For bun
Sadie Alexander
Massey University College of Creative Arts
My work is an entirely sustainable, handmade quilt which explores how slow, contemplative textile processes can foster a reconnection with my practice, deepening both personal and material relationships. Emerging as a response to burnout, it honours my childhood self’s fearless approach to creativity. As my University honours project, this was the result of a year of research through theory, experimentation and reflective journalling about the joy and connection that lies within the act of creating. I chose intentionally slow, strictly handmade processes to investigate mindfulness through making. Every element of this quilt has been lovingly crafted with my own hands, through natural dyeing, eco-printing, spinning, stitching, and felting with foraged and repurposed natural materials. I used only secondhand linen, cotton and wool fabric and fallen leaves, bark, vegetable waste and flowers. The front of the quilt is a textile collage through patchwork of many smaller, intuitive and experimental pieces of natural dyes and ecoprints. The quilting yarn and batting were crafted from waste wool - the yarn hand spun from fiber and the batting created as one whole piece on a felt loom.