Patchwork Object

Items

• Patch by Helen
  Women on both sides of my family have been involved in textiles, either as professional pattern designers and cutters, or in the home, tailoring, quilting, mending and crafting. I inherited all of my grandma’s sewing notions and haberdashery a few years ago. Thousands of pins and packets of needles, lovely thick Sylko threads, lace trims, plastic buttons, remnants of fringing from fancy dress costumes she made for us children, some beautiful and ancient passementerie. Some of it still smells like her sewing room, a sacred space, and I find touching traces of her neatness and practicality in the way she has wound spare threads back on to reels and pinned leftover bias binding around pieces of card. As a child I would pore over her copies of Women’s Weekly magazine and the craft projects inside, pausing to read the personal advice columns, naturally. Grandma was always creating something, and a few unfinished projects remain: a cathedral window patchwork linen cushion cover, hundreds of floral cotton hexagons for English paper piecing, some rather large and bright checkerboard patchwork blocks. I’ll get around to them all. My improv-pieced ‘wildflower meadow’ patch is inspired by all the textile-working women of my family and in particular their domestic sewing and creativity in resourcefulness. I coloured most of the pieces myself by fermentation-dyeing strips of an old bed sheet with kitchen cupboard ingredients: turmeric, onion skins, a few different types of tea. The central rectangle is a piece of used curtain lining with free motion embroidery, and the bugs are taken from an old machine-embroidered Zara shirt. I included blanket stitch as it is the most comforting and satisfying of all the stitches, and gives me a feeling of home.
• Patch by Kelda
  My patch is an excerpt of a cable jumper I knitted for my boyfriend, using leftover wool. Knitting is my way to creatively express myself; to relax; to sustainably produce my own clothing; to show people I love them by making items for them; to find community through other knitters; to connect to both of my nans, who taught me to knit from an early age. I think that the artistic value of handmade knitted items is overlooked because of their practical nature. I know that my maternal grandmother found great joy in knitting items for my mum and her sister, her grandchildren, and any other person that would take a knitted hat, jumper or doll (i.e. most of their neighbour’s children). She put a lot of thought and effort into making these items, such as a jumper she self-drafted for my mum featuring a silhouetted witch flying across the moon. She accidentally knitted the broomstick facing the wrong way, but that is what makes these items even more precious! I feel lucky that whenever I’ve made an item for someone, they have appreciated the time and creative effort I’ve put into it. Similarly, I treasure the items that both my grandmothers have knitted for me over the years. I’m grateful for how this often overlooked craft strengthens my connection to myself, my community and my family.