Found Cloth Meets Found Buttons

A little post about the Found Cloth.

My first instinct was to isolate its beautiful marks by weaving it with the shiniest, finest, whitest damask I could find. My in-laws recently gave me a set of their old people's linen towels, with permission to do what I wished.

But. To my mind, this path would make Found Cloth a thing of beauty alone. And it just isn't. It is part of a hard and chaotic life- not only is this something left behind by a person following a tragic path, it also turns out to be a hospital sheet.

This chaos, this hardship is all part of its beauty. Certainly the life it was part of is responsible for some of its beauty- it would not have been out rough in the elements, in the little strip of meadow that runs along the train tracks, gathering marks and colour but for that life.

So. I worked some of the best parts of Found Cloth into a panel last night-it is the third panel from the top in the photo. I used a pattern I made on Jude Hill's weaving assistant that would feature big chunks of Found Cloth's marks. I used lace trims, pillow cases and tablecloths-very obviously domestic textiles- to make its background. Like Found Cloth, they are marked and dyed with flowers, berries, sunshine and rust. Some of the dye stuff comes from the same meadow where I found Found Cloth in fact.

At the bottom of this whole long piece, I'm adding three points- woven- which I will trim with my collection of found and shell buttons...I wove one up quickly, below. Lost/found buttons! Like Found Cloth!

I think I want Found Cloth's beauty to be derived from its bigger more complex story, not just its looks. I want it to be a story that refers to 'home' as much as 'not home'; about the beauty of the place it was lost as much as the risks of life out rough. I want it to be discarded and cherished, lost and found.