On mending and sharpening

Recently I did two things that I guess I would put in the “frugal” category – I patched some leggings for the ten year old and I took our knives to be sharpened.

The Knives….

I think I last had our knives sharpened maybe five years ago. As knives go, I don’t think we are super fancy. One of our knives is probably about twenty years old. It’s a wood handled Chicago Cutlery 8″ chef’s knife that I bought in Wooster, OH when I was doing summer stock there. It seemed like such a grown up purchase at the time and I’m sure it felt like a lot of money, but in the scheme of knives it’s probably on the cheaper end. Despite that, the knife has been with me through many moves and still is my favorite knife – it’s light and small and fits perfectly in my hand without banging into my wrist. I will admit the blade lists slightly after twenty years, but I’ve learned to adjust. There is something humble and flawed about it that I love.

Our other knife is a Japanese Santoku knife that we bought at a knife shop at a DC market. It is a lovely well balanced knife and feels so solid and dependable in the kitchen. Most times, though, I just reach for the wood handled Chicago Cutlery knife – the Japanese knife often feels too weighty and important for me to be using all the time. Which I know is silly because is there anything more utilitarian than a knife?

Our other knives are a hodge-podge – the serrated bread knife that the Husband brought, which I think might have belonged to his parents, the set of paring knives bought from Bed Bath and Beyond one day in a fit of annoyance at not having any small knives, the small red handled knife that came from my in-laws’ house after they passed…. We don’t really believe in knife sets here, I guess.

One weekend, a notice went out on the neighborhood listserv that the travelling sharpeners would be at the park that Sunday morning. I mean how delightfully old fashioned does that sound? I think we last had our knives sharpened five years ago – the knife shop where we bought our Santoku knife also sharpened knives and they were located near the house of my good friend. So one day while visiting my friend, I brought our knives. The fancy knife shop people kind of looked a little disdainfully at my Chicago Cutlery knife, but they sharpened it any way.

Anyhow, so for five years I haven’t taken the knives to be properly sharpened because there wasn’t a convenient way to do it. When the knives got unbearably dull, I would use the bottom of a mug as a whetstone and get a slightly sharper edge that way. Good in a pinch, but not for the longer term. Well, the Husband always says, “A dull knife is more dangerous than a sharp knife.” and I figured five years was enough time to be in a pinch, so when I heard the mobile knife sharpening people were coming to our local park, I jumped at the chance to take our knives. They also do gardening tools too, so the Husband threw his hedge trimmers into the pile and I also put in my good sewing scissors. We walked over to the park where the sharpeners were set up and while they worked, the kids got to play at the playground. Forty-five minutes later we got back our knives (including the serrated one!) and scissors and hedge trimmers, all newly sharp.

I was really excited to try out the results, and I have to say it was magical. Tomatoes cut smoothly! Melons opened effortlessly! Knives glide through meat as if it were butter! The sharpeners even smoothed out the chip in the Santoku knife where I once tried to open a coconut with the heel of the blade. (don’t recommend that method – the tiny knife chip fell into the coconut and that made for a harrowing attempt to eat the coconut flesh. I probably should have just chucked it, but I do love fresh coconut!)

Afterwards, I was thinking about how I should really make more of an effort to get my knives sharpened regularly. It was one of those things where knives get dull so gradually that I had just learned to acclimate to it until one day, I realize that I can’t slice that tomato. Of course sharpening knives costs money, as any skilled effort should – I think our total bill was around $50. But really, I think part of being frugal is taking care of the things you have so that they can continue to serve you. I know it is oft said that the more expensive thing is cheaper in the long run – buying one good knife that lasts thirty years is cheaper than buying a new knife every five years. When considering a cheaper knife, what is the lesser cost? Certainly a cheap knife is not the lesser cost in the long run if it causes injury and has to be replaced frequently. Yet, a mid-range knife, like my Chicago Cutlery knife, grows in value the longer I use it – sharpening it prolongs its life and increases it’s value. And the value, at least for this particular knife, is not just in how useful it is to me, but also in the memories it holds of all the meals and homes it has helped me make in the past twenty years.

The Leggings….

Leggings seem to always get holes in the knees. They can be the expensive ones or the cheap ones, it doesn’t matter. I suppose that is the reality of active children. When my daughter’s leggings (and honestly my own leggings) develop holes, I usually do one of two things – I cut them off at the knees and make them into bike shorts, or I put them in a pile to be mended. To be honest, this pile is rather aspirational. Apart from two years of Home-Ec when I was in Grade Seven and Eight, I don’t have much formal training with sewing. I have a sewing machine and can sew straight stiches (all those masks I sewed in the first year and a half of the pandemic!), but my hand sewing is very trial and error. Mostly error, and rarely pretty. But I still gather things in hopes of mending them.

Lately, however, I’ve been looking for a project to do while watching tv with the Husband. I didn’t feel like starting another knitting or crochet project and the embroidery kits didn’t really hold my interest. So, inspired by this book on mending that I got from the library, I decided to tackle the leggings. I had a pair of size 2T striped leggings that I knew no one was going to wear anymore – the bottom had been ripped out by a child sliding down a hill at the park – and I cut that up to make a patch. Then I threaded a needle and got to work.

Sometimes I wonder if mending a pair of leggings is truly frugal. It took me almost two hours to patch that pair of leggings. Given that I could run to Target and buy a new pair of leggings for less than $10, the economics of my time vs. my money perhaps doesn’t pan out when I decide to patch the leggings myself. I think, though, there is a bigger picture for me. A pair of leggings, patched with old rags while I sit on the couch watching tv, can be worn again. It keeps those ripped leggings out of the trash for another season, and keeps me from having to get in the car to make a Target run, or having yet another package sent to me. I guess when I look at the bigger picture, and ask what is my time worth, I do feel that small steps towards sustainability and the satisfaction of handwork is something that is indeed worth more than $10 to me.

I was worried that the patch was too homely, that having my daughter wear patched clothes was going to be perceived as “not cool.” After all, wearing patched pants is the exact opposite of having new trendy clothes.

So nervously, the next morning, I showed them to her.

“Here,” I said, “I’ve fixed your leggings so you can wear them again.”

She took the leggings and looked at them, running her fingers over my very uneven stitches. Then she looked at me and said, “Mom… it looks so beautiful!”