I bought a boro cloth from Japan. For a while I admired the history of the piece, the poverty of working people that led to repeated repairs and patching of textiles, the elegantly fading indigo, the large hand stitching.
I have done a lot of houseclearing lately, and this made me consider what my children think of the tatty blue fabric? Sara will know what it is but I can't imagine she'd want to give it house room. So, I am giving it a new life, as sympathetically as possible but it still involves....SCISSORS!!
The next stage is to patch and repair the textile. I have the tattiest end of the boro cloth to harvest for that.
The fabric I cut from the width has made a lovely runner for the bed (or a table), this section has few repairs.
The point with patchwork is that you work with patches! Unless you keep things to preserve history (museum pieces), why NOT cut them up?
ReplyDeleteThere is a wonderful sense of continuing its journey when you stitch into an old boro piece. Can't imagine my kids wanting to keep the pieces I have either so continuing their journey makes a lot of sense. Inspiration.
ReplyDeleteI have one daughter who might appreciate my old tattered stuff (if her siblings didn't throw it our before she got to it.....
ReplyDeleteWell done for using since a beautiful piece, we seem to have an inbuilt need to "save for best" but this is a much better plan!
ReplyDeletelove that you are giving these pieces a new life so they can continue to be used and enjoyed. Don't know who will care for my "stuff' either, certainly not in the family but my Mom had the same concern and I cared for all her things.
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