Further proving the fact that never throwing anything away can be a good thing, this scrap is left from I stitched back in high school, circa 1974. I remember the fabric distinctly, but what it became has faded. I was big on patching and repurposing even then, inspired at first by the Neil Young album cover from After the Gold Rush released in August 1970.
Neil Young's After The Gold Rush cover. Patching credited to Susan Young, Neil's first wife.
The music and the fashion were very inspirational to us. My across-the-street-neighbor was so enamored of the look he requested I stitch up his very un-holey Levi 501's to replicate the style. Sadly, I didn't whip out my Brownie and snap a photo. It was difficult days. I would have had to have had film, attached one of those bulbs that flashed once and then had to be tossed, take the pic, wait until the rest of the roll was used, get my mom to take me the processing shop, wait two weeks while the film was processed, get my mom to take me back, and then hope the photo had actually turned out, which it often didn't!
Just like my Brownie camera
Neil Young wearing jeans patched by his wife, Susan
I did my own take on the look by taking a pair of another neighbor's discarded Levi cords and turning them into a skirt by cutting them off short, opening the crotch and adding scraps of fabric. I love the stitching process so much that I kept going and going and ended up with a maxi-length skirt that had a trumpet shape. Again, no photos, and sadly, I gave it away.
So, as always, my work is imbued with memory. I just don't often spend the time documenting the memories with words.