How cloth feeds memory

 

Forgive the overload of images. It just pleases my eye like a flashy sunrise.

I dragged my heels finishing this bag. Finding just the right shade and texture of denim to make the strap, I cannibalized a never-worn denim jacket. The sleeves never fit me right, but now it's an amazing vest with great pockets outside and in. It will get some interesting embroidery in the future.

This is the right hip, including the front and back pockets - all that was left of Jimmy's jeans. Finishing had a sad finality, but I took my time and chose each element for its capacity to delight me. And I am delighted. 

It's just the right size to hold my Tarot, wallet, a small pad, and a pen. The pockets are deep for keys, change, and a cell. The back pocket will carry and receive messages.

I love that I can look at each scrap and know the provenance. That fish came from a dress that I wore (without a bra!) in the 70s. Those valiant fish.

The feathers were inspired by Jude's Magic Feather project on a piece from an Italian trousseau circa 1940s. I knew the owner of the tablecloth, Ginny A. These things came to me after she died, and her family left so many of her things to be trashed. Boxes of cloth and her memories.

We bought a terrific, gas-guzzling Oldsmobile Vista Cruiser station wagon off her. "Bluebird" was our tanklike kid-hauler for many years. We would be at the A&P at the same time, she driving her brand new wagon and hating it, and offering to swap to get the Olds back. 

Bluebird had the good grace to finally croak just about when gas prices had everyone scrambling for foreign cars with less greedy engines, which led me to my first Honda. No turning back. 

The gold critters on the teal background were saved from "Firmament," which I sometimes worked on during Jim's chemo.

The blue cloth came from a beach find on a long-ago OG family vacation near Newport.

It was so ugly when I found it. The babies mentioned in that post are almost 21. One of the twins is nearing the end of his struggle with brain cancer. The family turmoil up there continues.

Real tools hung from that loop sometimes.

I used to come up behind him when he was cooking and slip my hand into that front pocket, and he would say, "Is there something I can help you find, young lady?"

This embellishment came from a dress that I bought at GW back when anything white and tagged 100% cotton came home with me on senior discount day. Most of it went out in scrap bundles. Many of you may even have bits of it. Gauze is so nice to needle. You can push it around like clay. And those tassels!

This was one of the first wild hearts that I embroidered like potato chips in recent history. I still have a clutch of them. 

That glass cross? Acquired at a bead show attended with my friend Jan back when we were still making jewelry. I used to bring my purchases home and dump them into a tub. My bead soup drove some people crazy.

My intention is to load up the Tarot and give readings under my Mayday banners. Still researching for a suitable street corner.

 Tomorrow, I'm making a big banner:

                IMPEACH NOW!

And some day, this little bag will make a perfectly acceptable urn for our ashes to be buried somewhere under a sapling.