Hearing the Past Click into Place

It's a poor sort of memory that only works backwards.

Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

What’s your earliest childhood memory?

Can you clearly remember being in your cot? Or do your memories start around the time you attended kindergarten or pre-school?  And I often wonder what is a real remembered memory and what is a memory grown from heard stories?

My mother once told me that when I was about four I cut the lining out of my bedroom curtains. What? Who me? The child who feared getting in trouble and was always seeking approval? Surely not! At the time I wondered what mum was talking about. That memory was buried deep… but slowly it came back to me. From one prompt the blanks started to fill and I was in my four year old head. This wasn’t a heard story, I remembered.

I had taken a piece of curtain lining from down low (obviously…small child…) beneath the window sill, where the curtains covered the plaster wall. Logical. No need for that extra layer where early morning light wouldn’t be trying to access the room.

And my memory of how the lining of those curtains looked after my work with the scissors is crystal clear. Think of the neat, straight cut that an experienced seamstress using sharp stainless steel blades would create - it was the exact opposite. I had used my coveted yellow ‘safety’ scissors for the task. (Those scissors are featured in the adjoining photo.)

Four year old me required fabric. I saw fabric and to my eyes it was excess fabric. I took the fabric. And used it. The priority in my four year old mind? My doll’s bed needed new linen. The decorating gene kicked in early.

That need for fabric has never really left me and should never have been ignored. 

Coming from a long line of women with exceptional sewing and handicrafts skills, I learnt to crochet, knit, sew, quilt, patchwork, cross-stitch and embroider. My cupboard of UFOs (unfinished objects) would match the best of them. 

And I collected so many pretty fabrics along the way, many never touched for fear I would ‘ruin’ them. Years ago I even neatly cut samples and made myself a collage of fabric samples I fancied and put them in a timber frame.

When I think back, there were so many whispers from ‘the universe’, including that earliest memory. And I ignored every one of them. Every. Single. One. It took a very random decision to sign up for course for it all to fall into place.

SURFACE PATTERN DESIGN.

Those three words that cause friends to say, “What’s that?”

Surface Pattern Design, the process of creating artwork and transforming it into a seamless repeat as a digital file. This process exhilarates and challenges me, and I find joy in each and every step.

I once read (and I am loosely paraphrasing here) that when your past clicks into place, and you feel inspired and connected, and opportunities seem to magically appear….you have found your purpose.

It probably took me way longer than it should have but - I am a Surface Pattern Designer.

Here are those industrious scissors that can still cut fabric. Just. I tested them on this piece of my Nelly and Isobel fabric called Cross Stitch (denim). Available here.