Clouds of silk - upcycling fabric scraps

Waste is usually ugly, disgusting, something you don’t want to deal with. Or don’t know how to deal with. But can it be beautiful, delicate and inspiring?

Just how we define waste varies from person to person. And one’s rubbish could be another’s treasure.

“Of no use.” Could be one way to call it.

Meanwhile: “I am over it, even though it would be still usable.” is another version.

When we look at nature there is no such thing as something that has no use. Everything goes in cycles. Decay is promoting the next growth and rotting leaves are just as important as blooming flowers. There are no ugly useless things, being in the way of a forests growth. There is no rubbish.
We seem to be the only living beings producing such objects.

And why not look around and learn from the forests, that every piece and bit can still find its place in a bigger cycle?

Even if by itself it seems useless.

Meanwhile I do find various waste products interesting to potentially work with and trying to reintegrate them in a circle. I want to focus on one specific waste, I am personally dealing with a lot.

Fabric scraps.

Silk especially.

Just for the way silk is produced I wouldn’t want to waste an inch of it. Worms boiling alive, to get the finest quality of the fabric. Doesn’t sound too nice to me.

But we humans do what we do best, exploding, boiling and breaking things to find out how they work. Creating scraps and pieces, rubbish, leftovers.

I do not get inspired by breaking and exploding things, but by putting them back together.

Combinations of things and ideas, creating new wholes.

Maybe destruction has its justification in all that, without it there wouldn’t be a new assembling.

Destroying to create?

Where is this going?

Cutting out squares from leftover fabrics and sewing the edges together. Because the top, silk square is bigger than the support it creates this puffy cloud of silk.

Fitting silk scraps back together and call it fabric upcycling.

That’s what I did. Because I don’t want to leave the scraps behind. And because every piece of silk that slides though my hands crinkles in remembrance of all the places and faces it has seen before me.

It becomes water running though my fingers, I can’t keep it, can’t catch it.

But I can transform it.

Clouds of silk.

When silk is exposed to sunlight it breaks.

The fabric of the night, not meant to see the sunlight.

Tragic and beautiful.

Romantic.

Thank you all for stopping by, you are awesome! Have a wonderful week!

All photos are my own taken by me.