Order Out of Chaos

There is something almost magical about taking some loose cloth and thread, applying some stiches and cuts, and combining them into something meaningful. It’s a way of bringing order out of chaos. The hum of my sewing machine and snip of my scissors turn what was once a collection of abstract materials into an organized creation. And as I go through this process of teasing out the individual materials that will make up my project, so too do I work through my scattered thoughts and emotions. As I combine these materials into my creation, I am able to set them out in a single expression of all that was once frenzied and chaotic within me. It’s how I deal with all the craziness of my life. It’s how I create my happiness.

Growing up, crafting was one of my favourite activities. From as early on as I can remember I was sewing Barbie clothes and trinkets for myself and my friends. As adulthood set in and I turned my attention to careers and kids, I continued to feel the pull of my tools. They sat in a closet, dormant, but not forgotten. They waited patiently for the time when I would need them again. And as it turned out, I had never stopped needing them.

By the time I was in my early 30’s I had realized my life was missing something big. Those loose threads in my mind had been fraying and tangling for far too long, and I needed to do something about it in a big way. My shift came, as it often will, from a bout of inspired cluelessness. My daughters had been competitive Irish dancers for several years, and I was shelling out hundreds on costumes for them. I wondered, suddenly, if those tools I had lying around, my once good friends, could become useful once more.

It took a while, but I managed to create my first Irish Dance Costume. It was put together correctly, fit my daughter, and was made exactly how she had pictured it. From a practical standpoint, it was a big success. But as I had fumbled through trial and error after trial and error putting the Costume together, something even more important happened. Those thoughts, feelings, and memories that had been piling up in my mind like the fabrics in my closet had been worked loose, smoothed out, and woven together. In other words, they had become manageable. Each cut I made to my fabrics eased my mind and relaxed the snarled web of my life, and each stitch I put in organized them into a coherent, manageable, singular expression. I stood back and looked at my very first Costume. My mind was clearer than it had been in years, I felt a swelling pride in this beautiful thing I had made, and I knew that this was what I was meant to do.

Slowly but surely my business grew. More and more clients requested Costumes of various sizes, shapes, colours and designs (and each costume must be entirely unique). As it turns out, having the right tools for the job sure does help things along. My sewing machines were traded in for newer models, digitizing and embroidery technology was purchased, and ever more diverse and exciting fabrics and threads were collected. No matter how advanced any of these things became, however, there has never been any doubt about the importance of a good pair of scissors. Without a way of navigating the tiny, tight corners of applique on a costume and avoiding fraying the intricately placed embroidery, or cutting out the custom measured patterns just right, my dresses would never come to be. My first pair of Fiskars (which I still have to this day) were the Original Orange Handled Scissors and truly were a game-changer in this department. They were sharper, cleaner, and easier to handle than any other scissors I had ever used. Not only were my dresses cleaner with them because they stay sharper longer, but their easy-to-handle design saved my hands from those dreaded blisters and cramps all designers know about. Over the past 25 years I have acquired a selection of Fiskars scissors, snips, and rotary cutters. I truly don’t know what I would do without them.

Of course, making a career out of a craft that I love is amazing. But the creative bug in me isn't always so easily sated, and I’ve branched out to other projects as inspiration has hit me. Sometimes I am in need of a more precise project, with tight stiches and tiny cuts, to put me into that state of extreme concentration in which my subconscious has a chance to work itself out. Other times I need something looser and flowing, with swooping cuts and only a stitch here and there, to let my bottled-up emotions flow free. Whatever the case may be, by the time I’ve taken the materials and assembled them into my craft, I’ve managed to express just what I needed to. It’s this pastime that has allowed me to maintain some semblance of sanity throughout all the trials and tribulations I have faced over the years.

One of the ironies of life is that times of grief, sorrow, and change can result in something new and unexpected, and maybe even beautiful. It’s funny how intuitive the human mind can be. During one of the lowest and most chaotic times in my life, the pull for something tactile and “real” brought me to a place where I started making Faux Taxidermy. I started with modelling clay and lo and behold an animal head emerged. I try to infuse each bust with its own personality. Once I’ve cast the head the real creativity begins. I cover each head in fabrics which make each one a unique piece of art. I use my Fiskars rotary cutters to get a sharp cut along each fabric strip so I don’t get any fraying. For some of the bigger heads I use recycled tweed jackets and picking stitches and cutting them apart is made much easier with the right pair of scissors. The strips are then arranged and the concentration of placing each one is meditative and healing.

The faux taxidermy evolved into a combination of the embroidery skills I’d learned through making Irish Dance Costumes and my newly acquired ability to render animals. Through a desire to capture my daughter’s beloved cat Howard, I got to work. Using applique, embroidery, lovely fabrics and my digitizing program, along came the “Pets in Fancy Costumes” line. Everyone loves animals in outfits, right?

But it wasn’t until the Covid-19 pandemic hit that my crafting went from a way of life to a way of saving my life.

It’s no secret that the last year and a half has been hard for everyone. We all remember the fear of those first few months, when lockdowns started for the first time and uncertainty about just how serious this situation would be and how long it would last abounded. We can still feel the loneliness and dread as we were isolated from our friends and families. We will never forget the horror of seeing the climbing rates of infection and mortality on every media outlet and news channel, and living with the knowledge of families being torn apart and lives crumbling around the world.

That’s a heck of a lot to sort through.

And there was a good long while where it was simply too much for me to sort through.

Months past and no inspiration came. How could I express what I felt inside when I didn’t even know what I was feeling? When feeling it may be too painful to ever bear? A sort of despairing numbness set in, with only the odd panic attack every day or two to break it up. I sat inside, isolated, watching the world go by as a spectator as I rotated between looking at my TV screen and looking out my window.

So it was just chance that I was looking out my window when I saw it happen.

There’s a tree in my yard that the neighbourhood birds seem to think is prime real estate. I love hearing their songs as they perch there, watching them build their nests and feed their babies, watching those babies eventually fly away, all the while knowing that eventually there will be another cycle of birds coming to take their place. This year, it was doves. One day I came outside to see the mother dove sitting on the ground in a peculiar way. Concerned, I walked over to check on her. It turns out her baby had fallen out of its nest. But instead of giving up on him, she took up sentry on the ground, protecting him and comforting him at the risk of her own safety. I wanted to help, but it was already too late. The baby was gone, but I kept watching through my window as that mother dove kept sitting there for almost three days. When she finally flew away, I couldn’t help but wonder if it was with a broken heart.

Maybe some of this is personification on my part, but this is what I saw, and this is what woke me up inside.

Every person touched by this pandemic has been someone’s son or daughter, has been a mother or father, a grandmother or grandfather, has had friends and relatives and lives. I watch the pain the world is in like I watched that dove through my window, I feel the pain that has been caused in my own life, and I grieve. And that’s when the strands in my mind and heart finally started coming together once more.

This time, I was crafting not only to express myself, but to make order out of the chaos that had overtaken the entire world. I created designs that depicted the world as I saw it. I set to work using my tools to turn my fabrics and threads into depictions of the world as I saw it. As I cut so close to the edge of my satin stiches, my scissors helped my separate my panic, dread, loneliness, hopefulness, sadness, and a million other thoughts and emotions into individual focus. With each layer of embroidery thread, my needles helped me weave these thoughts and emotions back together in a coherent and cohesive way. I put the finishing touches on my project and it all came together for me. These images I had created were a manifestation of all the turmoil I felt inside in a singular expression.

They were, of course, images of grieving birds, seen through a window as I had been seeing the world for months now. Birds that represented the victims of the virus and the ones who loved them. Birds that had struggled like so many people all over the world.

Macabre, you say? Too dark, too serious, too sad? You may be right. But so is the world right now, and this craft is how I have made sense of it. And I have full plans to return to more cheerful subjects just as soon as the world becomes a more cheerful place once again. It’s coming soon, with hope on the horizon, and in the meantime I hope we can all find ways of dealing with this tragedy in our own ways.

The story of my crafting is, in a nutshell, the story of my life. It follows me through all my adventures, and I follow it where it takes me. It brings me joy, just as much as it allows me to express my pain. I create my happiness with a few needles and a pair of good scissors. There’s something almost magical about using these tools to breath life into a spark of creativity, to express a thought or idea, and to bring order out of chaos.