Economising In Community

[HopefulBride]

[quote name='faithcecelia' timestamp='1317525689' post='2313667']
Yes. I even remember my amazement at sitting at recreation on the same table as a sister who was patching a pair - actually [i]patching[/i] them!!! I always wondered if they were ones she had left from when Carmelites actually began wearing them at all - late 1980s in some.



They are also useful in a first aid box if you need an absorbant temporary dressing.
[/quote]

Do you mean there was a point when they were not wearing them?

[brandelynmarie]

[quote name='faithcecelia' timestamp='1317525689' post='2313667']
Yes. I even remember my amazement at sitting at recreation on the same table as a sister who was patching a pair - actually [i]patching[/i] them!!! I always wondered if they were ones she had left from when Carmelites actually began wearing them at all - late 1980s in some.



They are also useful in a first aid box if you need an absorbant temporary dressing.
[/quote]


That's what I thought!

In [u]A Right To Be Merry [/u]I remember reading that the sisters received a donation of corn pads. Not wanting to waste them, they used them on the bottoms of their chair legs in the refectory. No skid marks! Guess they didn't need corn pads being barefoot & all .

[AccountDeleted]

My community didn't repair undies but they did darn socks, which I thought went out with the praire days!

I tried to get a darning egg later because I thought it was a good idea to learn how to do this, but didn't know where to get one. I guess I didn't look hard enough because I am sure they must be sold somewhere. And I would need to know what kind of thread they used for the darning - it would have to be thick, more like wool I would think -- and maybe you can only darn wool socks and not polyester or cotton ones - I just don't know enough about it since it wasn't my job in the convent to do it.

[krissylou]

[quote name='faithcecelia' timestamp='1317525689' post='2313667']
Yes. I even remember my amazement at sitting at recreation on the same table as a sister who was patching a pair - actually [i]patching[/i] them!!! I always wondered if they were ones she had left from when Carmelites actually began wearing them at all - late 1980s in some.

[/quote]

This is SERIOUSLY more than I needed to know.

[AccountDeleted]

At the 1990s Carmel we economised on thread. Every six weeks (yes, that's all) we changed our sheets, and we had to sew them onto the bottom of the bed to these little mattress tags (straw mattresses). The thread was like a heavy duty plastic type and we didn't knot it at the end, just doubled back over our stitches once. We also sewed the top sheet to the blanket at the head of the bed to keep them together. Then every 6 weeks we would slowly withdraw the plastic thread from the bed and reuse it to sew on the clean sheets. It was quite a trip for me! I just thought the whole process very unusual - but the economising was there!

[brandelynmarie]

Sounds complicated! (Thank goodness for fitted sheets!)

[faithcecelia]

[quote name='nunsense' timestamp='1317529770' post='2313707']
My community didn't repair undies but they did darn socks, which I thought went out with the praire days!

I tried to get a darning egg later because I thought it was a good idea to learn how to do this, but didn't know where to get one. I guess I didn't look hard enough because I am sure they must be sold somewhere. And I would need to know what kind of thread they used for the darning - it would have to be thick, more like wool I would think -- and maybe you can only darn wool socks and not polyester or cotton ones - I just don't know enough about it since it wasn't my job in the convent to do it.
[/quote]


We darned our polyester socks. Mine were terrible - even when given them I was told to take as many as I wanted as they were the ones no-one else would wear! They had holes within weeks so I had to darn them. I also had to darn my 2nd habit in places because it had been hung up for about a million years waiting for a new wearer and the moths had had a nibble!

[AccountDeleted]

[quote name='faithcecelia' timestamp='1317541638' post='2313773']


We darned our polyester socks. Mine were terrible - even when given them I was told to take as many as I wanted as they were the ones no-one else would wear! They had holes within weeks so I had to darn them. I also had to darn my 2nd habit in places because it had been hung up for about a million years waiting for a new wearer and the moths had had a nibble!
[/quote]


I did a lot of repair work on tea towels and aprons and sheets - anything that needed mending to extend its life, but they never taught me how to darn socks, and without the egg inside the heel, I found it too hard to repair them when I tried on my own.

[maximillion]

Sheets were darned and darned and the darns were rough and scraped on the skin at night. Once too thin for being sheets and too darned to be repaired, they were cut up and we novices hemmed them into tea towels or cleaning cloths. Once very threadbare and almost gossamer thin they went in the rag basket - which the rag man collected and paid the community for.

The novices and some of the professed started wearing socks for the first time during my novitiate. Those socks did not have a vocation and many of them did not persevere - they disappeared in ones with the same annoying regularity as they do in the world and my novitiate was punctuated by regular sock hunts.

We had those soap 'bananas' you fix onto a holder on the wall and the slivers were put into netting and added to the sheet wash for extra suds on laundry day. We changed one sheet once a month, alternating the top sheet to the bottom, so in fact had the same sheet on the bed for two months at a time.

We had a novices and a postulants cupboard, each was a broad walk in thing, with capes, veils, habit under tunics and habits stored according to size. This was known as 'the common black'. One did not get an individual habit untill final profession, but took one of the correct (they were never well fitting) size off the shelf once a week. In there was toothpaste, shampoo etc. We knelt in the corridor outside and asked our NM 'Dear Mother, from thy bounty may I please use XXXX this time?"
If you forgot an item you went without untill the process was repeated next week, on a Saturday, just after refectory and before we did the big Sat household clean then had our baths.

The only thing we did not do was eat fruit that was going off - as I saw sisters do in other communities when I was discerning. I once saw a Benedictine in a teaching order (I discerned active and contemplative as I was a trained nurse) take an orange that was half covered in mould out of the fruit basket, cut off the mouldy bit and eat the rest. I decided then and there that God was not calling me to such sacrifices. In the end I was not asked to do so, since I entered where I did and the food was sooo yummy!

[faithcecelia]

[quote name='maximillion' timestamp='1317547851' post='2313808']
Sheets were darned and darned and the darns were rough and scraped on the skin at night. Once too thin for being sheets and too darned to be repaired, they were cut up and we novices hemmed them into tea towels or cleaning cloths. Once very threadbare and almost gossamer thin they went in the rag basket - which the rag man collected and paid the community for.

The novices and some of the professed started wearing socks for the first time during my novitiate. Those socks did not have a vocation and many of them did not persevere - they disappeared in ones with the same annoying regularity as they do in the world and my novitiate was punctuated by regular sock hunts.

We had those soap 'bananas' you fix onto a holder on the wall and the slivers were put into netting and added to the sheet wash for extra suds on laundry day. We changed one sheet once a month, alternating the top sheet to the bottom, so in fact had the same sheet on the bed for two months at a time.

We had a novices and a postulants cupboard, each was a broad walk in thing, with capes, veils, habit under tunics and habits stored according to size. This was known as 'the common black'. One did not get an individual habit untill final profession, but took one of the correct (they were never well fitting) size off the shelf once a week. In there was toothpaste, shampoo etc. We knelt in the corridor outside and asked our NM 'Dear Mother, from thy bounty may I please use XXXX this time?"
If you forgot an item you went without untill the process was repeated next week, on a Saturday, just after refectory and before we did the big Sat household clean then had our baths.

The only thing we did not do was eat fruit that was going off - as I saw sisters do in other communities when I was discerning. I once saw a Benedictine in a teaching order (I discerned active and contemplative as I was a trained nurse) take an orange that was half covered in mould out of the fruit basket, cut off the mouldy bit and eat the rest. I decided then and there that God was not calling me to such sacrifices. In the end I was not asked to do so, since I entered where I did and the food was sooo yummy!
[/quote]


Its funny how communities differ isn't it. I read your words on the sheets and immediately thought - but if you cut them down the middle, hem the edges and sew the original edges, it would have managed as a sheet even longer!!! The fruit too, I wouldn't think twice about (and I have taught myself to 'like' mouldy bread too after one community I visited).


The absolute worst for me was the very thought of communal handkerchiefs!!! By the time I was at Q it was about half and half who had their own and who used communal, but I just couldn't!!! When I had a cold and mine were all in the wash, I just used loo roll. I knew they were clean, I knew it shouldn't have been a big deal, but it was something I really struggled with. I think I still would, but have no idea what te system is at NH, except they have all white!

[AccountDeleted]

Also funny how each convemt is different. At some they share things, at others they keep them separate. As for bad fruit... I was the Provisor at one convent and no matter how much I tried to use all of the good parts of the fruit and only through away the bad, one sister would always tell me that I was wasting too much and should be using more of the stuff that I threw away!!