and they're worth picking up. The shark one in the video is great too.
This channel is gold. There's tutorials for cleaning EVERYTHING on there. Just go subscribe!
Gonna throw another potential resource at the end of this very long list, which may be potentially helpful for others like me who loathe videos. It's... the weirdest thing that has genuinely been helpful to me in housekeeping. Absolutely full of useful advice, and bizarrely still relevant in large part. (Though, caveat, research ANYTHING to do with chemicals or cleaning products more complicated than vinegar + lemon + water for modern information.)
It's America's Housekeeping Book (1941). Available for free download on the Internet Archive. (Large PDF file at the link here).
The LISTS y'all. The step by step lists. The emphasis on efficiency and arranging spaces for the least resistance possible. The basic concept of "take a tray or basket into a room when you are tidying up so you can put things that belong elsewhere on it and take them out LATER in ONE GO".
My ADHD-having ass could cry.