Boro Jeans

It's just over two years since I began mending my one pair of jeans. The first two patches were over the kneecaps: on the left knee is a piece of my godson's traditional Norwegian naming day shirt and on the right a bit of tweed from his sisters' coat. I am very hard on the knees of all my clothes; I always have been as I love getting close to the tiniest details of nature and, for me, that has always meant getting down on my knees.

Third layer going in on the left knee, but the of-cut from my godson's shirt is still strong.

Inside my jeans is a crazy jigsaw of overlapping patches, made from another pair of old worn out jeans that didn't fit me any more. In a few places the old seams still show up with their yellow stitches.

 

Not much of the original fabric is visible from the inside any more.

 I love the visual texture of the boro stitching, particularly on the inside. As an experiment I decided to put one patch on the outside and do the darning from the inside so that the wonderful texture shows. Not a great choice of placement though - right in the middle of my backside!

Back pockets - nearly gone.

 I have a habit of ramming my hands into my back pockets when I'm thinking. If I want to continue having that comforting thinking aid I will need to do some creative mending here... But visually I'm enjoying the disintegration of the fabric unimpeded by mending.

Interesting contrast between new patch and disintegrating original fabric.

The rhythm of stitch blends well with the rhythm of thought: I sit in my studio and muse on next steps for the evolution of my practice and catch both thought and patch into place with neat tight stitches.

Ouch!

Just have to remember not to stitch while thinking or talking about things that make me angry: Blood is always the result! My own I hasten to add...

Spin, Spun, Span

Spun Silk warp

 I am planning on projecting woven film onto this spun silk warp screen... The process onto the produced.

The balls of silk have such a lovely handle although every slight rough patch of skin catches on them. The visual texture of the silk is wonderful: wound into a ball, drizzled on the floor and hung shimmering from the Hazel wood rod.

I am interested in the visual play between the photo of spun roots on the wall, the shimmering spun silk and the wound ball of spun silk.

Spun Silk

Spun silk

Two beautiful skeins of spun silk

Plying Silk

 Finally all my silk is spun, plied and wound into skeins ready for washing, drying and winding into balls... My hands will be glad of the change as silk, so divinely soft and lush to the gently touching hand, is really strong and needs a lot of strength and tough skin to spin. It's easy to cut yourself on the tightly twisting fibres as you try to draw them out to spin a fine thread.

Defining Beauty

True beauty has little or nothing to do with fashion or age and a whole lot to do with being comfortable in your own skin, with your own skin. Folds and crumples and worn bits and all.

My jeans become more and more beautiful to me as they age and evolve.

I know this is contrary to what most of our culture is based on, after all, if people were happy with ageing they couldn't be sold so many products, and people being content with the old and worn would damage the fashion industry.... Can't have that.

Studio wanderings

 Just looking at the interactions between space, shape and colour...

Fresh-cut Alder wood/Crottle dyed yarn

Big loom/tiny looms

soft lines/hard lines

Yarn stretched tight/yarn hanging soft

Spinning Silk

Spun silk: doesn't that conjure up something luxuriously soft and lovely? It sure doesn't make me think of something likely to slice my hands as I make it, but I have come so close to doing just that as I learn how to handle this delightfully soft but fearsomely strong cloud of fibre. The finer I spin the sharper it becomes. I can only work on this in short bursts as I have to rest my hands frequently: the strength of silk taxes my hand joints and muscles and I'm risking a flare-up of RSI. But it's so beautiful, so soft, so warm.... And I want it to make a projector screen from in my studio.

Red Thread

At the beginning of the school year I traced the word 'Desire' on my studio wall in red thread and pins. It felt important at the time. But now it's time to take it off.

As I pulled out the pins the thread made these wonderful crazy lines unravelling across the surface.

I couldn't resist keeping the mass of sharp angled thread, so unlike the usual soft round curves of thread off a spool. I hung it on a pin that was holding something else on the wall and later on the sun came in and showed me it anew. I like the shadows as much or even more than the thread.

Sheepskin Gloves

It's taken a few days, but finally my new fingerless gloves are made. Many tweaks of the 'pattern' (I drew round my hand...) and adding in of gussets and, though they look as elegant as plaster casts, they are WARM.

The wrap-around flap had to go. Just didn't work.

 A wee note of caution - it's really not a good idea to use Stanley knife blades without the handle... I have a few fine cuts in the surface of my skin to prove it, but got away without slicing my fingers badly. Surely I have a handle SOMEWHERE if I have blades in my tool box????

Beyond Repair

Worn to a Ravelling, I am undone..... 

My beloved fingerless gloves, a present from my dad, have had it. I haven't got a fine enough yarn to mend them so it's time to get inventive with what I do have in my fabric stash.


I have a bit of a sheepskin coat that I picked up in a swap-shop. I have bees wax. I have strong fine cord. I have leather stitching needles. I have an inventive imagination.


Let's see what will emerge....

Weaving a Web

But hopefully not a tangled one....

First three lines of weft going in! Many technical hitches are emerging and the usefulness of doing prior research into technique is made very very clear.... But I am still glad I chose to do little research into the practicalities of weaving, but rather to let the materials inform the direction and lead the show.

And yet... I love the sticky stubbornness of the lanolin-thick unwashed hand-spun, the rough bobbles and slubs created by using un-carded fleece and the clinginess of the shed created by those two aspects interacting. It all feels interesting and full of potent metaphor, though I have yet to tease out the strands of that into a form I can vocalize. I guess the metaphor is a bit tangled up and sticky too, it may start to emerge as the fabric does.