Once again it has been ages since I've posted anything on here but I've been feeling the calling lately for some reason. Maybe because I've been in a new place in life in so many different areas and ways. I've been embracing my creative side a little more and trying to curb my anxiety over sharing that. We do live in a culture that celebrates the online sharing platform and in some ways it's not all bad, after all I get most of my creative inspiration from Pinterest, blogs and emails from other creatives.
In a part-time capacity I work in a creative job as a seamstress at Vavstuga in Shelburne, MA, a weaving school, in addition I also host a craft group once a month in my church. Plus I have been working on so many projects, mainly quilting, that for myself I'd like to have a place to go and look back at what I've done. I do have lots of photos but a few words mixed in here and there isn't a bad idea to help me remember more details. While I'm at it I might as well put it out there and maybe someone else will find inspiration from it.
This first project to share is a recent finish from my time at Vavstuga. These are some very large curtains that contain weaving scraps from the owner's past 40 years of weaving. It is amazing for me to look at all of the variety of fabrics she created and to her it's like a scrapbook of her weaving career.
This is where it began. Here is a small sampling of some of all of her saved pieces, bins & bags full.
Look at those tiny little porcupines and hearts.
I have yet to learn to weave but I can so appreciate each and everyone of these fabrics and how each pass of the yarn was done by hand.
I fell into a rhythm of grabbing a fabric and trying to match it to another piece. There was texture, color, size, could it be cut, did it need to stay a full piece...so much to think about. It was a bit tedious at times and I can't say there wasn't a few times that I thought I would never finish this project.
There were a few pieces that got stitched in with the backside facing out...one of the downsides to not being a weaver. It is sometimes very hard to tell, although I think even if you were a weaver it might have been difficult.
Here is the backside. So many seams. I ended up finding that I was piecing the fabrics together by sewing into wide strips the width of one panel which was about 45" and then would stitch that to the growing panel.
Here's another look at the backside. In some ways that almost fascinated me more seeing all those seams. All of these seams were hidden though by a backing panel. The backing panels were made from old faded woven curtains and sheets. They still had life and not to be wasted! Not all of the edges were serged and with woven fabric you need to protect it in some way or little strings will keep falling off.
The finished product. Two panels 80" tall by 45" wide. Because it was so bulky it was easiest to use the rings and clip curtain hangers rather than fold it over for a hanging sleeve at the top. The rings and clips also made it much easier to open and close as needed. I used 10 clips per panel and it seemed to hold the weight of the curtains well.
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