Really! Who would do the dishes, pick up the trash, sew the buttons on? 

An old Buddhist saying “Before enlightenment fetch wood and carry water, after enlightenment fetch wood and carry water.” 

So if we are all millionaires we will still need to do the things that we need to do.  Whether it is visiting family or taking out the trash, they are the things that we do.

My millionaire status remains elusive to me and in this I am not alone!

If I had a million I would resurrect my company, Gaia Industrial Arts & Manufacturing – Gaia IAM for Short.  It was a simple principal to have a place for some our more marginalized citizens working making simple clothing.  I and a lone investor poured $23,000.00 into the company and then the economy tanked taking my hopes for this start up with it.  That and competing with cheap and cheaply made clothing was hard to follow adhering to one of the core objectives of the company by giving a living wage for the employees! So, I closed the shop and went back to completing taxes to make up for the losses.  The timing of the closing was so close to tax season that I put all of the remaining product in the garage and have stumbled over it since.  That was two years ago.

(Littering of blue shirts amongst the office nooks and shelves)

So with the original dyeing not holding up well in the wash of my dyed samples I am pulling the colors from the unsold stock and redoing the dyes with vinegar. The freshly dyed samples are holding up well with the fresh color.  Still need to wash them with the darks or similar colors but they look good redone.

After two years of wearing a poorly dyed red cardigan (my bad!), I redid the cardigan in purple and it looks new!  Hemp and organic cotton in a good weigh of cloth hold up really well and re dye beautifully.

 

The new blue shirts are still drying after the ironing.  I tend to iron my hemp clothing wet as it helps teach the cloth.  New hemp can be stiff but with wearing, washing and ironing, it dose get softer.  It is better to teach the cloth when new. And by teaching I mean getting the wrinkles out.

 

These are just some of left over shirts that I am hoping to sell at the local Hemp & Co. Store. The purple and the dark blue are cozy hemp cotton fleece shirts.