mending clothes, mending leaves

Lately I have been taking part in Slow Fashion Style: an online workshop run by Katrina Rodabaugh. I had high hopes as I've taken online classes with Katrina before and loved them.

 I haven't been disappointed - it's been thought provoking and encouraging and packed full of creative ideas.  My fellow participants have been equally as inspiring and there has been a great sense of community filled with like-minded people.

The first part of the workshop involved visible mending.  I used sashiko stitching to patch a hole in some old jeans.  I have also begun an ongoing mend of a holey cardigan by crocheting with grey yarn - I can see that I will keep coming back to it and fill more areas as it gets more worn.  

 In art, I am often drawn to the imperfect and decayed - I have written here before about mending natural objects and my ongoing project of collecting damaged and broken leaves that I then try to mend with crochet.  Thinking about the mending of functional items has been an interesting accompaniment to this.

revelations in quilts

This week I have been machine quilting.  

There were some issues along the way – needles, sewing machine feet, tension.  Things I thought I understood but didn't.   But ultimately I have managed to use a sewing machine to quilt fabric.

I have mostly been finishing old projects that had a little bit of quilting involved; items that had remained unfinished until I fully grasped how to use a machine to quilt.  

So now I can move on to the much rumoured actual quilt.

knowing, doing

I'm coming to the end of the online textile course that I began in March. It has been so exciting to learn from two great teachers and to be part of a community of like-minded people. 

I have taken away so much inspiration and my brain is full of ideas. I want to reflect on the knowledge I have gained.   And then I want to expand on what I know.  And then I want to do.

objects and shapes

Attending an online textiles course [and in particular a section on soft sculpture] has got me thinking about forms and shapes and sculpted things. About how to make things 3 dimensional, and how to bring to a picture to life by giving it substance. 

At the moment, I have a struggle between what I want to make and what I actually do make. The ideas I have don't seem to translate into sculptures. 

But then I notice a previously crocheted bit of fabric curling around into a shape, looking a bit like bark peeled from a tree and I am inspired all over again.

buttons and holes in which buttons go through

I love buttons.  I collect them; I have hundreds.  I keep them in jars – ordered by colour, of course.  And sometimes I actually use them, but until recently they've only been used for decorative purposes. 

The buttons I have used in the past would not have gone through a buttonhole because I only just conquered my fear of making buttonholes.   

It's not a process I enjoy. I don't like the way the sewing machine dramatically hammers out the bar tacks and I hate the bit where I have to cut a hole and hope I don't rip through the wrong part of the fabric. 

 But I think I might be getting somewhere. Or at least heading in the right direction.   And my buttons may finally be able to meet their buttonhole counterparts.