When to Make and When to Buy?

When to make something and when to buy it are tricky questions that trip up a lot of DIYers. I’ve discussed this before on the blog. Just because you can do something doesn’t mean that doing it is the best use of your time. I know how to make butter, for instance, but I buy it at the store. I don’t gain much by making it myself.

I made a set of cushions a few years ago for the glider rocker on our porch. The original ones had disintegrated in the wash:

I took out the padding and put it into new cushions that I made. Those lasted an additional four years, but now the padding really needs to be replaced.

Padding is not cheap. I priced everything out at Joanns, and even on sale, it would cost me more to make a new set of cushions than it would to buy a set at Walmart. Of course, that doesn’t take into account the ethical considerations of buying—most likely—products made in China using cheap labor. Also, how long might those purchased cushions last? A season or two?

The husband has a supply of concrete blankets to use when he pours concrete in cold weather. The blankets help to ensure that the concrete cures evenly. They wear out, though, because concrete is very caustic, so this past weekend, he took apart a couple of blankets to see if we could repurpose the padding. The padding is still in decent shape and he hates to throw it in the landfill.

I can find replacement covering fabric. It’s a polyethylene woven similar to landscape fabric. The question is, do I want to sew 20’ x 30’ concrete blankets on my new machine? Is that a good use of my time? (Our time, actually, because I am going to need his help to manage that big a project.) One good reason to make an effort is for custom-sized blankets. The husband says he would like to have some smaller ones for footing pours.

We’ll see. I am still researching. Anyone who sews these days knows that you don’t do it to save money. The metric I use most often is “Can I make something I can’t buy anywhere?”—like T-shirts that are long enough for my body, or generator covers that don’t disintegrate.

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The canvas grocery bags are done, although I have pieces cut for another half-dozen bags. I’m trying to organize the workflow such that I sew whatever items require the color of thread I happen to have in the machine at any given time. The 1541 is not hard to thread, but I don’t like to change colors if I don’t need to. Mostly it’s a topstitching issue as I use a neutral color for construction seams.

I really need to find time to make a few summer dresses. I bought a T-shirt dress last year that I loved and was going to copy, but I can’t find it now. I am not sure what I did with it. (I probably put it somewhere thinking, “I should make a pattern from that dress.”) Theoretically, I should just be able to lengthen a Lark Tee into a dress. I wasn’t thinking about making summer clothing over the winter, but clearly, I do not have time in the spring to make summer clothing, either.

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One of the things on my list to get this morning is some agricultural sulfur. The beans I planted last week have yellow leaves and I suspect an iron deficiency. Why not just add iron? We had our soil tested a few years ago and the pH is very alkaline, most likely due to the alkalinity of our well water. The soil probably has plenty of iron, but the pH of the soil is preventing the plants from using it. We were told to add sulfur after the soil test to lower the pH, which we did, but it’s probably time to add more. I’ll pick up a bag today and spread some of the granules over that area.