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Thinking About Cloth

1/10/2017

 
Picture
Studio Jacket (detail); blue and white scrap from a split skirt I made (and wore to shreds) about 20 years ago
Last night, as the snow fell, I did a little mending.
Picture
This morning (after shoveling and before remembering that it is tuesday which means blog day),
​ I wove a few feet of hand spun plain weave fabric as the snow continued to fall.
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Woven into the Earth: Textiles from Norse Greenland by Else Østergaård; Aarhus University Press, Denmark
600 years ago (ish) in Greenland,
someone spun, wove, sewed and mended
 every garment.
Picture
My patches are haphazard, half-assed and untidy,
the stitching just barely functional.
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Many of the scraps are from unmendable favorite garments
and of dubious durability,

But I use them anyway.
And they wear out again,
Picture
I'm lucky in this.
Picture
Woven into the Earth: Textiles from Norse Greenland by Else Østergaård; Aarhus University Press, Denmark
In Norse Greenland in the 1300s, I'd have had to take much more care.
Indeed, I'd have been trained to take much more care.
Picture
Sized skeins drying (white = gelatin size, brown = xanthan gum size)
I've been hand spinning most of my yarn for 35+ years,
knitting my clothes for longer than that,
weaving for nearly 30
and like to believe I'm better at all of these things than I am at mending.

Some of my  garments survive because even half-assed attention is better than none,
but even with tools like this:
Picture
Hepty Spindle by Henry C Edwards; Fleece: Cormo/Rambouillet X
not to mention this:
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Lendrum Saxony wheel; super high speed flyer (70/1 ratio); polypay fiber
I've yet to spin, weave and sew (much less get to mend), even a single dress.
Picture
Woven into the Earth: Textiles from Norse Greenland by Else Østergaård; Aarhus University Press, Denmark
Nor, for all the care and effort I put into my materials,
Picture
sized singles
would such a garment be likely to survive for centuries
buried in the permafrost.
Picture
Woven into the Earth: Textiles from Norse Greenland by Else Østergaård; Aarhus University Press, Denmark
​There is just so much to learn.
Picture
Picture

​ Woven into the Earth: Textiles from Norse Greenland by Else Østergaård; Aarhus University Press,  Denmark
Lynn
1/10/2017 01:30:35 pm

There is so, so much to learn. I've been able to embroider for well over 50 years now. I learned how to use a sewing machine about 50 years ago. I learned how to knit about 30 years ago. I learned how to spin and weave in the last decade. I just - just! - finished my first handspun, handwoven, machine- and handsewn garment. It's OK but not perfect (hey, at least it fits!). I don't have enough decades left to get GOOD at this gig, damn it.

Mariellen
2/7/2017 02:24:50 pm

Since I see less years ahead of me than behind me I decided that I won't spin/knit/weave all of my stash. So I decided to have fun with it instead of perfection.

Margaret stone
1/10/2017 05:39:02 pm

Fascinating stuff Sarah. Wouldn't you love to have been a fly on the wall in Norse Greenland? Off to mend my favorite ripped nightie now. Thanks for the inspiration.

Janet Kovach
1/11/2017 05:54:26 am

January the 11th.....Hmmmmm.....sometime reread Death of a Salesman where built in obsolescence is presented.....now aren't our clothes and household textiles constructed with the same principle....maybe jeans and sweaters and dishcloths and towels are not meant to last a lifetime....maybe time is better spent learning new skills and creating new garments....I have creatively mended garments and textiles with a special meaning with an ancient darning tool of my Grandmother's from Ohio....and I have all the threadbare quilts that both Grandmas made for me in Ohio....but these are limited....I'm always learning new techniques and creating new textiles.....just sayin'.......maybe the answer lies in a balance between mending the old and creating the new? Maybe I think about cloth differently?
from Janet who has an 81 year old perspective---way over East on the Atlantic Coast and who loves trading ideas

Sarah Swett
1/18/2017 09:34:38 am

I keep thinking about your comment Janet, and I agree -- not everything is worth mending, esp given a penchant for continually learning new techniques and making new textiles. No room in my life or house to save everything and keep making. But sometimes it really is easier to patch something than think about having to choose a replacement, esp as I hate shopping! Indeed, sometimes my mending of simple replaceable things is merely a way to stave off having to buy more. Plus I prefer to keep using things as I don't have the storage for more than a few things too precious to get rid of and too threadbare to use... But sometimes things just need to be tossed...

Liv Pedersen link
1/21/2017 03:54:03 pm


Comments are closed.
    Picture

    ​Sarah C Swett 
    tells stories
    with
    ​ and about

     hand spun yarn. 


    Picture
    Click for info on
    my four selvedge
    warping class
    with
    ​ Rebecca Mezoff  
    fringeless


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