a few details

the memory cloth is now assembled - there should be a few more fabric pieces to add at the family gathering but the structure allows for that

meanwhile a little bit about some of the details i incorporated - i felt that some of the fabrics would be better used in a different way to the rest, for example

charlotte sent me a pot-holder which her grand mother, my Tante Marthe, had crocheted - i have had several of these myself and still have yarn from some i unravelled when they got too manky to use - i could not cut it into strips as it would have fallen apart so i separated the two layers, one layer became a flower embellishment








the other, white, layer was unravelled and turned into knitted cord lengths to use as links among the fabric strips


the white tulle frill is one of several made from Laurence's wedding veil, sent by Marie-Christine









more of the veil was used as a nest for the dove worn by her sister Severine at her own wedding









as part of her bundle Mimi sent a maple leaf, for canadian links - i attached it to a small piece of lace made by my great grand mother Marie Legrand (Adelphe Delvallet's wife) - this was rescued from her clothing and displayed with several other pieces in a frame in my parents' home for many years (my mother Monique is Adelphe and Marie's grand-daughter and Mimi's aunt)

Marie-Christine also sent me a bow tie worn by her father Jean Delvallet's son - born just before Adelphe's death Jean would have been 100 this year - sadly he didn't live that long, his memory is still very much with me as my Tonton Jean and Tonton Champagne - i didn't want to cut up the bow tie so it has become another embellishment

also in this shot is a piece of canvas work stitched by Anne -Sophie (Jean's grand-daughter) and a flower from a napkin sent by Juliette (Charlotte's sister) - it came from a set of Madagascan cloths passed on to Juliette by her mother Marie-Cecile - the rest of the napkin was used as strips in the chains, but this hand-stitched flower would have been lost

z

Jean's eldest daughter, Martine (also Anne-sophie's mother) included some of her husband Jean-Marie's name tapes - these had been used in his hospital clothing during his medical career - they would have been completely lost among the tangle of colour and textures so i cut them into individual name strips and attached them to other fabrics from Martine

just a few examples of how families are linked in more ways than we can imagine











Comments

Mo Crow said…
a beautiful twining of your history

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