wish list
This week I finally got around to reading a couple of magazines that have been crying out for my attention: the May/June issues of Crafts Magazine and Embroidery. My mother lends me her copy of the latter after she has read it; the former I subscribe to myself, although I’m having doubts about whether I want to continue. For once, however, there was some significant textile content. I’m fairly sure I hadn’t come across the hyperbolic crochet reef before, but it seems such a timely project that there is almost an inevitability about it: the resurgence of knitting and crochet, environmental concerns, art as a community undertaking — it has everything. And it looks gorgeous. If you want to ogle it and/or get instructions for joining in, then do visit their website.
Alas I do not crochet to any standard worth mentioning, but I am concerned about textiles and the environment, so the next thing that caught my eye was a review of “Sustainable Fashion and Textiles“, a new book by Kate Fletcher. And not only the review, but a socking great excerpt from it as well. According to the reviewer, Fletcher has “an encyclopaedic knowledge of textiles” and analyses them all for sustainability — not just considering the way they are grown or processed to make our yarns, our fabric and our clothes, but also the ways in which different fibres need to be cared for throughout their life-cycle. Brownie points go to polyester, apparently, for its “low-impact laundering profile”.
Besides the fibre-y business, she also looks at how clothes are designed and made; and here I got a bit of a shock. “As recently as two generations ago,” says Fletcher, “textiles and garments were made and maintained by those who wore and used them, yet few people have those same skills today.” Two generations? Oh heavens. I know I passed a significant milestone last year but, given that my (very academic) school had us all doing needlework at least to the age of fifteen, that is a very ageing statement.
Anyway, speaking of birthdays, there’ll be another one along in a minute (well, a few weeks) and it’s time to help Stuart by compiling the all-important List of Acceptable Gifts for a Wife who Weaves. Kate Fletcher’s book is now on it.
And so is “Rigmaroles and Ragamuffins” by Elinor Kapp, as reviewed in the aforementioned Embroidery. The subtitle tells all: “unpicking the words we derive from textiles”. I really don’t know how I’ve lived all these generations without it. I hope it is as good as I want it to be.
I hope Stuart is taking note of your birthday present wishes!
I haven’t the faintest idea what two generations ago means! After all, some women are having children in their 40s, others are grandmothers in their mid to late 30s. I wonder if the rest of that book is more carefully written?
Two generations? Yes, that seems about right. I’m 61, went through 3 semesters of sewing in Home Ec during middle school, then learned the rest of what I know about sewing on my own. Back then you could walk into major department stores and buy fabric, patterns, notions, knitting yarns, etc. Now all of those have been relegated to “specialty stores.” Stores for knitters and quilters seem to be doing well, but I have watched sewing stores shrink and fade away.
It was not unusual for mothers of kids in my generation to sew their own clothes, and you can bet their mothers certainly did. That’s how you stayed in fashion and got well-made clothes that lasted. If you didn’t sew your own clothes, then you went to the dressmaker with your pattern and material and paid her to do it if you could.
I’m most interested in the book. I’ve been guilty of the “throwaway” culture in clothing – i.e., buy a pair of jeans or a t-shirt, wear it until it starts looking droopy or something, then throw it away. Recently I’ve been looking at getting back into sewing more of my own clothes.
And despite what the author of the book says – I’m one sewer who despises polyester. I can never get stains out, and polyester fibers retain odors even after laundering.
Thank you for the reviews. They both sound very interesting. I hope to find them in the U.S. or I may just have to look into the shipping costs from the U.K.
Am going to have to look for those. When I was a young mother, and my son was very small, I used to cut his dad’s old shirts and jeans down and remake them into toddler clothes. They were soft and comfy and had plenty of material.
We, too, had sewing classes in middle and high school — mandatory for girls. The boys all had wood working and auto mechanics.
Hmm…as for wish lists, does Stuart read your blog?
Cheers,
Jane