Red Thread Studio

Slow Cloth Inspiration, February 1

I was doing a Google search for khadi -- the homespun cotton that Ghandi wore and promoted -- and came across the wonderful Fibercopia blog. Author Arcadia is an interior designer; she has an incredible eye for beautiful and interesting textiles from all over the world, and a ton of knowledge.

Rowland and Chinami Ricketts are masters of natural dyeing and traditional techniques at RickettsIndigo. Visit their site full of stunning work -- you will not be able to navigate away (but do -- come back here!). I'm in love with this piece:

Untitled Obi Yardage, 2002, indigo and charcoal dyed hemp kibira, paste resist

and saw echoes of it the next day at the Denver Art Museum's show of Color Field paintings.

Back to interiors, John Robshaw Textiles is a commercial enterprise very much in the Slow Cloth spirit. From the Web site, here is the mission statement:

Our mission is to create original, handcrafted textiles from around the world. John Robshaw Textiles employs traditional printing, dying and weaving techniques, while reinterpreting them in ways that respect the integrity of the method to create original textiles. Every textile represents a story, a drawing of an adventure in a far–off place–from Yogakarta to Rajasthan, Bolivia to Vietnam. Arriving at textiles from painting and printmaking, I am interested in the mistakes, overlapping prints and the miss-registrations of woodblocks that record the human hand.

I'm guessing that these very beautiful pillows and bedding are out of my price range for now, but the spirit of this artistry and design is contagious. I found him through VivaTerra, where you can buy some of these objects.

The incredible multimedia and quilt artist Deidre Adams has started a blog; I'm very inspired by her technique of quilting, then painting the quilted surface.

Finally, for today at least, I'm enchanted by the sustainably-produced fabrics at Bird Textile --  "Australia's first climate neutral business."  If you love textile design and are interested in what's being done in environmentally friendlier fibers, take a look.

With the new year off to a strange start, I have not yet finished my Take It Further textile art challenge piece for January -- I don't think I'm alone, but I'm not very happy about my unfinished projects. Time to work harder and smarter.

What Is Novel Is What We Have Not Seen And Heard Before

There is a wonderful tutorial on sashiko at the Purl Bee blog. This Japanese craft has elements of quilting and of a very ordered embroidery; the thread is heavier than Western quilting thread, no frame or hoop is used, and traditional stitching patterns are geometric and symmetrical. Mari explains the process in detail with wonderful and very helpful photographs.

According to Nancy Shriber in her lovely Sashiko Handbags 14 On 14 book,

Sashiko was originally designed as a mending technique to quilt together several layers of fabric for warmth and durability or for strengthening a single layer of fabric. Like quilting in America, sashiko had humble beginnings. The Japanese have been doing sashiko for practical sewing purposes since the early 18th century. It was developed as a way to recycle fabric and to extend the life of the garment. Sashiko is a running stitch sewn in repeating or interlocking patterns through one or more layers of fabric. As with many art forms, most of the stitch designs are simplified representations of things found in nature such as plants, birds, and clouds.

Visit Nancy's Contemporary Sashiko Web site gallery -- she has instructions there for this beautiful, simple wallet/checkbook cover as an introduction to contemporary sashiko:

Despite its humble beginnings, as with other Japanese crafts, sashiko is a beautiful form with infinite levels of skill and subtlety. In the United States we tend to want to make everything quick and easy and oversimplified -- and at the same time, create products to sell  that may not be necessary or even desirable to the heart of the practice.

As a result, sometimes the beauty and nuance of textile traditions are really lost on us. For instance: As I was searching around for information on sashiko, I came across this site on the Akan Cultural Symbols Project via Quilt Ethnic. In the Akan culture in Ghana, traditional cloth is woven to communicate with a rich and specific language -- here's one pattern from the site:

EMAA DA - NOVELTY

               

Symbol of     EXPERIENTIAL KNOWLEDGE, CREATIVITY, NOVELTY, and INNOVATION
From the proverb:  Dea emmaa da eno ne dea yennhunu na yennte bi da. 
Literal translation:  What  is novel is what we have not seen and heard before

Now, I know I've seen similar African fabrics and have only seen color and pattern, with no idea about the rich conveyance of concepts, messages, language and communication woven into the cloth by master artisans. This richness and meaning exists in textiles from so many cultures. This is part of the Slow Cloth approach: respecting the significance -- as well as enjoying the beauty -- of world textiles.