small things like these

slow, quiet note no.20

If you have a few hours to spare next week I would recommend signing up for this year’s Making Zen Retreat a five-day programme of online workshops and tutorials from some of the best known textile artists and makers from across the globe. It starts tomorrow - Monday 26 May.

Organised by Kate Ward of Zen Stitching, there are more than thirty artists participating this year and you can find a summary of all the workshops in the link above. There is, of course, the opportunity to subscribe and pay for access to more content for a longer period of time but the next five days are absolutely free.

Sign up and you’ll get a daily email with links to several workshops available for the next twenty four hours - the email arrives mid-afternoon in the UK, ideal for some early evening creative inspiration.

I’ll be watching and listening by the seaside next week and my quilt roll will be going with me. It won’t take up too much space in the suitcase but is too big to be pinched by a seagull. The perfect portable project.

When I finish a quilt or a collage I am usually left with a small surplus of less than useful fabric offcuts and, often, when I feel like doing a little stitching I grab a handful of these tiny remnants and stitch them together.

I layer the small pieces onto longer strips of larger leftover fabrics, sandwiched with lengths of batting, culled from other projects. This is end of the day stitching, sofa stitching, travel stitching, stitching to occupy my hands while my brain is pre-occupied with something else.

At around four metres long and growing, I see this as a fabric diary or journal. I can almost read it as a diary because I remember working on the original pieces, pieces that now have a title, that might be exhibited one day.

It is a visual list of colour clashes and jarring prints but there is a rhythm in the textures made by the back and forth stitches. I like the raw and frayed edges, the wonky angles. I like layering the different weights of fabric, the sheers and worn pieces alongside the heavier cottons. Each strip is punctuated with red, sometimes yellow, occasionally blue thread. The longer it gets the more I like it.

It often feels like a kind of warm-up exercise. I imagine that its unplanned composition, construction and open-endedness might seem a bit, well, pointless to other people. I often get asked what it is for, what I’m going to do with it. I struggle, of course, to answer because there is no plan, there is no particular goal or purpose.

However working like this, gently, without the pressure of producing an object or a thing helps me think and plan and, indeed, relax. Some people go for a walk when they need to think things through, I pick up needle and thread. This is sewing for sewing’s sake, a textile sketch, a kind of automatic stitching.

Thank you for taking the time to read this week’s slow, quiet note. Let me know if you sign up for Making Zen and what you think. As ever your likes, shares and comments are much appreciated.

Have a great week.

J x