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#it’s too hot for lettuce now but I am VIBING on garden cukes and CSA kale and broccoli

see this is exactly what I'm talking about. this labour is so incredibly invisibilised that there are real human beings, walking about amongst us, leading normal lives, etc., who earnestly believe that machines can make an item of clothing from start to finish.

rowanrightalong

Hey just in case someone on here doesn’t quite understand how labor intensive making a garment is, here is a list of things that (to the best of my knowledge) cannot be done by machine alone, from a costumer/tailor in training

Cutting - in my opinion, the most labor intensive part of the process. The amount of time/effort needed varies depending on the pattern and if seam allowance is included or marked separately, but no matter what this process can not be done by machine. Each and every panel and piece of fabric that goes into a garment must be cut by hand by a person.

Pinning/clipping - pinning (or clipping) is the stage at which you align the pieces you are going to be stitching together and hold them together with — you guessed it! — either pins or clips. This can not be done by machine.

Stitching - the actual sewing. This can be done by a sewing machine, but that machine still needs to be operated by a human being.

Ironing/pressing - two words that mean the same thing. The iron itself is a machine, but once again, it needs to be operated by a human being.

Finishing - depending on the technique you use, there are certain finishing techniques that can only be done by hand. But, let’s assume we’re talking about fast fashion, which is usually just finished with a simple overlock/serger. Once again: these machines need to be operated by people.

These are just the basic steps to making a garment, and don’t include textile arts that I am not as knowledgeable about, such as weaving, knitting, and crochet. Also, it is important to note that there are a lot of things that can only be done by hand, such as certain stitches and decorative techniques.

Also, the machinery being operated in textile factories is not equivalent to a domestic sewing machine. We’re talking about one of these guys:

See that gray cylinder under the table, behind the knee pedal? That’s the motor. These machines can sew through your fingers bones and all and not even stop. The people in these factories and sweatshops are operating heavy machinery, and are subject to all the risk that comes with that in addition to all of the work I mentioned above.

Please respect textile workers and continue the fight to eliminate the use of sweatshops and exploited labor in the fashion industry!

uninterruptednonsense

Reblogging with some additions from a different post o'mine:

" I'm taking a sewing class and I asked my teacher about how much machines can actually do. She said that while a lot of actual fabric we use in our projects is machine-woven, and sometimes there are machines for particular knitting patterns or for the same small thing over and over and over (i.e. socks), the overwhelming majority of pieces of clothing are in fact just sewn together by humans. Usually women. Underpaid and overlooked. Thousands and thousands of them, working 12 hours a day or more in huge warehouse-factories. You're probably wearing something one of those women created right now.

Most of the students (including me) were horrified. We had *no* idea. We figured that, given that we have supercomputers and massive industrial systems for almost every type of product you can buy, surely we would have figured out a better way? Surely there are machines that can put a t-shirt together by now?

She said, no, that's why fast fashion is really so bad. It's not simply about the quality of the product, it's about the human cost.

When you buy a cheap tee that says "Made in Bangladesh", this is where your clothing came from (and these are from one of the nicer factories):

(By Fahad Faisal. CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=89582692)

Don't want to believe it? I understand. Here is the wikipedia page, you can read it in your own time https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Textile_industry_in_Bangladesh#Readymade_garment_(RMG)_industry

queeranarchism

This isn't just true of clothes either. There's an astonishing amount of human labor behind most of our products. Even the steps that are automated are only possible because humans are constantly cleaning, maintaining, repairing, adjusting and fine tuning the machines.

I've noticed that the media that educates us often edits that out on purpose. In 'how its made' type videos, steps humans do by hand are often skipped because they don't make as smooth a video as watching machines do the parts of the production process that can be automated.

medievalthymes

me and the girlies discussing motifs and themes

voidcreations

Look at my birthday cake...

mermaidenmystic

Elena Yanchak (1918 Stakhanov, Ukraine - before 1967 Odessa) was a well-known Ukrainian female artist who lived and worked in the city of Odessa by the Black Sea.

lotstradamus

I’ve thought about this scene every day for three months

whatdoyoumeanitsnotawesome

Oh, Bonnie McMurray.

whatdoyoumeanitsnotawesome

soup-mother

Sober as fuck at the back of the club going onto Wikipedia and typing "List of birds"

corvidcall

to anyone in the areas impacted by the wildfire smoke, my #1 biggest piece of advice as someone whos been dealing with wildfire smoke in the NW united states for years, is build yourself a Corsi-Rosenthal Cube

they perform as well as expensive HEPA air cleaners, and are comparatively VERY inexpensive. all you need is a box fan, 4 air filters, a piece of cardboard, and some duct tape!!!!

i think it took us maybe a half hour to put ours together, if that, and we replace the filters every 3 months. it's really made a HUGE difference, both when the air quality is bad, but also with our allergies

o0fyuu0o

Saw these easy to read instructions on Twitter. Stay safe 💚

tinyyellowflowers-blog

Great time to start pricing this out by the way, fire season starts… on the summer solstice this year, that’s fun. Signs point to it being a doozy.

sun-cheyne

As someone that has had to go through this while being very poor, I can say this is VERY effective. While this is a fantastic build, you can even do just a single filter against the fan, or a fan on one side of a cardboard box and a filter on the opposite side.

orcboxer

I kill your grandad's foes

lokaror

They die incredible

makingtrouble

It's my cat's birthday (anniversary of me getting him) so I told him the story of his life while petting him real good

Highlights include:

For your first two years (when you were small) you lived in a foster home with people who raised you into a very polite young man. Two is like you plus me, that's what two is.

Some people adopted you before me and they called you Timmy (which is a stupid name) and they returned your ass almost immediately because you were so annoying at that age.

Like think about how annoying you are right now at seven years old, but way worse.

I'm better than them though, I don't call you Timmy and I wore earplugs to bed for three years because you love to scream at bedtime. Earplugs are like when I roll over and go back to sleep even when you are yelling so so so loud.

I got you at a time in my life when I was really sick (being sick is like when I'm up late because I'm throwing up and you are a very handsome good boy who sits with me) and they had to put me asleep for a procedure. A procedure is like what happened to you when they put you asleep and took your balls away.

Now you've lived with me for five years. Five is like the number of toe beans on one of your feet. When I clip your nails five is when we're halfway done. But we're hopefully not even halfway done with how long we get to be together. I'm gonna have to figure out new ways to help you count.

makingtrouble

Actually I've decided this is a poem