#mindful making

Last week I had a craft date with a friend that’s making things to raise money for charity, got to the shop to get my missing bag pieces. I also sewed the zipper I got! I also saw Japanese movie called “Sensei, would you sit beside me?” and spend the entire film getting inspired by the wardrobe. All loose linen clothing, drop shoulder top, elastic waists layered with loose cardigans. All thing I…

Week 9  Welcome to week 9. 2 months into this. Last week  I stuck to my plan and made a couple of gifts. I also pulled up the materials to make myself a bag as well. Making bags is always so nice and so rewarding. Funny how I constantly am surprised by this.  In addition to this I’ve been using the tutorial from the Deer & Doe website to work on my wardrobe planning.This week I’ll keep on with…

Last week I managed to mend a baby garment, a pair of undies for myself and two pairs if trousers for the kids. Of my intended mending I still have one more piece but I need to rethread my overlock for it so I’ll keep it for when I have white thread on it.Getting though the mending was like pulling teeth but it was rewarding when it was done.Last week Check your thread dropped an inspirational…

Last week I dove into my fun sewing project and made a dinosaur suit for my 1,5 year old and worked on planned projects and AND I finished the damned pjs. Just in time as my 3,5 year old almost jumped a size since I cut them in December. I also finished another blog post collecting my thoughts on tracking and journal and how they helped me. This weekThe focus this week is 100% on mending. I much…

Exhibitions: Mindful Making Through Self-Isolation. June 2020

Back in April, I was made aware of a call for textile responses to self-isolation by the Centre for Arts & Wellbeing, part of the University of Brighton.  The brief asked for an A4 textile piece responding to the Covid-19 situation at the height of people isolating themselves from regular activity.

Although my own situation during lockdown has not been challenging - and I might even say at times enjoyable (less traffic, more wildlife) – in the early weeks, I was preoccupied with thinking about people who were alone, lacking outside space, or even at risk of abuse or neglect while being confined to home.

My idea, therefore, was pretty simple: taking the word ‘isolation’ and finding synonyms to create a list of words to embroider by hand.  At the time, the rainbow theme had just become widely accepted as a visual shorthand for showing support to the NHS and other key workers and as a result this found its way into my piece.  I found a piece of fabric from my stores which was relatively plain, but with an interesting woven texture using arches and circles, again, reflecting the rainbow theme idea. I used these textures to guide my stitching across the whole piece of fabric.  I varied the colours, using mixed strands of thread to create a fading in and out effect to transition across the rainbow palette.