dare to dream pillowcase banners 🙂

The weekend of the 5th & 6th of April served sunshine in a brilliant blue sky! We were so fortunate!

It was wonderful to share Dare to Dream, the mass participation element of Derbyshire Makes: an opportunity to stitch hopes and dreams for the future in Derbyshire using sustainable fabrics from the Play & Recycling Centre - Derby.

15 participants kindly left their work to be added to the pillowcase banners, shown below - stunning! Some wrote down the motivation and thoughts behind their stitches, and I added these to the work using a wooden typeface set - wise and generous words. There are more textile patches out in the world, taken home to be treasured and worked into - I like to think of these as 'siblings' of the textile patches below, becoming part of everyday life, mementoes of a shared expression of hope in Heanor.

Unity, Derbyshire Makes - Heanor

All Roads Lead to Derbyshire, Derbyshire makes - Heanor

derbyshire makes festival - Heanor

What a brilliant weekend. Heanor market place was buzzing with fun, connection, creativity and positive energy. 

I had a blast running Dare to Dream, the mass participation element of Derbyshire Makes: a chance to stitch hopes and dreams for the future using sustainable fabrics from the Play & Recycling Centre - Derby.

We were blessed with gorgeous weather, and it was lovely to see Heanor create, play and stitch together. 

A MAKEFESTO!

Young maker

First stitches

All roads lead to Derbyshire

Dare to Dream - tolerant people

Generations

Stitcher from Portugal

Friendship

"Friendship is so important, a smile, a friendly nod can mean so much. Don't be afraid 

to talk to someone, you might be the only person they connect with all day."

gorse & walking skirt - care collaboration commission

On Friday 24th of November I traveled to Hope and walked to the summit of Win Hill with my sister, Clare. J. B. Firth writes on page 206 of The Highways & Byways in Derbyshire, There is no more restful scene on which the eye of man can rest than the Vale of Hope as seen from the summit of Win Hill.

This was the first journey and walk in the skirt inspired by Hope, Paul and Penny Robinson. It was a short but meaningful walk, discovering how the skirt felt, moved and functioned (and how I felt, moved and functioned in it). I was delighted that the yellow ric-rac mirrored gorse, furze or whin, and the blue ribbon matched the cloudless sky! I'd not expected to reflect nature with these gaudy colours. 

for wilfred

In early 2022 I had the privilege of working on a very special commemorative commission. I pieced together vintage linen (much repaired, hemmed, some monogrammed, tea towel sized) to create a two meter hanging.

The piece was commissioned by a granddaughter in memory of her grandfather Wilfred. My heart warmed towards Wilfred while looking at documents from his life and reading a handwritten note of thanks to his son and daughter-in-law (the commissioners parents). Precious echos from which to create from and this writing became central to the piece.

I love working with repaired fabric and these textiles were skilfully mended, showing their value, that thrift and longevity were important. I added another layer, working in collaboration with the unknown sewer, connected for a time and couldn't help but wonder about their life too.

Goodbye, Hurriedly, Dear Both

folding takes some effort

Tamed the button sheet 😀

Folding takes some effort, the buttons clink together reminiscent of waves dragging shingle or pebbles back into the sea.

Not yet half covered, almost a year of on and off attention.

My studio space is wee so the sheet can take over. Tamed and tidy it can sit and watch me for a while. 

 

tablecloth

New work in development.

button sheet

Since September 2020 I've hand stitched buttons onto a single polyester sheet that was my mothers. Mum (Doreen Logan née Furmage) used yellow Lenor fabric softener and I've kept her sheets and pillowcases in a sealed bag to retain this scent. 

When I began to sew the scent was strong and powerfully evocative of climbing into the single bed in my old room at home. I feel protective of this scent, aware that over the months and years it will fade. At each sewing I sniff the sheet, judging 'loss', relieved the scent is still detectable - my mothers final act of washing bedding palpable.   

This fading and my emotional urge to 'stop time' evoked thoughts around the impossibility (and undesirability) of statis, the futility of this desire and the inevitability of loss and gain and loss and gain.   

As scent fades buttons increase, making the sheet heavy, unwieldy, difficult to handle. I've covered a third of the sheet in buttons and my arms shake when holding it for longer than a moment.

I'm enjoying the sheet becoming difficult and how frustrating it is to sew at times - thread getting lopped around buttons, knots, button spacing, placing the needle precisely to sew (unseen) from under the sheet through tiny button holes... Infuriating and satisfying and repetitive and time consuming.

button sheet - october

I stitch into the evening/night, crossed legged on bed, stretching numb muscles at intervals. Sitting like this hurts a bit now, the ageing process giving me a nudge, my right knee complains especially. Hours of work looks like nothing (but is something).

The sheet becomes increasingly cumbersome, buttons weighty, creating tension in the cloth. The tension makes placing buttons not too close/not too far from each other a challenge. 

The sheet drapes across my arm, hugging, buttons clack and shimmer. 

The precious Lenor scent fades as I work, a loss.

Progress traced in grey zigzags.

button sheet - september

I've been thinking about this work for a year or so, it's a daunting thing to begin. I'm hand stitching buttons onto a single sheet that was my mum's. It retains the scent of her favourite fabric conditioner 3 years 4 months after her death.

daughters of daughters

Second experiments with staging and photographing this piece, playing, seeing where/how it makes sense to me. Daughters of daughters comes into my head when thinking about it, so that may be the title. Tomorrow I'm taking the dresses into the Derbyshire landscape to see how it/they sits there.  

eight dresses

First experiments in hanging this (as yet untitled) work and beginning to understand what it does. Enjoyed its weight and the tension between each dress form. Plan to play further by taking this piece into the Derbyshire landscape. It's an unwieldy, slippery thing!

dress forms

All eight dress forms are finished in my current project to make a sculptural piece in organza. Each hand stitched and cut from a 1970's pattern. I'm unsure how I'll join them and intrigued to discover the process that will reveal itself as I make... More stitching, more ironing needed to complete this piece...   

organza

I'm making a work thats been in my head for a while. I'm 6 dresses in (there will be 8), all cut from a 1970's pattern. The pattern cutting takes almost as long as the hand stitching of each dress, organza is so slippery it requires ironing and pinning into position in an attempt to stop distortion within the fabric before cutting. I decided to hand stitch the dresses, as each represents one of the seven generations of women before me, the women who birthed daughters who birthed daughters who birthed daughters and this line that stretches back to the first humans ends with me.