Take up Knitting!

Benefits

Environmental Benefit: ★★☆☆☆
Not a lot of environmental benefit - but there are a few things! You reduce packaging and distribution costs that would be involved in purchasing the items you made if you bought them instead. Also the energy costs of their production are coming from food you would have eaten anyway, since it's a human-powered manufacturing system.

Money Saved: ★★☆☆☆
We don't have a sheep for spinning our own wool (yet!), so for now we still need to buy the yarn and don't save as much as we could otherwise.

Lifestyle Benefit: ★★★☆☆
The girls (and I) love having their own knitted scarfs, sweaters, socks, etc. that Shannon makes.

What We’re Doing
Shannon took up knitting as a hobby a few years ago, and enjoys having something to do with her hands during unoccupied moments just about anywhere! I think we've all gotten scarfs, and more recently she has started making socks (a little trickier from what I understand). The photo shows a yellow sweater she made being modeled by one of our girls. I'm afraid that about all I know of knitting is how to tie knots (probably doesn't count anyway, since you don't use needles for it). Anyway, I guess this isn't a big environment saver - but it exemplifies the culture of "doing for yourself" which is much more environmentally sound than buying something made by machines half the world away.

A Little Humor
A traffic cop pulled alongside a speeding car on the motorway. Glancing into the car, he was astounded to see that the young lady, who was driving, was knitting as she drove.

Realizing that she was oblivious to his flashing lights and siren, the policeman wound down his window, turned on his loudspeaker and yelled, 'PULL OVER!'

'NO', the young lady yelled back, 'IT's A SCARF!'