‘All we love deeply becomes part of us.’ This is one of my Red Threads: the interlacing and entwining of the fabric of my jeans with the fabric of my self. Every stitch taken in the darning of my jeans involves the fabric more deeply and irreversibly with the beingness of my self. I am…
Category: Make do and Mend
Fragile Fabric
Fragility Elderberry cordial My jeans are fragile after lots of wild-food gathering this autumn. Scrambling through brambles and heather is tough on fragile old fabric! The layers of erosion and repair in my jeans make me think of the soil ecosystem: leaf litter building up is like the layers of patch and stitch, but without…
Boro and Travelling
Darning on the train Journeying from Scotland to Norway and down the back of the left leg of my jeans. When in the middle of make-do-and-mend, travelling by train is good. There is a wee bit of room to spread out materials and tools – scissors, needles, patching material and darning threads. There’s even a…
Nothing to wear!
The other day I had one of those moments… You know the sort – I looked in my wardrobe and there was NOTHING to wear!!! Nothing that is except things I didn’t feel like today, or were too thin and light for the dubious Scottish weather with hail and sleet mixed in with the lively…
Musing
Sorting through my fabric stash I re-found a bag labeled ‘cleaning rags’ in my Nanna’s handwriting. Several of the pieces have holes worn right through, some have obviously been recycled several times prior to being consigned to the cleaning rags bag – I found pillow slips mended round the edge with a slightly different fabric;…
Walnut ink
Two layer screen print using two mixes of home made walnut ink. Walnut ink screen print on darned vintage sheet After many failed and splodgy attempts at making and printing with walnut ink, I have finally worked out how to get ink that is thick enough to squeegee through a silk screen. It goes nicely…
Mending mending mending
The mission to keep my jeans wearable continues… Gradually the original fabric is disappearing beneath a layer of boro style mending stitches and a few surface patches. As they develop, I am loving them more and more, they have a really sturdy feel and are beginning to look really loved and real – like the…
Studio Practice
I am settling into “Studio Practice” at Moray School of Art; it’s starting to feel like I’m heading in an interesting direction through my explorations with printmaking, and just generally finding my feet in this second year. My studio space is constantly evolving and changing, and my tutor suggested that I keep a record by…
Fibre Alchemy 