Guest Post: Sewing and the Apocalypse

Readers, I've been trying to convince Jeff, my better half, to write a guest post here for some time. And now we have one--on the very day his first novel releases! I hope you enjoy it.--Gertie

Hi Sewists!

Your pal Gertie is working awful hard this week. She’s doing a big photo shoot for her upcoming book as well as trying to keep up with teaching, impending travel, and one neurotic husband who's releasing his first novel this week. The woman is a dynamo! I don’t know how she does it all.

Luckily, though, her harried week has brought me--the aforementioned neurotic husband--the opportunity to do a guest post today. Some of you may know me a bit already from Gertie’s mentions, but for those who don’t: Hi! I’m Jeff. I write novels for teens and my very first one, The Eleventh Plague, is being released today by Scholastic.

The book is about the aftermath of a world war that has reduced the population to about a third of what it is now, causing society to completely collapse. No government. No law. No infrastructure. The main characters in the book survive as nomadic scavengers.

There's actually a short sewing scene in the book where the main character, a teenage boy, has to repair his ragged sweatshirt on the fly. Writing that scene got me thinking about our relationship to the things that sustain us, particularly our food and our clothing. For many people (present company excluded) the production of these things was outsourced long ago. Clothes are made in massive assembly line factories somewhere overseas and arrive in our stores ready to wear. Food is prepared largely in restaurant kitchens or in factories where it’s packaged and frozen before being delivered to grocery store shelves.

Now imagine if the infrastructure that exists to produce all of this failed. The clothes stop coming. The restaurants close. The food manufacturers stop production. I think a significant percentage of the population would suddenly be faced with the fact that they don’t know how to make or repair the clothes on their backs or how to grow, hunt, or prepare their own food. Where would we be then?

And I’ll admit, I’m totally a part of this. I’m not a bad cook, but those other things? Left to my own devices, well, I’d probably be kinda screwed. The good news, however, is that folks like you and Gertie are part of a growing DIY movement that is trying to reclaim some of these skills. Don’t get me wrong, I think a lot of our modern conveniences are awesome (I do so love ordering Chinese takeout on my iPhone) but if you make your own food then you know what you’re putting in your and your family’s bodies, and if you make your own clothes you control how they fit, how they look, and how they’re made. More importantly, I think staying connected to your own necessities by doing things like making food or making clothes is a great way to stay just slow down and stay connected to life in general.

What do y’all think? Does sewing and crafting make you feel differently about mass produced goods? Does it make you feel connected to something in life you weren’t connected to before--or at least give you confidence you could survive the zombie apocalypse if necessary?

Ok, I’m off now to go try and make sure Gertie finds time to relax and have a decent meal amid her thousand duties. If you’re curious about The Eleventh Plague you can read the first 4 chapters here. You can also order the book on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or Indie Bound.

{Ed. note: isn't he adorable?}