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Welcome to #CheckIn for SUNDAY 2026-07-26


Muse here,

For a couple years there I had to be extra careful about purchases. Now that we have financial room to breathe, I'm out there buying new underwear, new socks, new bedsheets, new kitchen towels--all the things that were falling to bits but we could eke more life out of them. I'm a real boss at darning now: "darn this...darn that, and darn the socks!"

In so doing we have more stuff to recycle or send off to landfill. If this had been a little at a time process, it would be easier.

How are you with recycling clothes and cloth goods?

socks with holes

CALL A TOE TRUCK!

Today’s topic is suggested by @Muse but there’s always an element of randomness. Grab your beverage preference (pixel or not), follow Wheaton’s Law and enjoy the space.

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Karl Auerbach

I never learned to repair clothes. I can't even sew a button back on. My wife has a similar complaint - no one every taught her use of basic tools (like air-gun socket wrenches or plasma torches).

Clothes (especially hats) are like the Velveteen Rabbit - they get real as they are worn and torn.

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friendica (DFRN) - Link to source

Carsten Raddatz

Easy, as in landfill. Socks drawer is full of good ones.

Mending holes in socks measuring by economic sense is positive only by approximating unlimited unpaid sewing craft available. Not in this household. (Although I do suspect that MIL would like a word here.)

Different domain, because of a mildly infuriating reply by Ikea staff I fixed a desk lamp myself, with some 2.50€ investment purchase from an electronics store and less than an hour of work. Very satisfying smol scale success both in avoiding landfill and fixing the darn thing.

BTW this post' top image gives me the creeps. I hope everyone's feet are alright and, erm, complete, golf socks or not!

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Carsten Raddatz

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Speaking of socks, specimen with tighter fit are excellent for value-add for doggo dummies.

We have a couple of those. Slip a sock on it takes a different meaning here, and makes for a fine source of different smell thus increased difficulty in search tasks when identifying the thing for doggo.

Holes don't matter here. Repurposing socks rocks for training! :))

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Jon Alcibar

I'm a bit sentimental about clothes, and I like to wear worn out garment, so I repair them on an on at a seamstress. I also like to buy some of my clothes in second hand recycling stores. I'm no good as stitching more that a button, but I still darn the socks because It makes me feel that things must last and we must care about them. Happy Sunday!
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Samuel Smith

Some things I treat as consumables. Socks, for example. I buy the same kind of socks, so when one wears out the other still has all the others to match with.
Other clothes I mend where I can. Sewing a button back on, hemming the pants - those things I can do!
Shoes, though... I used to repair shoes with ShoeGoo, but it doesn't seem to work as well anymore. Also, shoes wear out faster. :-( I'm unimpressed with my current shoes. While comfortable, both soles cracked after eight months of wear. Not a good impression for work boots! I need new shoes, but as long as I stay away from puddles, these will do until I find their replacements.
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Jodi

I had a big bag of textiles (old sheets, old ripped shirts, etc) to get rid of. But the only place that would recycle those things was a schlep and a $$ bus ride away. I kept dithering and finally just gave up and tossed it all.

Anything decent (wearable clothes, old toaster oven, etc) went to Goodwill, a few blocks away.

The thing that really killed e was getting rid of excess furniture. The nightstand shelf was busted, and somehow that and the stairs meant nobody wanted any of it (45 years old, and anything new would fall apart in a few years. Finally ended up having to pay to get it removed. I was sooooo MAD!

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Mark Wollschlager

I mend shirts and pants. Buttons are a routine fixer upper. Socks and underwear are disposable once they get holey or worn through. I will use a drop off box or goodwill for out of date stuff that is still wearable. I used to fix up shoes, but then I ended up with a bunch of worn out shoes when I just need one or two for 'poop shoes'.
I have some Patagonia stuff from the 70's that I can't seem to get rid of. In my will I want to have all the Patagonia stuff boxed up and sent to them as sort of a weird time capsule.
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Lisa Stranger

can't find the checkin thread where we discussed word issues that chafe

"media" is PLURAL of medium
similarly, "data" is PLURAL of datum
so in a sentence, it's "media are...." or "data show..."

this tangent brought to you by the newly-acquired knowledge that the recent incident of Trump stomping out of an interview with a WOC was apparently kayfabe on both parts 🤬

back later...

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Joyce Donahue

Goodwill gets a lot of my stuff. Big bags go out the door when I can get them there. Right after my stroke I lost 20 lbs. because I had no appetite for the first four or five months so a lot of clothes are too big. I have a friend who takes care of my donations. The bonus for her is that the size that I used to wear is the size she wears so she's getting a lot of gently used decent clothes as well.
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DeanC

By the time I am unwilling (or unable) to wear the decaying rags that are my attire, it would be an insult to burden Goodwill or anybody with the burden of disposing them, or to imagine that even the most destitute would think me generous or philanthropic for thinking they might welcome them as charity.
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Deb Zaccaro-Rojas

Grimm and I went thru a closet clean out so the Apt Complex could do a insect spraying. Yay, we have no cockroaches - not the case with some other apts - but while putting stuff back I noticed we still retain a LOT of glassware from our RenFaires & SCA days, which do NOT get used. At all. Libbey goblets, fmr Jim Dandy goblets used as SCA dishwear....shot glasses and so on. Plan is to box em up and drop em off at the Goodwill near us. As far as clothing, I was a serious seamstress in the SCA days, most of my garb was hand-sewn (yes, even the corsets!) - I handed a great deal of the SCA clothing off to a friend, leaving me only one outfit. So hemming, attaching buttons, re-sewing seams, and mending rips is easy. I wear til I can't anymore, and hand off any reasonable handoffs to Goodwill, that they might delight someone else.
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Jodi

But, I did just upcycle an old paper bag into a "book jacket" for my ipad mini (like we did in elementary school for textbooks). The case was peeling and shedding, and none of it was worth buying something new. This way, it's protected, looks neater, and I don't have little bits of faux leather flaking everywhere.
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Rod Mesa

I used to make clothes for me my kid. I generally buy used off ebay, Patagonia, or other used clothing sites, though occasionally I'll purchase retail or outlet if the price is too good to pass on something I need to replace.
Same goes for bike parts. Plenty of used bikes and functional bike parts and accessories available. My bikes are all refurb resto-mods, even the e-bike.
I bought my '15 Prius used in '18, and it's probably going to be my last car unless someone gifts me an EV (or I find a decent and affordable one)
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Joseph Teller

Here in Cambridge and in the state in general it is illegal to trash textiles, and the city has a horrible way of dealing with their recycling. Either you need to put them into a condition to give to a charity for re-use, or collect 30 gal bags of them to call for city to pick them up on their schedule from you. Charities of course don't want anything that is soiled, damaged etc. and are mostly interested in children's clothes (Big Brother/Big Sister being the main one) though the American Red Cross will take adult clothes in equal good condition.

There is a problem in that you cannot give away undergarments of any kind, NOR can you trash them NOR can you put them in bags for city textile recycling system. They remain in limbo. So wear out your socks and you're stuck with them forever or have to break the state law.

Bureaucrats, as usual, failed to think when passing laws.

Additionally it is rare to see the city actually pick up anything, except Mattresses, which they charge a hefty fee to recycle. This in a big university city. A lot of students don't care about state or city laws and regulations and break the rules while in the area.

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Joseph Teller

Oh, and of course, its socks and underwear that wear out the fastest for us. I need to replace at least 6 pairs of socks every year, some years twice that many. T-Shirts... well I eventually wear them out, but I am good about taking care of them, so I have to replace one or two most years at best (I have some that are 25 years old and date back to when I did lots of SF/Fantasy conventions!) Underwear is replaced at about 6 pairs a year as well...
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Lisa Stranger

Socks are far less of an issue in Florida than they were up north 😏 (I mostly don't miss them). Now they are more likely to lose their spring (dry rot) than get a hole. I'm not too hard on my clothes. (Mr. Stranger, OTOH? 😒) I do have a pair of jeans that I loved to death (NYDJs) that I use for yard work, but I have to wear shorts under them until I can sew in a saddle. Sheets get "retired" to cover the dog bed—although I have a sheet rn that needs a huge mend to once again make it suitable for that purpose. Haven't had the brains/spoons to either set up the new mini sewing machine I bought and figure out how to use it, or get myself certified to use the library's machines and then schlep the stuff over there. I haven't sewn since middle school I think.
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Mark Wollschlager

Charlotte Aten on Mastodon

Do you find it annoying when socks don't even last a single decade before getting holes in them? I used to sew them back together, but I recently realized that I don't need to. Socks tend to get thinner as they age and develop holes in different places. By wearing two socks on a single foot, the holes in each one are covered by the other and the overall thickness is correct.
My partner has listened to me boast about this discovery one too many times, so I thought I should share it with Mastodon instead.

Charlotte Aten (@caten@mathstodon.xyz)

Charlotte Aten (Mathstodon)
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