Remnants

Pinned up on my studio wall, I have some photo images of really heavily patched and stitched antique boro.


The patches in those boro pieces are all raw edged, and seem to completely cover whatever had been the original base fabric.


I like that nothing went wasted, and everything was important enough to be patched.

... Years ago when I was a teenager, a woman commented on my heavily patched and mended jeans, (they made my mother cringe and I know she used much restraint not to steal them from me in the middle of the night and set them on fire). The woman told me that to patch something was to show love. I never forgot that. (And I appreciated that this kind stranger understood me.... I wasn't accustomed to that.)


Anyway... looking at the boro images, and then glancing over at the ever growing pile of small bits of fabric scraps and off-kilter shaped pieces of batting left over from previous projects and now just sitting on my shelf, got me to thinking it was time to use it all up.


So I'm starting a little series of "Remnants", which I will be posting in my shop as they are completed.



More to come soon. xo

Searching for New Paths to Explore

(Local country farm path.)

I've been growing restless again. I finished making the School Photo series, (I will be showing the final ones in the next few posts) and have been hungering for something new to explore. I close my eyes to see what pops up in my imagination and my brain is filled with foggy bits of stitched and patched textile work. Try as I might I couldn't get what I was imagining into focus, and I wasn't sure what to do. I searched the internet, typing in everything I could think of to hopefully find some existing imagery of what I was only being teased with in my mind.

And then finally, yesterday, I found it:


Japanese Boro.
(Patched and mended folk textiles of Japan).

Maybe I should have already known about it, but I am self taught in the school of textiles and still have much to learn.
(Thank goodness, as that keeps it fun!)


These images came from Sri Threads an amazing resource of antique Japanese folk textiles located in Brooklyn, New York. (I must go!)

Finding these images made the fog lift from my head. I think they are beautiful.


I am struck by similarities between the Japanese Boro textiles and the quilts of Gee's Bend.


I am not sure what will come of it, or how long the excitement will last, (I know I can be rather fickle) but for now, (and what else is there?) I know I want to go play and explore this new/old path a bit... who knows where it will lead?