Boro -ing an Idea

I'm going to gloss over the awful weather, and the fact I have been laid low with some grim virus for the last 4 days. You will no doubt (if you are in dear old Blighty) be experiencing your own awful weather so let's not dwell on it.

Today I want to talk to you about adapting an ancient textile technique to embellish and totally transform a plain jacket. Long-time readers of this blog will remember a post I wrote last year about Boro, the antique Japanese working clothes repaired over and over by patching with more fabric, simply by long running stitches merging the new fabric with the old. No attempt is made to turn under hems, the fresh piece just 'melts' into the ground fabric. These old garments are much sought after - you can read about them in my post from May 23rd 2012 called Japanese Fabric Collection.

I first read about Boro from a blogger called Jude Hill (Spirit Cloth) who has gone on to present an online workshop utilising the technique to alter a garment. My blogging friend Els, from Holland (visit her lovely blog Fiberrainbow) is taking part in that workshop and has begun work on her garment - a good quality jacket she no longer wears. Els has kindly allowed me to use her photos on my post to show you.

I loved the idea from the start, and it was inspiring me to think about something I might do myself. I need a proper jacket for my Molly outfit. Currently I wear a bit of a French Tart theme with a long black cardigan .....but really could do with something warmer, and I may be changing the dress bit of the outfit as well. Something more was called for! I saw Els' jacket and was so excited! Don't you think this is going to be magnificent? This is the jacket I have....about 20 years old and counting! (and yes it does still fit!) About upper thigh length with a good swing to it.

However I have a dilemma. Should I go for the traditional Boro fabrics as Els has - and I do have some Japanese and Javanese indigo fabrics, and these fabrics on the right hand side are my own hand-dyed attempts at Shiborri; I made these years ago - I should really use them up!

 - or, bearing in mind the bright colours of my top-hat topper:

should I go for the brightly coloured African fabrics from my collection here?

Mmmmmm, think I know where I'm going with this one, don't you?

The other dilemma I have is this. Boro epitomises the ethos of the 'slow cloth movement'. All stitching is by hand. The item evolves slowly over time. This is the appeal and the wonder of slow cloth. However, I need my jacket fairly soon; I don't have time to hand stitch every small piece of cloth down into the black fabric of the jacket. So I will have to use my machine, which contravenes the slow cloth ethos totally. Well, in this case, I will have to live with that. Not for me the gradual realisation of the highly textured, lovingly hand-stitched, soft-to-the-hand garment. But I should be able to produce a wonderfully patterned jacket which should do the Mollys proud. Watch this space!

I wouldn't want you to think I have been neglecting my frugal-food-meal-planning-organisation drive, it's just that I've felt so grim the past few days that food has been the last thing on my mind -oh, after being organised, that is! But I want you to know that my new kitchen board arrived yesterday and I'm just waiting for Jim to return home as he is the only one between us with the energy to open the cardboard packaging! The worst thing about feeling so awful is that I had to cancel my melodeon workshop with John Spiers. Arrgh! Never mind, I know a few people who will be able to tell me all about it. Bye for now, I feel a Nanna Nap coming on!

Textile Tarts

                                                      Self Portrait. AKA Lily the Pink!


Are you a Textile Tart? Could you be true to only one genre, or do you like to play the field? Perhaps you are a serial monogamist, or yet again, you may be blissfully happy, wedded to a single calling.

I have to confess to being something of a style philanderer. There is so much out there to dabble in, I just could not restrain myself to one creative outlet. And there-in probably lies my expertise downfall. I've tried them all, cross-stitch, first on printed cloth, then counted stitch work, becoming more proficient until I was designing my own samplers; cloth doll making - from the prosaic Raggedy-Anne to the more contempory, handpainted, much embellished Art Doll; (looking a tad muscular, it must be said!)

Wild and wonderful wacky waistcoat making - this even led to a series of workshops given across the county, some years ago; and  for a while I became known for my naive folk art quilts, and again, taught classes on the subject.

Then I was off - experimentation was the name of the game, and I became - briefly - a Textile Artist!

Yes! It's true! I was a member of a bone fide Quilt Art group, Anglia Textile Works, which is an excellent body and goes on from strength to strength. With ATW I exhibited in Churches, Arts Centres and Galleries, - and even sold one or two pieces. But I always felt somewhat bogus, to be honest, and I left the group, quite amicably , several years ago.

 For a while I stopped stitching. My sewing room became a depository for anything which didn't have a home and made me feel even less like going in there. Then I discovered PAPER and zoomed off down a blind alley to pursue  journalling, book making, paper making, stamping, and a myriad other things to do with mixed media.

Then a friend told me firmly I had played around long enough, time to get back to stitch, and took me to a delightful Janet Bolton workshop. Picking up cloth, needle and thread once again was like coming home. And working on a small scale such as Janet has perfected was somehow so satisfying. Janet is, of course, an artist, and is so well known her workshops and books have spawned a plethora of pale imitations of her work - my own included.  I love making these small stitcheries, they are just so .....complete in themselves, is the only way I can describe my feeling for them.

Once back into my sewing room I began making quilts and other stitched items, samplers, hangings, and so on. Oh, and while I'm in confessional mode, I have to mention a prediliction for beading and other embellishment, and admit to ongoing but superficial flings with rag-rugging and crochet.

Oh dear, it's all looking a bit sleazey, isn't it? And we haven't even been near machine versus hand quilting, applique versus pieced quilts, tradtional versus contemporary, indigo dyeing and shibori, bag making, hats, scarves and cushions. I know, I know, you faithful types are probably pursing your lips in disgust at my profligacy. I can say only one thing in my defence: no experience is ever wasted, and I have learned a lot along the way. Oh, ok, that's two things.

So, yes, I guess I am an unrepentant Textile Tart, and my life has been all the more colourful because of it. How about you? Leave me a comment and let us all know!