I have been busy with moving house and other things lately, but some exciting news is that the bricolage holding page is finally up and it is the start of our collaboration with web designer Dennis Mabry on developing the full web site, coming shortly!

I have been thinking alot lately about the issue of re-localisation of our econmoy and society and have been reading the Transition Town Handbook who advocate a return to a completely local way of doing things.

It is very interesting reading, but I feel deeply unsure about this whole issue. Of course I support a more localised way of doing things, but I am not sure about the realities of it, especially considering the complexity of the global textile industry and the inter-connection between textiles that we buy here in the UK and the lives of the people who make the textiles, mainly in the developing world.

This is a point that is often raised in relation to the local/global dilemma - If we take away the trading and production opportunities from countries like Bangladesh, will those economies survive? If this does happen, is it not our duty to offer those countries an alternative or atleast to support them in building their own local resilience?

I am passionate about supporting all the amazing Indian craftspeople and communities I saw in India, and the best way for me to do this is to offer either my design or marketing skills, and to help them access global markets for their products. But where would this leave any UK collaboration with Indian textile producers if the UK manages to meet all of its own textile needs?

It is a complex issue, and that is only the 'global' aspect. I will think about the local aspect in my next post.

The workshops at our Brixton market space are all finished now and it was great to see such enthusiasm for learning all the traditional textile skills like darning and patchwork. Katherine May's 'quilting & patchwork' workshop attracted 9 lovely people who sat in a circle, stitched and chatted last Saturday afternoon.

Katherine had found some hexagon templates which had been cut out from an old cornflakes boxes in a charity shop and these were used to cut out the shapes from the pile of vintage fabric that was provided. Some people had also bought along some of their own pieces of old fabric and were inspired by images and examples from Katherine's work. 

Several people commented how 'low tech' it was to be simply sitting, cutting up old pieces of fabric using an old cardboard template and hand-stitching them together. Sadly this is not what we spend our leisure time doing any more, although it brings such a feeling of calm and satisfaction.

All the participants went away with a small sample piece of patchwork and there are possible plans for Katherine to run it as a regular meet-up.

There are more images of the workshops on the bricolage flikr site and you can read Emma Neuberg of the Slow Textiles group comments on it here. 

Our time at the temporary space in Brixton Market is coming to an end and we are organising a series of textile making workshops before we go.

Barley Massey from Fabrications will be running a darning & mending workshop on Thursday 21st from 6:30pm and Katherine May from bricolage will run her quilting & patchwork workshop on Saturday 23rd January from 2:30pm, followed by a tea party to celebrate our last day in the market!

To book a place or for more info email info@bricolageproject.com

bricolage in brixton market

bricolage, the textile collective I am part of, have taken over an empty space in Brixton Market for two months till the end of January.

We are selling some of our work and getting to know this old part of the market, which is looking to be regenerated. Several other small businesses and creative enterprises have been given spaces, and there will be a new deli, several vintage shops, a Transition Town community centre and art exhibitions.

We have already had  a great response in the lead-up to Xmas and for January we are planning a series of textile workshops. More info will be on the bricolage website shortly.

Textile markets

More from my travels in India.....we visited a large craft fair in central Delhi which showed the work of the many craft NGO's from all the different regions of India. All the different regional skills were on show and all the products were beautifully made. Obviously the organisations were marketing their products for a local, Indian audience however I couldn't help but see it from my own, UK-centric point of view. 

If these organisations were hoping to provide real financial support for their local craft comunitites, selling to a UK or US market would be ideal. However, I got the feeling that this kind of strategy is desirable but rarely obtainable. The main stumbling block was the design of the products. The craft skill is evident but many of the products were the same and there was a lack of design innovation.     

I have talked in an old post about the problems of designers who go into these communities to offer design and marketing knowledge, but who then leave after a few months and the new design ideas fail to embed in the community. It feels that the real design knowledge needs to come from local people who have been trained in design. 

This was on my mind as I walked through the fair and was pleasantly surprised to find a range of stunning, hand-stitched quilts in the most vibrant, modern colours, that looked like a Rothko painting on acid! This was exactly what I was hoping to find amongst all the other repetitive products. Based in West Bengal, the enterprise is run by a wonderful woman who creates employment to help women off the streets. The women create these beautiful hand stitched quilts using 'kantha', which is a small running stitch and is the most popular embroidery stitch practiced by women in the rural areas in West Bengal.

It turns out that the colour combinations for the fabrics are chosen by a designer based in Delhi who offers his services to the organisation. The 'designer' input was obvious, but the ideal scenario would be for someone from within the community to have the training and knowledge to make these very vital 'design' and marketing decisions. 

Textiles and water

Going to India and seeing how textile and craft production works there has been a real eye opener for me. It has made me realise that the issues around sustainability in relation to the textile industry are so complex, especially in the context of India, a country with such a history of textile production both at the craft and industrial level.

Visiting this block print factory in Gujurat, I learnt about the closed-loop system they have developed within the factory that filters and cleans the waste water.  Once the water goes through this filtration system it comes out completely clean, and with the addition of chlorine, would be drinkable. All this cleaned water is then re-used and because they also save gallons of rainwater in their large water tanks during the monsoon, they rarely need to turn on the tap. This is amazing considering that they are using synthetic dyes and also considering the vast amounts of water that are used for block and silks screen printing and for dyeing of fabric. So they are being resource efficient and treating their waste water responsibly.

However, it was interesting that they chose not to use natural dyes. They believe that natural dyes do not work reliably at this scale of production and that there is a lack of consistency in the colour, all arguments that I have heard before in relation to natural dyes. Seeing the realities of the challenges that one is faced with at a factory-floor level and the different solutions that have been found, was an eye-opener. If a factory is able to treat their waste water (containing synthetic dyes) so efficiently, clearly natural dyes are not the only answer to a more sustainable textile industry.