Sewing with fabric scraps from the trash

I am the hole in the flute that the Christ’s breath moves through.
Listen to the music.
Hafiz

Asking the question: What if…

What if… some of my Daily Art Cards were made from fabric?

What if… I played with fabric scraps from my mothers sewing trash?

What if… other peoples leftovers are my true material? What if I need nothing but that?

What if… I’m just a tiny hole in a flute in the hand of the divine?

It sure would save me a lot of money, time and energy if I was content with what I find laying around, what I’m given and what just floats my way…

I love the randomness of playing with other peoples trash, a.k.a. the leftovers that are thrown away when someone else is finished. What will I find when they empty their desk into the trash bin and leave…
What did they cut away, leave behind? What did they not see or need – that I can pick up and blow life into? Mom’s quilting trash is tangled threads, tiny pieces of fabric sewn together in rows, bits and pieces of nothing that can be turned into little somethings. Daily Art Cards!

Imagine how much beautiful trash every artist throws away every day? And not just artist’s trash, but papers and materials from everyday use, that are not even considered materials; at the office, restaurant, fabric, library, farm, packing station, store, woodwork shop. I don’t want to think about the waste of it all. The big piles of pretty things that is just wasted.

What if I could put it all together into a field of flowers? Use some fabric scraps and make something.

What if life was as simple as that? Sew together trash into art. It’s doable if you reach out and ask the people you know for their unused “stuff”. Over the years I’ve been given a lot of excess stuff that I think of as treasures. Some I don’t need (or want), but I give it on further. I take care of stuff that I feel sorry for, because I know if I don’t take it with me it will end up in the trash, without reach.

I am often given peoples scrap fabric, leftover yarn and papers. Collected stickers, tickets, photos not suited for the fancy album, scrapbook papers to small for anyone else to use, read magazines (that I browse and cut through and then leave to kindergarten children for continuous play or to the recycle station) etc. etc. It all ends up with me…

This is my first post for (but not the first time I mention it) the collaborative what-iffing effort that Jude describes on her site Crazy Quilting Revisited;

We are asking questions about technique and rules and style using the traditional Crazy Quilt framework as a jumping off point. We have taken a pledge to share our questions and answers and to use each other as a jumping off point.

I’m adding these art cards to the What if flickr pool The Crazy Quilting Revisited. Join in and don’t be afraid to be a little bit crazy like me, if you’re reading this blog you probably are already!

The art I make comes from the divine, but yeah, the material is sometimes just trash. This time it came from mom’s trash basket on her sewing table:

She’s been working on baby quilts and other projects this autumn.

The sound of the sewing machine humming away through layers of fabric is inspiring. It promise quality and energy in her life as the art does in mine.