Patchwork Object

Items

• Patch by Róisín
  I was taught to sew before I could read or write. I remember being given a simple tapestry project to complete – a flower perhaps? – with colourful strands of acrylic wool and a plastic needle. The women around me were always engaged with some type of needlework. Both my grandmothers knitted; my mother sewed most of my clothes and had her eyes constantly bent on whatever counted cross-stitch project she was into at the time. Growing up in the 1980s and 90s, needlework had a definitely uncool vibe to it. This was very vexing as a teenager, as I thoroughly enjoyed it. Unlike writing in ink, sewing had an unmatched material, sensorial, embodied quality to it; also, I enjoyed learning new stitches and their names, as if the whole thing were a secret code only women could share. Perhaps this is why I persevered, in spite of teasing by (usually) male students. When writing my PhD thesis (on Victorian women and needlework), I was haunted by Elizabeth Parker’s now well-known sampler/diary. A young servant in the 1830s, she cross-stitched her life story in an astonishingly raw and honest way, yet her opening statement, “As I cannot write,” reminds us of how women’s voices, and their expression in fabric and thread rather than print, have been disqualified throughout history. Needlework, and textile work in the broader sense are ambiguous because they have been tools of restriction and oppression for women as well as self-expression. My Irish grandmother’s dreams of becoming a doctor were crushed as she, one of many children in a working-class family, was taken out of school as a teenager to work in a dressmaking factory. I often thought of her as I was finishing my thesis.
• Patch by Ruth
  This patch is based on my experiments with weaving and playing with ribbons in Coventry this summer, inspired by my Victorian ancestors - the Hennell sisters. Social reformer and writer Mary, and writers, artists and educators Sara, and Cara. Alongside Cara’s husband Charles Bray, a ribbon manufacturer and philosopher, they were close friends of the author George Eliot and are believed to have inspired the Meyrick sisters in George Eliot’s novel Daniel Deronda [i]. I’ve been enjoying reading her letters to them, as well as exploring their books, writings and art. Combining ribbons, a modern Bluetooth ribbon printer and weaving, I explored this creative and intellectual heritage, alongside the feminine, yet industrial craft of ribbon weaving that supported it. The hair-like fibres, woven with ribbon and yarn indicate our shared DNA, and are inspired by actual pieces of my ancestor's hair found in Cara’s sewing box [ii]. The stamped ink bottle represents the Hennell sisters’ writings and letters, my handwritten letters inspired by them and George Eliot’s first published articles in Charles Brays’ Coventry Herald [iii]. The woven flower ribbon was inspired by Ada Lovelace’s 1843 description of Charles Babbage’s Analytical Engine as weaving algebraic patterns, like the Jacquard loom weaves flowers and leaves. Mary Hennell wrote about ribbon, including the impacts of emerging technologies for the Penny ‘Cyclopedia in 1841 [iv], and Charles Bray sponsored the intricate floral Coventry Ribbon for the 1851 Great Exhibition, which combined a Jacquard mechanism with a Handloom. [v] I snipped the pink ribbon with loops from a clothes label - it’s reminiscent of the scalloped ribbon trend of 1813, which built up ribbon manufacturing wealth in Coventry [vi]. Sara and Cara’s nature sketches and watercolour paintings [vii], and my nature sunprinting experiments on ribbon near their home, inspired the robin and nature silhouette ribbons. [i] https://sda.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/sda/#!/themes/article/253 [ii] https://artsandculture.google.com/asset/sewing-box-unknown/CgG_I9nlwHh8LA?hl=en [iii] https://www.jstor.org/stable/20082202 [iv] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Hennell https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/The_Penny_Cyclopaedia_of_the_Society_for/8Jjqd969494C?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PA487&printsec=frontcover (pg 487) [v] Light side: https://www.coventrycollections.org/search/details/collect/90329 Dark Side: https://exploringeliot.org/object/coventry-town-ribbon/ [vi] Very useful Coventry Ribbon Timeline https://woventhreadsproject.co.uk/research/ [vii] This is one of my favourite, by Cara out of the window of their home https://exploringeliot.org/object/the-view-from-the-window-at-rosehill-by-cara-bray/ Further Reading: White, Rosalind. (2022) ‘Part Two: The Ribbon Trade’, Finding Middlemarch [Online Exhibition]. Royal Holloway, University of London. In collaboration with Nuneaton Museum & Art Gallery, Nuneaton Library, Coventry Archives and the Herbert Art Gallery & Museum and funded by the Arts Humanities Research Council. Retrieved from Exploring Eliot [https://exploringeliot.org/discover-george-eliot/finding-middlemarch/the-ribbon-trade/]
• Patch by Ruth
  The fabric for these 3 patches came from my friend Ros' stash - pieces of which were given away at her funeral. She dyed them herself. Ros was a dear family friend. She was a teacher by profession and quilter. She sadly passed away in 2023. I wanted to include her in this patchwork project because I always think of her when I’m stitching a quilt, I wanted to mark her influence on me personally at a sew-er. Her family have said they're are very happy for these patches to be included and agreed the subject of this Art of Fiction project would have been right up her street! One of the patches has words sent to me in an email by her husband telling me all about her creative quilting practice. Her family are currently in the process of cataloguing (and potentially exhibiting) all the quilts she made, of which there are many.
• Patch by Ruth
  The fabric for these 3 patches came from my friend Ros' stash - pieces of which were given away at her funeral. She dyed them herself. Ros was a dear family friend. She was a teacher by profession and quilter. She sadly passed away in 2023. I wanted to include her in this patchwork project because I always think of her when I’m stitching a quilt, I wanted to mark her influence on me personally at a sew-er. Her family have said they're are very happy for these patches to be included and agreed the subject of this Art of Fiction project would have been right up her street! One of the patches has words sent to me in an email by her husband telling me all about her creative quilting practice. Her family are currently in the process of cataloguing (and potentially exhibiting) all the quilts she made, of which there are many.
• Patch by Ruth
  The fabric for these 3 patches came from my friend Ros' stash - pieces of which were given away at her funeral. She dyed them herself. Ros was a dear family friend. She was a teacher by profession and quilter. She sadly passed away in 2023. I wanted to include her in this patchwork project because I always think of her when I’m stitching a quilt, I wanted to mark her influence on me personally at a sew-er. Her family have said they're are very happy for these patches to be included and agreed the subject of this Art of Fiction project would have been right up her street! One of the patches has words sent to me in an email by her husband telling me all about her creative quilting practice. Her family are currently in the process of cataloguing (and potentially exhibiting) all the quilts she made, of which there are many.
• Patch by Ruth
  This patch represents the women artists who have inspired me and let me believe that my bedroom drawing, making and sewing could be taken seriously and that I could become an artist too. Cornelia Parker, Rachel Whiteread, Tracey Emin, Clarissa Galliano, Frida Khalo, Phyllida Barlow, Vivian Westwood, Mary Quant, Sarah Lucas, Sister Corita Kent, Louise bourgeois, to name just a few. I still think about that little girl dreaming that she might one day be an artist, I feel lucky that I get to do that in my real life now I’m all grown up!
• Patch by Ruth
  I was recently doing a project that required me to use some of this silver material and it took me back to when I was an art student in the 90’s, when I found a very similar roll of the same silver material in my local Scrap Store (a warehouse filled with industry off-cuts where you could load a trolley and pay £5 for the lot!). I remember taking it home and sewing together a pair of flared trousers which I then proceeded to wear to a party that same night. I didn’t have a sewing machine in those days so they were constructed by hand. I didn’t care for their longevity, more for their one night of fun. I remember literally sewing myself into them just before I left the house. Needless to say, the material was not the most comfortable of things to wear on a hot dance floor! This piece of fabric represents the fact that my mother taught me to make my own clothes when I was 12 and how this knowledge meant that I could be creative (and be spontaneous) with how I expressed myself, which for a shy teenager was a powerful gift. I have continued to sew my own clothes throughout my life, made clothes for my children and taught them to sew their own too. Thank you to my mum, Moira Broadway and to my Granny, Betty Irvine who taught her.
• Patch by Ruth and Unrecorded Maker(s)
  This patch was made during the "Patchwork and Creativity Workshop", held in Cambridge, UK on 19 and 20 September, 2024. This two-day workshop used the theme of “Patchwork and Creativity” to prompt conversations about modes of being and knowing that emphasise the collaborative, the collective, the non-linear, and the potentially deconstructive or resistant forms of creativity that have not historically been privileged by Western art histories. During this workshop, participants were invited to co-create patches with one another. Participants were given access to pre-cut material and art supplies and a brief introduction to the Patchwork Object Project. They were then invited to mark the patch in any way that they felt inspired to. At three points during the workshop, participants swapped patches and continued working on patches worked on by others. Afterwards, participants were invited to identify which patches they contributed to; some participants chose to do this, some participants chose to remain an 'unrecorded maker'. We chose to use the term ‘unrecorded maker’, rather than the more common ‘anonymous’ or ‘maker unknown’ following discussion during the workshop around the fact that many women’s contributions to art and craft work, particularly work that was collaboratively made, was not unknown in its time, just not acknowledged or recorded by history.
• Patch by Ruth and Unrecorded Maker(s)
  This patch was made during the "Patchwork and Creativity Workshop", held in Cambridge, UK on 19 and 20 September, 2024. This two-day workshop used the theme of “Patchwork and Creativity” to prompt conversations about modes of being and knowing that emphasise the collaborative, the collective, the non-linear, and the potentially deconstructive or resistant forms of creativity that have not historically been privileged by Western art histories. During this workshop, participants were invited to co-create patches with one another. Participants were given access to pre-cut material and art supplies and a brief introduction to the Patchwork Object Project. They were then invited to mark the patch in any way that they felt inspired to. At three points during the workshop, participants swapped patches and continued working on patches worked on by others. Afterwards, participants were invited to identify which patches they contributed to; some participants chose to do this, some participants chose to remain an 'unrecorded maker'. We chose to use the term ‘unrecorded maker’, rather than the more common ‘anonymous’ or ‘maker unknown’ following discussion during the workshop around the fact that many women’s contributions to art and craft work, particularly work that was collaboratively made, was not unknown in its time, just not acknowledged or recorded by history.
• Patch by Ruth and Unrecorded Maker(s)
  This patch was made during the "Patchwork and Creativity Workshop", held in Cambridge, UK on 19 and 20 September, 2024. This two-day workshop used the theme of “Patchwork and Creativity” to prompt conversations about modes of being and knowing that emphasise the collaborative, the collective, the non-linear, and the potentially deconstructive or resistant forms of creativity that have not historically been privileged by Western art histories. During this workshop, participants were invited to co-create patches with one another. Participants were given access to pre-cut material and art supplies and a brief introduction to the Patchwork Object Project. They were then invited to mark the patch in any way that they felt inspired to. At three points during the workshop, participants swapped patches and continued working on patches worked on by others. Afterwards, participants were invited to identify which patches they contributed to; some participants chose to do this, some participants chose to remain an 'unrecorded maker'. We chose to use the term ‘unrecorded maker’, rather than the more common ‘anonymous’ or ‘maker unknown’ following discussion during the workshop around the fact that many women’s contributions to art and craft work, particularly work that was collaboratively made, was not unknown in its time, just not acknowledged or recorded by history.
• Patch by Ruth and Unrecorded Maker(s)
  This patch was made during the "Patchwork and Creativity Workshop", held in Cambridge, UK on 19 and 20 September, 2024. This two-day workshop used the theme of “Patchwork and Creativity” to prompt conversations about modes of being and knowing that emphasise the collaborative, the collective, the non-linear, and the potentially deconstructive or resistant forms of creativity that have not historically been privileged by Western art histories. During this workshop, participants were invited to co-create patches with one another. Participants were given access to pre-cut material and art supplies and a brief introduction to the Patchwork Object Project. They were then invited to mark the patch in any way that they felt inspired to. At three points during the workshop, participants swapped patches and continued working on patches worked on by others. Afterwards, participants were invited to identify which patches they contributed to; some participants chose to do this, some participants chose to remain an 'unrecorded maker'. We chose to use the term ‘unrecorded maker’, rather than the more common ‘anonymous’ or ‘maker unknown’ following discussion during the workshop around the fact that many women’s contributions to art and craft work, particularly work that was collaboratively made, was not unknown in its time, just not acknowledged or recorded by history.
• Patch by Saleema
  Eco-printing and line-art.
• Patch by Sanjana
  In corners dim where shadows play, a quiet girl finds solace each day. With nimble hands and gentle art, she stitches dreams from her tender heart. In the quiet solitude of my corner, I discovered a profound sense of self through the art of making and embroidering. It all began with the humble scraps of fabric - some collected, some found, and others bought - each whispering of potential and longing to become something greater. Layering these disparate pieces of textile, I found a canvas for my thoughts and dreams. Every stitch became a deliberate act of expression, sewing together a tapestry that reflected my innermost being. Remaining anonymous behind my workbench, I immersed myself in the tactile process of creation. Through making, I found healing and a profound connection to the essence of living - a reminder that existence is as much about the act of becoming as it is about being. As I delved deeper into the world of crafting, I realised that my hands were not merely tools but interpreters of my soul's narrative. I choose to become an advocate for the unspoken tales embedded in every fabric scrap, advocating for their right to be heard and cherished. The act of making, intuitively guided by needle and thread, is becoming my identity - a testament to the transformative power of artistry and the quiet strength of expression. In each embroidered motif, I found a reflection of my evolving identity - an identity shaped by the love and dedication poured into every tactile tale embroidered from the thread. Through my hands, I discovered a profound sense of purpose and belonging, embracing the beauty of creation as a means of self-discovery and connection to the world around me.
• Patch by Sara
  A few years ago I volunteered at Monk's House, Virginia Woolf's home in Sussex from 1919 until her death in 1941. My favourite item was a set of Shakespeare's works which Woold re-bound in 1936 in colourful marbled paper. As I practice bookbinding, I was intrigued to learn more about Woolf's binding hobby. I discovered that Woolf began lessons in bookbinding in 1901 aged 19 and went on to bind books throughout her adult life, for herself and for friends and family. Woolf's approach to bookbinding included pasting colourful papers over dull leather bindings, using patterned, abstract or mabled papers to re-cover books, cutting leather and paper roughy leaving jagged edges, and using discarded headed notepaper and endpapers, re-using paper and leather labels or hand-writing labels for re-bound spines. Woolf's bindings have been called 'slapdash' and 'rotten' as they appear technically poor; Woolf herself described her bookbinding as 'amateurish.' However, I find a playfulness and subversiveness to her binding - a deliberate rejection of a masculine tradition of skilled 'professional' bookbinding methods in favour of a feminising 'amateur' domestic patchwork aesthetic. This patch is inspired by Woolf's creative bookbinding. I cut the front board of a book of Tacitus in Latin with a private school book -plate on the reverse - to represent the masculine domination of knowledge, education and professions which Woolf criticised in A Room of One's Own. I then re-purposed the spine of the book with its title, pasting over Woolf's name and the word 'binder,' made by Cate Olsen (owner of Much Ado Books where I work) that had a picture of Woolf laughing layered over colourful paper, and enbroidered the word 'amateurish' and an antique shell button onto the cut up papers, finishing it with a roughly cut strip of leather. I hope Woolf would approve! Sara Clarke Beloved Bindery, Lewes.
• Patch by Sim
  Patchwork Pals is an informal group of five older women linked by a connection that they all worked together at a Further Education College. We come together regularly in each other’s homes to discuss, crafting and art; projects we are working on; to share ideas; and collaborate. We admire and touch each other’s art works and creations. We have a What’s App group where we share inspiring images and details for exhibitions for PP trips. The patchwork is made from a scrap of textile contributed from each woman including vintage scraps from our teenage years! The image is a swirl to represent interconnectedness. I have embroidered words that we considered represented PP. I imagine the words as a Wordle or word cloud of our creative energies. Conversations at PP gatherings are often animated and always fun with cakes and tea. Friendship for life’s challenge, celebrations and grief.
• Patch by Stephen
  In 2023, I began to come to terms with my loss of passion for working in the music industry. It was devastating; music had been a part of me for so much of my life. I lived and breathed music, and the thought of it not being in my life anymore hurt. In February 2024, a composer friend of mine, Dani Howard, released her first album consisting of several of her compositions performed by the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra. Listening to this album was a healing experience for me. It was Dani’s brilliant writing and gorgeous music that allowed me to realize that although I wouldn’t be working in the music industry again, I could still enjoy the music I have always loved. The swatch I handknit for this project uses the bubble stitch, which is inspired by the bubbly, light-hearted nature of both Dani and her music. The primary colors used in the swatch are blue, gold, and silver, each representing various pieces on the album: gold for the Trombone Concerto, silver for Argentum (the Latin word for silver), and blue for the magical coolness that many of her pieces exhibit. I’m very grateful to Dani and the healing that her music has granted me, and I am honored to have the chance to commemorate that experience.
• Patch by Sue
  I craft because I enjoy it. I enjoy the process, the feel of the fibre or fabric in my hand, the colours, patterns, textures and the joy in creating. I ‘craft’ rather than produce ‘art’. Stitching, knitting, crochet and weaving rarely command a reasonable financial return for the skill and time involved. Recently, I completed a hand-dyed and embroidered book cover. A craft shop owner saw it and asked me to produce more for her to sell. There were more than 40 hours of work in it. I suspect she would be unable to offer me even 50p an hour return on my crafting. This patch is a piece of gratitude to five women who have supported me on my craft journey. It began as a very small toddler, being given buttons to arrange and being allowed to play with the skeins of embroidery cotton of my childminder Lilian and her sister-in-law, Evelyn. The buttons are from that same button box. The skein of embroidery floss and the embroideries were Evelyn’s. My grandmother Alice taught me to embroider, knit, crochet and tat. My debt to her is enormous. The little piece of Aida represents those early steps in embroidery. There is no time in my life since then that I have not had a project on the go. Mary, my college tutor, paid for me to do a City and Guilds in Embroidery, a wealth of skills. All the embroidery threads in the piece were dyed during the course. The brown fabrics were dyed using onion skins, (the silk dupion is from my wedding dress). The Aida was dyed using Alder Buckthorn. Finally, gratitude to K3nClothtales (YouTube) who is a rich source of creativity skills and who inspired this piece.
• Patch by Susan
  A Room with a View. It seemed appropriate for me to stitch my own view of a coffee shop window in Cortona, Tuscany, Italy where I regularly visit when I am staying there, for this Art of Fiction project. I love going to Italy and enjoy the colours, landscapes, and architecture together with the way of life. The fabric is natural hand dyed cotton with machine stitching as an outline - a new method for me, and hand stitching, my preferred way of working, to bring out the detail. The button is from an outfit I wore as a teenager in the 1970's - a time that I first visited Italy and now in my 60's I have a home there to enjoy. Lucky me!
• Patch by Tricia
  My patch has been inspired by the women who have helped me on this project. Though there are many more than I can name, some are: Jane D., who taught me how to dye with indigo; Ruth, who showed me how to wrap thread around the fabric to get the circular shapes and reassured me that there was no wrong way to do it; Julia, who coaxed me into putting the first stitch in the fabric and showed me how to sew a running stitch; Emma, whose instructions I followed on how to make a chain stitch; and all the ladies at Weave Wednesday, who shared their work with me and gave me confidence to continue. The Honiton lace thistle that is appliqued on the patch was inspired by Margaret Oliphant, the subject of a chapter of the book this project is enabling me to finish, and her character, Rose Lake, a Honiton lace designer whose favourite motif is the thistle. In her Autobiography, Oliphant wrote, “I acknowledge frankly that there is nothing in me – a fat, little, commonplace woman, rather tongue-tied—to impress anyone; and yet there is a sort of whimsical injury in it which makes me sorry for myself.” This is a sentiment that has often guided me on this project. I see in this statement a woman who considers herself and her work ordinary and commonplace because she writes popular stories of women’s lives and domestic life. She does not see herself as a literary genius, and she would not claim to be an artist, but she also recognises this as the injustice of a culture that does not value women’s work, women’s stories, and women’s lives as it should. This project has sought to highlight that work and those stories, and the response from the contributors has been astonishing to me, and I hope to everyone who views the patchwork project object.
• Patch by Unrecorded Maker(s)
  This patch was made during the "Patchwork and Creativity Workshop", held in Cambridge, UK on 19 and 20 September, 2024. This two-day workshop used the theme of “Patchwork and Creativity” to prompt conversations about modes of being and knowing that emphasise the collaborative, the collective, the non-linear, and the potentially deconstructive or resistant forms of creativity that have not historically been privileged by Western art histories. During this workshop, participants were invited to co-create patches with one another. Participants were given access to pre-cut material and art supplies and a brief introduction to the Patchwork Object Project. They were then invited to mark the patch in any way that they felt inspired to. At three points during the workshop, participants swapped patches and continued working on patches worked on by others. Afterwards, participants were invited to identify which patches they contributed to; some participants chose to do this, some participants chose to remain an 'unrecorded maker'. We chose to use the term ‘unrecorded maker’, rather than the more common ‘anonymous’ or ‘maker unknown’ following discussion during the workshop around the fact that many women’s contributions to art and craft work, particularly work that was collaboratively made, was not unknown in its time, just not acknowledged or recorded by history.
• Patch by Unrecorded Maker(s)
  This patch was made during the "Patchwork and Creativity Workshop", held in Cambridge, UK on 19 and 20 September, 2024. This two-day workshop used the theme of “Patchwork and Creativity” to prompt conversations about modes of being and knowing that emphasise the collaborative, the collective, the non-linear, and the potentially deconstructive or resistant forms of creativity that have not historically been privileged by Western art histories. During this workshop, participants were invited to co-create patches with one another. Participants were given access to pre-cut material and art supplies and a brief introduction to the Patchwork Object Project. They were then invited to mark the patch in any way that they felt inspired to. At three points during the workshop, participants swapped patches and continued working on patches worked on by others. Afterwards, participants were invited to identify which patches they contributed to; some participants chose to do this, some participants chose to remain an 'unrecorded maker'. We chose to use the term ‘unrecorded maker’, rather than the more common ‘anonymous’ or ‘maker unknown’ following discussion during the workshop around the fact that many women’s contributions to art and craft work, particularly work that was collaboratively made, was not unknown in its time, just not acknowledged or recorded by history.
• Patch by Unrecorded Maker(s)
  This patch was made during the "Community Making Day", held at MAKE Southwest in Bovey Tracey, UK on 26 June, 2024. This event was run in collaboration with MAKE Southwest's monthly drop-in session, Weave Wednesday, hosted at MAKE Southwest's Riverside Mill and facilitated by Maker Member and Textiles Artist, Jane. During the event, participants were introduced to "The Art of Fiction" and the Patchwork Object Project. Jane led a workshop on indigo dying and participants experimented with this technique in the context of patch making. Patches and dye were supplied to participants along with MAKE Southwest's art making supply stash; participants were also encouraged to bring their own supplies. After this event, the Project PI returned to Weave Wednesday on several occasions to continue making with the group and to support their contributions to the Patchwork Object Project.
• Patch by Unrecorded Maker(s)
  This patch was made during the "Community Making Day", held at MAKE Southwest in Bovey Tracey, UK on 26 June, 2024. This event was run in collaboration with MAKE Southwest's monthly drop-in session, Weave Wednesday, hosted at MAKE Southwest's Riverside Mill and facilitated by Maker Member and Textiles Artist, Jane. During the event, participants were introduced to "The Art of Fiction" and the Patchwork Object Project. Jane led a workshop on indigo dying and participants experimented with this technique in the context of patch making. Patches and dye were supplied to participants along with MAKE Southwest's art making supply stash; participants were also encouraged to bring their own supplies. After this event, the Project PI returned to Weave Wednesday on several occasions to continue making with the group and to support their contributions to the Patchwork Object Project.
• Patch by Unrecorded Maker(s)
  This patch was made during the "Community Making Day", held at MAKE Southwest in Bovey Tracey, UK on 26 June, 2024. This event was run in collaboration with MAKE Southwest's monthly drop-in session, Weave Wednesday, hosted at MAKE Southwest's Riverside Mill and facilitated by Maker Member and Textiles Artist, Jane. During the event, participants were introduced to "The Art of Fiction" and the Patchwork Object Project. Jane led a workshop on indigo dying and participants experimented with this technique in the context of patch making. Patches and dye were supplied to participants along with MAKE Southwest's art making supply stash; participants were also encouraged to bring their own supplies. After this event, the Project PI returned to Weave Wednesday on several occasions to continue making with the group and to support their contributions to the Patchwork Object Project.