Wabi Sabi Placemats

I take scraps and make placemats.  It's mindless work and when completed I have something I can USE and not something to add to my pile of finished (stored) fabric works.  I can understand why my friend K only made bed sized quilts.  No wall art.  Usable ONLY.  The fact that, even she, has a closet full of bed quilts in pillowcases, doesn't escape me.

It does keep me from making too many things without a purpose, though.  I wish I was a better seamstress and could fashion "daring" wardrobe additions from my fabric stash.  Jackets, vests and even bags. I used to be fearless about set in sleeves.  I view homemade clothing with a profound sense of pity these days.  It all looks way "too" homemade.  Not even "primitive".  Careless workmanship.  And that includes most home knitting.

I tried knitting while on summer vacation after my Freshman year in college.  I knit a brown acrylic scarf.  It was wide and very, very long.  I would knit until I ran out of yarn.  Then unravel and roll all the yarn into a huge ball and begin again, having great difficulty with the beginning chain.  I liked knitting.  I did not like the brown scarf.  I had no hopes of getting my parents to buy me any other yarn, in fact, I was very lucky to have had that much brown yarn.  So, the brown was all I was ever going to have that summer.  I remember being very happy.  Clicking the needles.  Knitting.  Unpurposeful.

Later, in the early 70's I moved onto Crewel Embroidery and Bargello.  I still have the Bargello Pillow I made.  Endless stitching.  I don't know where the ripple crochet afghan is located.  I made that in the late 70's to match a sofa I no longer own.  Recently, I came across the elaborate (and very expensive) cross stitch sampler kit I purchased in my Early American Phase in the 80's. An authentic design in traditional American colors.  eBay?

I had a smaller and more portable linen piece that I traveled with in the 80's.  It was easy to work on in airports and on planes.  I bought everything on a Swiss ski trip and copied the design off an antique runner in the foyer of the ski chalet onto graph paper.  I traveled with graph paper, I guess.  I started work on the piece and one of the ladies serving coffee at the guest house asked to see the "back".  I turned it over and she expressed "disgust" at the sloppy backside.  Showed me how it was supposed to be worked.  I set to work picking all my finished work (to their amazement) out to begin again.  I was given free coffee for the remainder of my visit.  Excellence in everything in Switzerland.

I still have that piece, as yet unfinished, but always ready to travel.  Red cross stitches on a very nice creamy linen.  Very Swiss.  The best sort of souvenir.