Journeys in Textile Practice

Salts Mill My starting point is a project brief with the theme of ' Habitat', defined as 'the natural home or environment of an animal, plant, or other organism’. The project outcome is to be a piece of work to exhibit outdoors at Saltaire Arts Trail in May 2023. Where possible the work is to include consideration of sustainable practices and materials, low impact approaches and using available materials in a creative way. Nothing immediately springs to mind. Word association turns up some creative ideas for the group but my  starting  word of 'water' didn't get me anywhere - it was inspired by the canal and river (and rain) of Saltaire on a grey January morning.    Photographs from the site visit reflect the colours of day - greys, beiges, muted greens. Limited signs of life or spring. Even the honey-coloured stone of the buildings fails to glow in the rainy morning. Some things catch my  eye: the staircases in the mill, the textures of the cobbles and stone wa...

  The pashmina from my previous post needed some TLC. It had worn through in a large area with the weave getting thin enough for holes to emerge. It had been in a cupboard for a number of years but a recent college project on mending and repair, including the increasing practice of visible mending, made me think about trying to rescue it. Rafoogari is the Indian art of invisibly mending fine fabrics including pashminas, either by patching or by using threads from the item to re-weave the fabric (ref. 1). I possess neither skill and so my approach to repair was a bit more basic or 'naive'... I added some structure to the fabric before starting by tacking some water soluble fabric in place. The ends of the pashmina had become straggly due to washing so I chopped off a few inches from one end to provide patches which were applied over the very worn areas (an approach I hadn't considered before reading about rafoogari). I then worked over the area in a couple of different cas...

     Ten or more years ago on a work trip to Pune, India I treated myself to a pashmina from the 'Kashmiri Handicraft Shop' in the city. It was a treat indeed - in a different league from other shawls I owned from when pashminas had a fashion moment in the 1990s and which were made from acrylic, lambswool or silk mixes. I was assured by the salesman that my selected pashmina was the best quality as evidenced by the fact it passed the 'ring test' and could be pulled through a finger ring. It is a very fine, diamond weave. Pashmina or  Pashm  (and Cashmere) fabric is produced from the fine hair on the belly of the  capra hircus   mountain goat (15-19 microns). It is originally from Kashmir and Ladakh but up to 90% of cashmere exports now are from China and Mongolia. There are concerns over animal welfare associated with the processes used to comb or shear the belly hair from the goats and the care and treatment of the animals involved in the mass pro...