I had never given fabric much thought. Clothes: yes. I grew up with little, but the little I had was always clean and prim, and we were expected to look the same.

In high school, I learned cooking and sewing basics in Home Economics. My prom dress was homemade (not by me!!!). My son’s diapers were handmade (by me!!!), then some clothing, and the first work suit I owned I made. I am not a seamstress and can barely hold my own when it comes to sewing, or knitting for that matter, but the love I have had for almost a lifetime is not so much for clothes but for fabrics.

Then two things happened.

  • I knew the answer to a question in a super cool Marketing class. The professor was disheartened that no one could come up with a solution. I did, but was too shy to speak up. It was the day I realized the Fashion Merchandise program was not for me. I was devastated because I had the answer but couldn’t give it.
  • The intricacies of fabric development, from the fiber source (sheep, worm, plant, chemical extraction) to yarn, then on to the melodious act of weaving, was something I got and could express. In one particular class, we had to explain the weaving process in an exam, and I did so by drawing the machine and the yarns turning into cloth. I got an A and almost immediately switched my major to Textile Technology.

“… I was fortunate to learn from a master.”

“A master? Masters don’t exist anymore. They lived long ago in golden ages.”  She is dark and open, new to him.

“Oh, but they do exist. They’re just hidden in pockets here and there, like forgotten dinosaurs, extinguished softly by our blindness, quietly receding into valleys of forgetfulness.”

Like A blue Thread
of Corbusiers and Masters