Letters
Lazy Sunday: The Living Cloth Around Us
Dear Kay,
I’m getting to the point that Melanie Falick’s Making a Life conversations are one of my favorite things to knit to. Melanie returns today with a great conversation with Jordana Munk Martin and Mia Morikawa.
These women are working in the realm of textiles. Jordana has created an exquisite site, Tatter.com. She writes: “The mission of TATTER is to promote the consciousness of cloth by considering, and celebrating cloth’s intrinsic and essential relationship in human life—through portals that include but are not limited to art, shelter, comfort, science, commerce, and culture.”
Fair warning: you will quickly find yourself lost in this world of cloth, textiles, makers, and thinking. Also: she hosts the Barbara Walker Swatch Library, where you can see swatches for virtually all the stitch patterns that Barbara Walker collected.
As for Mia Morikawa, she is deep into a clothing and lifestyle company, 11.11, that creates beautiful clothes, home textiles, and fabrics, working closely with artisans in India.
They’re working with handspun, organic, naturally dyed yarn, as well—don’t miss the gorgeous video toward the end of this conversation.
So much to chew on here—intelligent women who are thinking carefully about sustainability, beauty, and humanity.
Love,
Ann
Ann, I agree! Melanie has given us a precious gift. This series is a drink of cool refreshing water, offering a moment of relief from the brittleness of a pandemic. Watching an episode while I knit leaves me feeling more grounded and connected. And, it also introduced me to Erin Gafill, for which I’m very grateful. I am now a student in Erin’s weekly art class, aptly named, Drinking from a Cold Spring, as it has refreshed my creative spirit.
The short video at the end of the conversation is truly wonderful.
Tatter is a wonderful place! I found it somehow this year, and love to poke around. They have interesting and reasonably priced short classes – I took one about how to embroider shiny things onto cloth (little mirrors etc) and I’m sure I’ll take other classes. Can’t wait to listen to this interview.
Thank you so much for showing this! I was so excited to participate in this and then I missed it .Chaotic week!
Anyone interested in both textiles and reading humorous thrillers might enjoy Jane Thornley’s “The Carpet Cipher.” Her heroine is also in a series of books beginning with “The Warp in the Weave,” where she’s obsessed by knitting. Good fun all around.
Amazing young ladies ! What a treat to listen to them ! Thank you
Thanks for sharing this, afterwards! I’m usually teaching at the time these conversations are happening, and I don’t want to miss them. Perfect!
What I took away from this is how disconnected I am with the world and the wish that I could develop my senses the way Mia and Jordana, Allison and Melanie have. The video was deeply moving to me. Thank you for introducing me to this.
Bravo to anyone who collects Barbara Walker swatches, but the ones posted to the link above are a tiny tiny fraction of the total number of stitch patterns in the BW treasuries. Anyone interested in seeing thousands (really!) of stitch patterns need only check out the Barbara Walker stitch treasury books, where they are shown knitted up in all their glory, organized by type of pattern.