Prepared Christian

This is a repost of an article I found at Day One Gear

Sew What?!

When we think about prepping, preparedness and living a more self sufficient life, we usually start out with food storage, long term, short term and everything in between. Then we may move on to filling out our medical supplies, get home bags, gardening supplies with lots of heirloom seeds and even padding an ever growing library with books on appropriate topics that may help us in the event that we ever need to rely on what we have so carefully put back.

We worry about being able to feed our families, keep them warm, keep them healthy and keep them clothed. I know many people in this community who have made sure that they don’t ever get rid of good clothes, decent shoes etc, when they are cleaning out their closets.

In my house, we put those clothes and shoes in bins in our attic so that we will have them to fall back on in the event that we cannot easily purchase clothing. What happens if goods stop flowing? What happens when local stores close and we are no longer able to procure goods via the internet? We will have to rely on skills and knowledge to make sure we can clothe our families. That begins with sewing!

A basic sewing kit is as important to have in your possession as the food in your pantry. How will you mend and repair the clothes that you have if you can’t even sew on a button? Basic sewing skills are necessary to our preps as well as the tools and supplies to carry out those skills. Sewing can be a frightening prospect for those of you who may not have thought about having to do it, but I am here to tell you that it is not hard and it may actually turn into something that you love.

Not to mention the fact that it could actually become a way for you to support yourself in hard times, by helping others mend and repair their clothing. You don’t have to be a seamstress or a tailor but you do need to know how to sew on a button and even mend a hole in a pair of pants. Everything else simply grows from there.

Before you learn to sew on that button, you will need to build yourself a simple sewing kit. Your kit should be in the container of your choice and can be as simple as a plastic shoe box, an old holiday tin or even a cheap toolbox! You don’t have to spend a lot of money on a fancy sewing box, you just need something simple to start.

What you will need to put into the box is important! You should have the following in order to have the basic tools needed to mend and repair your clothes:

1. Scissors: Have two pair, one that is reserved just for fabric, thread and ribbon and one that is used only for paper. My husband says you can never have too many pair of scissors, and I agree with him!

2. Sewing Needles: Get a few packs that include a variety of sizes. Needles come in varying sizes for hand sewing, darning, embroidery etc. You might want to pick up a package of needles that are used for crafting and upholstery. They have large eyes and some are curved. The latter can be very helpful if you ever need to do any type of suturing on the fly. These types of needles are also helpful for sewing thicker fabrics as well as hide and leather.

3. Pins and pin cushion/tray: I prefer the quilters type of pins that have either white or colorful bead heads because they are easy to identify and they are also a bit longer than traditional straight pins with flat heads and are easier to pick up and deal with. A pincushion can be either purchased or made but I prefer the magnetic type of pin tray because when I am sewing I can simply toss the pins on that and I know they are not going anywhere. I can also sweep my work area when I am done, with the magnetic tray and pick up any stray pins that I may have missed.

4. Measuring Tape and Hem Gauge: Measuring tapes can be picked up very inexpensively and sometimes can be picked up for free as promotional giveaways from fabric stores and even local insurance agencies. Yardsticks can also be picked up the same way! I like to always have more than one measuring tape floating around and always carry one in my purse. A hem gauge is a six inch metal ruler that has a sliding button in the center of it. This can help you maintain an even hem and make sure you have the same amount of fabric turned up all the way around on your project.

5. Seam Ripper: Let’s face it, no matter how good we get, we are always going to make mistakes. The seam ripper is our friend. It also helps to remove and open up seams for repair or to take apart garments in order to use the fabric for other purposes.

6. Thread and buttons: These two things are certainly important! Start out by getting a supply of basic colors. I like to make sure I always have white, black, brown, red, navy blue and tan as well as a mono-filament or clear thread for all other colors. I also suggest that you get a variety of embroidery floss in varying colors. This is a bit heavier than traditional sewing thread and can be used to successfully sew on buttons and have them stay put. Buttons can be purchased in large containers at the fabric or craft store and have a variety of colors, sizes and styles that should serve you well for a long time. You can also pick up boxes and bags full of buttons at garage or yard sales, when people are downsizing.

7. Sewing Books: Finally I suggest that you scour your local used book store, thrift shop and yard sales for books on sewing. I have some books that I have had since I was a child, they were my mothers, the one that serves me the best is “The Singer Sewing Book” The one I have is circa 1966, but this book has been reprinted several times over the years. It can be a good resource for you to refer back to when you get confused or feel helpless when it comes to sewing.

I hope that helps you to be able to build yourself a simple sewing kit. Once you start with the basics, the rest fall into place. I promise not to leave you clueless when it comes to other basic sewing skills. I’ll be back soon to show you how to sew on a button, mend a seam and even darn a hole in a sweater! Once you know how to do these simple things, the world of sewing is your oyster! Like I said before, you just never know, it may become something you really love, but you are never going to know until you try. Doing something that you love turns a task into a craft!

Noreen Lambert has been a paralegal by profession for the last ten years. She is wife to Rick and mom to 15 year old Molly and 13 year old Micah, the loves of her life. She has built a successful YouTube channel inviting thousands of subscribers into her kitchen each and every day sharing things from how to roast the perfect turkey to baking, home canning, food storage, sewing, crafting and gardening.

You can find her recipes on Noreen’s Kitchen website: http://www.noreenskitchen.com and you can hear The Homestead Honey Hour blogtalk radio show which Noreen co hosts with three other amazing women each Thursday night 8:00p.m.central time on Prepper Broadcasting radiohttp://www.prepperbroadcasting.com

By Joe, chief contributor to DayOne Gear and editor for www.survivallife.com

This is a repost from Todd Walker from the Survival Sherpa.
 
 

5 Subtle Enemies of Preparedness (that trip all of us)

 
You see yourself as the ant, not the grasshopper. You want to be prepared but can’t seem to shake these 5 enemies. They turn your plans into puddles of tears. They use your dreams like a janitors mop on a filthy floor.

Avoid them!
 
 
1.) Perfectionism.

Pursuing perfection often means that nothing gets accomplished. No desired results. Nada. It’s impossible. Like a master artist brushing paint on canvas and never satisfied. She can’t let it go. The world never gets to see her masterpiece.

Take my blog, for instance. Please don’t go back and read my first posts from a year ago. They’re hideous. Has my writing improved? Maybe. Who cares. It’s something I create. It only matters to me.

Create something today – an idea or a new skill that builds resilience. Quality matters but will only come when we start doing the stuff. Action counts. Perfect is unattainable.
 
 
2.) Consensus.

Be an individual. If you wait on the committee’s approval, your effort is probably not worth doing anyway.

Do you really want GroupThink telling you your plan of action does not meet standards?

GroupThink levels you to the lowest common denominator.
 
 
3.) Weakness.

Focus on your weakness and you become weaker. Do the stuff that makes you feel strong, invigorated, and in the flow. The molasses of the mind turns to raging river water. This is the place of your strength. The place where you lose track of time – you get lost in the moment – swept up in the momentum.

Delegate your weakness. This buys you precious time to develop your strengths.
 
 
4.) Knowledge.

Admit it. We’re all ignorant. The more I learn, the less I know. Peeling the next layer on the onion revels more of the same.

I read that we only use about 5% of our brain power. Hum, seems like such a small amount. Figure out how to use 6% and you’ll be a genius.

At some point though, all that knowledge reaches the point of diminishing returns. Apply the 80-20 rule. Increasing our effort to learn more about being prepared is noble, and can be achieved… in the head.

Practice what you learn. If you graph the relationship between what you know and what you do, the trend line would have a positive slope. And who said you’d never use algebra in the real world?

You’re only going to remember 50% of what you just read on this page once you click away. I’m being generous on this estimate. If the Pareto principle holds true, 80% of your knowledge comes from 20% of what you read.

I’d like to be in your 20% one day 🙂
 
 
5.) Habits.

Being in a groove is completely different from falling in a rut. Groove sounds so, uh, groovy. Rut is where all the stagnate water collects.

Rut is another word for bad habit. Grease the groove to get out of your rut. Bad habits aren’t final.

Correction: In my rush to get this article posted, I negated to add that it was a guest article written by Lee Flynn.

We as humans seem to think that we control the world. Sure, we’ve killed off most of our natural predators, subjugated various inhospitable environments, and just all around turned the earth into our own personal playground. But while we strut around like we own the place, nature is biding its time. That’s right; all of our tanks, jets and atom bombs aren’t worth a bent nickel when faced with the power that drives the planet. Take hurricanes, for example. Hurricanes are nature’s way of reminding us just how fragile we are. We may give them sweet sounding names like Sandy orKatherine, but that doesn’t make them any less dangerous. They’re basically storms, except that they can grow to the size of a continent, and like to drop smaller disasters such as tornados and floods as they go. So, if you live in a high hurricane risk area (South, East, and Southeast United States, we’re looking in your direction) you need to know what you can do to increase your chances of survival.

1. Prepare

How do you prepare for a storm that can simultaneously rip off your roof and dump thousands of gallons of water on your head? Well, you start by packing together some emergency kits. As amazingly adaptive as humans were back when we tamed fire, we tend to rely pretty heavily these days on our shelters and amenities. The most basic things you will need are food, water, clothing, bedding, first aid supplies, battery operated lighting, and tools. Also, consider wrapping all of your supplies in plastic sheets, to prevent them from getting wet should flooding occur. It would also be wise to invest in an inflatable raft large enough to carry your family and some supplies, just in case. You should also pack some communication gear, such as hand crank radios so that you can stay informed on developments with the storm. Work with your family on preparing an emergency plan, so everyone knows what to do before the storm actually hits.

2. Escape

As the storm approaches, stay tuned into the National Weather Service, just in case they recommend an evacuation. Of course, once they do, the roads out of town are going to become pretty congested. So if things are starting to look bad, you could always pack up the family and leave without an evacuation order. If you can’t make it out of the danger area, then at least head for high ground. Just remember, it’s better to be caught by a hurricane at home than in a car; most hurricanes give hours of advanced warning before they strike, but not all of them do.

3. Hunker down

If you are at home when the storm hits, then try to get your family to the safest part of the house. If possible, retreat to a basement or cellar. Pack yourselves into a windowless room, and remember to bring supplies. If you don’t have any windowless rooms, a large closet could suffice. Otherwise, find a large room and huddle down together in the center as far away from the doors and windows as possible. Reinforce all of your doors and windows beforehand, either by using purchasable paneling and shutters, or by nailing heavy plywood across the openings. If the wind manages to break through a window, then it will get into the house and push upwards against the roof. Additionally, wind can bring amazing amounts of rain into your home in seconds, causing flooding. If you live in a mobile home or on a houseboat, gather your family and your emergency kits, and head to a shelter; strong enough storms have been known to pick up trailers and toss them around like Frisbee, and boats are going to be smashed into the coastline as the hurricane makes landfall.

4. Don’t be fooled

As the eye of the storm passes over your position, things will likely become eerily quiet. The wind will stop, the rain will cease, and the sun might even come out. This doesn’t mean that it’s safe to head outside. Wait for the “all clear” from the National Weather Service before you peek your head up.

5. Pick up the pieces

Believe it or not, most of the deaths and injuries associated with hurricanes happen after the storm has passed. Carbon monoxide poisoning, generally from misused portable generators, has caused more hurricane related deaths in the past few years than flooding. Falling limbs and electrocution from downed power lines are also big hazards, and people have been known to injure themselves from falling off of roofs during cleanup.

Above all, try to stay calm as the storm approaches. Just make sure that you’re prepared and your hurricane survival kit is well stocked, and you should be able to come through it all with nothing more than a mess in your yard and a story to tell your friends.

Lee Flynn is a freelance writer interested in helping others develop self reliance through food storage.

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Today we have a guest post by Glen Tate author of 299 days.

Why Prepper Novels are an Important Source of Survival Information

Preppers, especially Christian preppers like me, are hungry for information on survival topics.  We scour web sites, listen to podcasts, and buy non-fiction books.  We have first aid manuals and watch Youtube videos on food storage.  We might even have a prepper group and learn from them.

All of this good.  But incomplete.

Prepper novels contain vast quantities of survival information – and they’re entertaining.  Many of us have read the book Patriots, which has been described as a survival manual thinly veiled as a novel.   One Second After, another great prepper novel, contains magnificent information on everything from water treatment to bartering.  So does Lights Out.

But prepper novels have three advantages over non-fiction manuals that merely contain information.  And they are three very important advantages.

First, novels are about people so they portray information from the perspective of people.  Real people, like you and me.  People we can relate to.   Narratives from real people are a much more efficient information delivery system than something cold and impersonal like a chart of numbers.  If you had to choose between a chart of food shelf live or hearing a story about what happened to a friend, which would you choose?  And the story about your friend will leave you with a real-life lesson that a chart can’t.  Charts have their place and should be included in the information we use.  But we are people, so we naturally relate to other people.  We aren’t numbers on a chart.

The second advantage of prepper novels is their ability to persuade non-preppers.  We all know that we can’t make it by ourselves; the more people we have helping us, the better we will do.  Many of us have loved ones, sometimes spouses, who are not fully onboard with prepping.  Can that chart about how much bleach to use to purify water convince someone that they need to prep?  A story about someone who resisted prepping but then realized it was necessary can get that much-need person onboard.  Most of us would pay any price to have our loved ones convinced of the need to prep.

The third advantage, at least for us Christian preppers, is that prepper novels (at least Christian ones like mine, 299 Days) deliver information with God as a reference point.  How can you describe something without acknowledging the existence and active participation of the Creator of the universe?  For example, in 299 Days, the main character experiences an amazing series of “coincidences” pointing him toward prepping.   (These events actually happened to me.)  The main character knows that they can’t be “coincidences” and acts accordingly.  Divine direction happens in real life, especially when it comes to prepping, so any information about prepping should acknowledge the existence of this undeniable reality.  You can’t get that from a chart.

 For all these reasons, consider prepper novels as a legitimate – and, in some ways, superior – source of information.  And enjoy the story.