By the time I’d searched for the dress pattern, bought it, as well
as the fabric, sewed it and then dyed it, I realized that the ‘handmade’ cotton
dress listing on Etsy was not so outrageously priced after all. When you hand
make, it is slow, involved and takes time, and sometimes as you work, the idea, as well as the work changes. So of course for the truly handmade product, the
price is justified even if at first it seems a little high. This experience
with the handmade dress brings me to handmade felt and something which has been
playing on my mind for some time.
 |
| As you can see my Boho dress still requires finishing and adding buttons |
 |
| Dyed with eucalyptus leaves, onion skins and rust. This dress is made of cotton with silk used for the mandarin collar, front opening, sleeves and hem edges. |
I make slow felt, which is what makes my partner say that
I’ll never make money, because I can’t produce it fast enough. He has come up
with all sorts of ingenious ideas (on paper) to speed up my felt making –
including an agitating table; and has been perplexed and frustrated when I haven't enthused over his ideas. Now if you
speed up your felt in the dryer or washing machine don’t call it handmade,
because I am the one who makes the handmade felt, and who needs to put in the
hours on 50,000 rolls or whatever it takes to get a well-made felt cloth and garment. I recall throwing a beautiful worsted wool jumper into the washer on a
non-wool wash cycle to save water and ending up with a matted shrunken ‘thing’
that wouldn’t even fit a doll. I wouldn’t pay for this machine matted process,
and yet this is what some felt makers are doing and calling it ‘handmade’. What
this accelerated process does is enable the producer to produce lots and at a
lower price. Now given ‘handmade’ felt,
which has not been hand made at all (but machine assisted felted) has a lower
price, the consumer won’t know what makes my sort of slow felt priced twice or
three times as much. I’m not suggesting that the maker stop throwing it in the
dryer or washer – just don’t call it handmade.
In the 19th century when the Jacquard loom was
introduced to weaving it made the hand woven cottage industry for ‘paisley’
obsolete. These weavers from the town
called Paisley who worked the hand looms earned quite a good wage for their
skill but most of them ended up in the poor house because of the automation
introduced by the machine. The market
was flooded by the cheap paisley shawl (never mind that the Paisley was an
‘imitation’ of the Asian kind) and the cottage industry went bust. I wouldn’t like to see handmade felt go the
same way because some producers are flooding the handmade market with their
fast and cheap products…
What is it about our society that promotes the fast – the
fast food, the fast clothes, the fast buck, the fast car, the fast girl or boy,
the fast path going to nowhere? Few of us appreciate the slow, the arduous, the
deep and complex. Or could it be that
I’m a person who likes to make it harder on herself? I cried when I ruined that
jumper and I would cry to have to throw my felt into the washing machine. And I'm not going to.
 |
| Dawn Edwards and me modelling my genuinely handmade jackets |
