Well, it's the final week of PLOS! Gosh, time has gone fast. I haven't had much time to stitch this week because of work commitments, so I thought I would post a "work in progress", so that at least everyone can see that there actually has been
some progress!
This week is about texture, and I was quite inspired by one of Sharon's postcards shown in the class notes of a footprint defined by texture (as if it were walking on a beach). I decided to try something similar with my girls' hand prints (but I skipped the beach part of the concept)......so here it is so far. I am not convinced that this is going to be all that successful in a design sense, but nevermind, that is the beauty of samplers (i.e. they don't have to be heirloom works of art!). Even if it doesn't turn out to be a work of art, it has already been useful in teaching me the following stitches:
Buttonhole wheel, palestrina stitch, basque knot, bullion knot, woven petals, cast on stitch, drizzle stitch, buttonholed cretan stitch, buttonhole cups, and.....well, that's about all I think so far. There is also a roman blind ring that I found in my sewing basket which I covered in Pearl 5 thread (the blue one), which gave me further ideas on how to add texture. I will keep going with this for a while and see how it does, although I am not sure if I will have the time over the next couple of weeks to complete the whole thing. Let's see!
I thought I would also weigh in on the
slow cloth debate while I am at it:
Sharon B, the teacher of this class seems to have started a raging discussion on the textile blogs about
slow cloth.
I want to put in my 2c on this discussion from the point of view of a young(ish) middle-aged(ish) person (well, late 30s – not young, not yet middle-aged), who loves hand work. I have just started embroidery but I have been working for several years on building up my skills in appliqué, especially intricate Baltimore Album appliqué. The idea of
slow cloth speaks to me in the following ways:
Tradition – My family (on both sides) has a tradition of sewing – embroidery, knitting, and beautiful dressmaking. My mother is an accomplished seamstress who makes beautiful hand smocked dresses and lovely hand knitted sweaters for my young girls and whose “piece de resistance” was my extraordinary silk wedding gown. On my father’s side of the family my grandmother was a knitter and her sister an embroiderer. Therefore, for me, handwork is about my connectedness with the women who have come before me. But it is not about replicating or even preserving the tradition of what they have done before me, it is about building a new tradition that reflects my own varied life. I have lived outside my home country for 14 years, experiencing many different countries and cultures, including ones that are polar opposite from my own. So
slow cloth for me is about developing a style of handwork through which I can show my experiences and who I have become as a result of those experiences.
Craftsmanship – I almost exclusively do hand work because I am much more skilled with my hands than I am with my sewing machine. I think that
slow cloth is about developing the best skills I can and for me, this can only be achieved through hand work. For others it is probably quite different – their most beautiful work uses machines of various types and their products are absolutely glorious. I therefore don’t think that
slow cloth is about the tools that are used, rather about choosing the right tools to help each individual strive for excellence in craftsmanship.
Identity – I am an engineer in a developing country and I spend most of my time working on wastewater treatment plants and landfills in areas of poverty where the people suffer from all manner of environmental problems. The places I work can be ugly and dirty – mine is not a feminine job. While this is who I am, this does not define me completely. I do have a love for women’s crafts and I very selfishly guard the time I have to work on them because I think it is important to work on my beautiful, creative, skillful
slow cloths so that in the end, my girls will know who I really am. I want them to understand all sides of me, not only the most visible side of me: the engineer working in a dirty world. At my age now I want to make a few – just a few is enough – truly beautiful, creative things so that my girls will be able to understand me later when they reflect on who I am.
Art vs. craft – I am almost completely self-trained and much of my stitching is done in physical isolation from associations and groups because of where I live, so I am blissfully unaware of the storms that rage around the controversy of art vs. craft. Personally, I don’t mind whether what I do is defined as art or craft, but I do feel that my own level of innovation and originality is not yet sufficient in my work to call myself an artist. For me, that is something to strive for, but which I guess I may never achieve because of the limited time I have to pursue my hand work.
Originality – In my own experience, there are times in my hand work for complete originality, and also times when following patterns are more appropriate. I mainly use patterns, books and classes when I want to learn new craftsmanship skills. These allow me to build up my skills – and my confidence in those new skills – to a level sufficient to then move to original work. I do not follow patterns for quick “15 minute” outcomes, I follow patterns to learn new skills in a structured environment. After I have those skills and confidence, I then try to strike out on my own to develop my own traditions.
Regarding the mass-produced “quick” 15 minute wonder craft market – frankly I don’t mind if people do these – as long as they don’t equate them with what I am doing or label them the same way. I think there is a place for both in this world and I never feel that other’s work, whatever it is, disturbs mine. I am unlikely to ever enter an item I have made into a competition or show, and I only make these things for myself and for my girls, so it does not concern me if they do not fall into any particular genre.
What concerns me more is that textiles art/craft in general seems to be slipping away in many countries due to a lack of basic sewing skills. Even in China, apart from the real indigenous traditions, which still survive in many places, the general population is losing the ability to knit and sew. Sewing is seen as a trade (for tailors) not as a leisure activity for everyone. More and more local Chinese (in the cities) can afford to pay others to tailor their clothes. Local people also tell me that the number of yarn shops is dropping dramatically in Beijing as fewer and fewer young people bother with what they see as a utilitarian activity rather than an art form. On the other hand, cross stitch, an inherently western tradition, is taking root rapidly in China....so maybe it is more a globalization of arts and crafts that is occurring, rather than a diminishing of it.
I am very happy to have found a community of extraordinarily gifted appliquers and embroiderers that I can converse with online and through (infrequent) face to face gatherings. The internet has opened up the textile world for me, and the most extraordinary thing is the fact that I can live in one country and yet I can benefit from the amazing skills of the world’s best, no matter where they are. The result of this connectedness for me is a rapid increase in my level of craftsmanship and a stronger sense of community for what is for me, a lonely pursuit where I live. Both those things support my ability to achieve what I am striving for in
slow cloth.
6" x 6", embroidery on felt, bead embellishment. 
And of course, as you can see, I have combined TIFC with Susan Sorrell's felt pin class! I still have the stitching to do on the pins designed by my daughter last weekend, these 2 were a small diversion!
