piecework
One of the first textiles I loved was a thick household blanket featuring sunflowers in an aggressive repeating pattern of green, yellow, and brown. It doubled as a futon throw, a soft thing at naptime, a framework for forts, and a setting for “floor picnics.” I remember picking at the forest green threads in its thick fringe. It wasn’t particularly soft, but that was part of its charm—it was the kind of versatile item that lent itself to play.
The past few months, I’ve been returning to a regular practice of knitting. As I’ve incorporated knitting along with natural dye work, I’ve been thinking about the importance of textiles as a way of connecting to memory and place. I’m interested in how textiles can provide a living archive of waterways, plants, living beings, seasons. I’ve been growing plants for food, medicine, and seed, but textile work holds the possibility of a different kind of relationship with the botanical world. When I knit a linen garment or simmer a pot of plant matter on the stove to produce dye, I’m interacting with plants in a way that feels slow, indulgent, inventive, and life-affirming.
Inspired by artists such as Zak Foster, saylem celeste, Marlee Grace, and the Gee’s Bend quilters, I’ve felt a pull towards quilting as yet another way to work with textiles. Remembering the Faith Ringgold storybooks I grew up with, it feels intuitive that quilts are a vehicle for narrative and the safekeeping of history. This year on my birthday, I decided to make a mini quilt to mark this moment and hold some intentions for the coming cycles. I included fabric from my partner’s craft bag, a gifted linen handkerchief I hand-dyed with yarrow, scraps from old shirts, and silver honeybee charms. It was my first time making something that involved machine sewing, and my first time making a quilt. But sitting in relative silence for hours trying to make something beautiful, working through confusion, excitement, perfectionism, and impatience, felt like a pretty solid way to start another year of life. I’m excited for all that I will make, “alone”* and with others, in the year to come.
*Never truly alone! Always deeply entangled, collaborating with, beholden to ecosystems of spirit and life forms stretching across time.
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