Making Threads

One of the other things I wanted to try was finding threads in the environment to stitch with. This was again based on the symbol of a line to represent walking a path.

I remembered a colleague teaching our students how to make their own yarns using recycled materials so I thought I would try twisting yarns from plant material a

nd other found materials. The first results were not that great. In February - March all the long grasses are quite brittle and at that point there were no green shoots. The 'threads' I did make were very clumpy or just found synthetic rope.

Today I decided to have another try at making threads. This time I decided to take some reels of sewing thread with me and I used this to bind around the collected plant material. The most successful ones used either a whole clump of stems (like the goosegrass) or some soft pliable material around a firm flexible stem (moss around an ivy stem). I would like to try making a record of a walk by adding onto one long thread.

Below is a little bit of stitch I managed to do using bindweed (convulvulus) stems stitched through linen fabric. I tried lots of other things but most just slit, broke or were too big to go through the cloth. I think this is because a lot of the stems were dead and dried-out. I also managed a bit of stitch with a 'snow berry' (not sure that is the right name) as a bead.