WOMANKIND’S Crafting Challenge
Toni Fay Walsh
Adelaide, Australia
Day one: I had to put my beloved old dog down two weeks before Christmas. I had come from Adelaide to my family home in New South Wales to care for him. My mother flew to her parents’ house in Queensland because my grandfather was dying. As December waned, it became evident that, despite the medication, our poor old dog - blind, deaf, and dissolving into senility - would not be able to cope with my mother’s absence.
Mum flew home two days after he died, while I was alone with the ghosts of my family home until my partner flew in. The Christmas break is generally hard for my family. My father died suddenly and unexpectedly on New Year’s Day three years before. Outside, the world was grey with smoke from bushfires, the pavement speckled with black and white flakes of ash. It felt like the world was ending.
And yet, amidst the seeming hopelessness of those bloodied sunsets, and the relentless smoke, I sewed a dress for myself. From the time I woke to the time I went to bed, I crafted. Slowly, I washed and dried and pressed the fabric, which was white and flecked with ruddy flowers. I cut out and arranged the pattern pieces. When it came time to pin the pieces together, I realised that I needed finer pins than the bent and blunted assortment in my mother’s ramshackle sewing box, and this gave me a reason to venture beyond the house.
On New Year’s Eve, my mother rang to tell me my grandfather had passed away. It was peaceful, she said, voice trembling, and we were all here with him. I thanked her for telling me, hung up the phone, cried awhile, and then I continued to sew.
Today, I am making myself a winter coat. I am at the very beginning, tracing the pattern onto calico. I am wearing that white dress. I have started to believe that any kind of making is an inherently hopeful act. Sewing, like other crafts, requires time and attention; each stitch is a mark of faith in the future. I had thought my crafting during that summer of ash and loss had been motivated by a desire for distraction, but reflecting on it today, I think it revealed a tiny seed of hope. One day, I would wear this dress. One day, I will wear this coat. I have faith in the coming of winter, however brief and mild it may be.
Day two: I have been looking forward to this all day. This evening I get to tack together the pieces of calico toile of my coat - a sort of practice-garment for testing the shape and fit of the pattern. It has been quite summery this week, but today a wind rolls in from the south, and the air takes on an autumnal flavour. I put the kettle on and lay some squares of dark chocolate on a saucer. There is something so delicious about this time of the week. My partner spends Friday evening at martial arts practice, and I relish this airy, liminal space between the end of the work week and the weekend proper, where I can sink into a sort of sweet solitude.
This evening, however, I desire company. I text my best-friend, who lives interstate. Are you up for a chat and crafting session? She is. She has very recently started to explore needle-felting. I start the call, and for the next few hours we virtually share each other’s space. She plays with wool and armatures; I tend to my toile.
I love the sound the scissors make as I cut out the pieces of creamy calico: the faint squeak of the handle, the whispered crunch of the shears. These are my mother-in-law’s scissors. She passed away almost a year ago but she continues to inspire me. She loved creating colourful, quirky creatures: knitting, crocheting, felting, embroidering. A number of them sit on the bookshelves of our house.
Day three: I feel restless. I want to be working on the toile of my coat, but there are other things to be done first. This has always been a problem: as the thing I’m crafting begins to come into being, I sink into an obsessive flow-state where I forget to eat, drink, sleep, and attend to household chores. I want only to be making, to see this thing through into the world.
Day four: I’ve been reworking my coat-toile most of today. I’ve had to make significant adjustments to the coat pattern. I had to lower the bust and waist, shift the shoulder seams, make the sleeves narrower. Though still a novice, one of the things I have come to love about sewing my own clothes is my renewed understanding of the concept of ‘size’. When I make or alter my clothes, I am not a size 8 or 4 or 12 — I am Toni-sized, Toni-shaped.
Around six months ago
