UPCYCLING, EMBROIDERY AND THE RED BOY

There is something almost magical about embroidery, as if each stitch was a tiny time capsule. The moment the thread first met the fabric seems to be frozen inside it, holding the heartbeat of the person who once created it. When you touch the embroidery it's as though you can feel the whisper of another time, the soft echo of time and stories stitched in to every line.

Of course you can feel this sense of timelessness in all kinds of crafts but there's something especially profound about embroidery, especially cross- stitch. It's as if each tiny cross holds a moment forever, captured and sealed within the threads.

I love finding old pieces of embroideries at auctions and flea markets and giving them new life by creating something fresh from them. Thre's a kind of joy in continuing the story, adding my own stitches to a piece that already holds someone else's time, care and imagination.

The new corset sewing pattern, Titania, is perfect to use together with old, embroidered pieces, though of course you can use any fabric you like. It is a sewing pattern made for upcycling so the materials you use might already carry a story of their own. Or perhaps you make it from leftover scarps, and then the corset will begin to create it's own brand new memories.

My new, upcyled corset is made from the sewing pattern Titania and it is created from an old embroidery that I found at an auction. The embroidery is based on a painting from 1825 called The Red boy by Sir Thomas Lawrence. The boy is Charles William Lambton, son to the earl of Durham and brought up at Lambton castle in the north-east of England. Charles was 7 years old when the painting was made, the future lay ahead of him but sadly he died of turbercolusis at the young age of 13. Two centuries have passed since the painting was created and it fells like an honour to carry the Red boy Charles into its next century with this embroidered corset. It really feels like upcycling makes memories become wearable again, don't you think so too?