The exhibition is on from 2-26 April 2014, admission free. Gorge yourself while you can.
https://www.somersethouse.org.uk/visual-arts/boro
It was interesting to see the different ways the edges of fabric were dealt with. Many fragments were just layered and stitched down with their frayed edges visible. Some were seamed together on the front of the work, with the edges of 4 layers of fabric visibly standing out from the surface:
This cover had the edges bound:
This piece had been pieced together with large pieces of fabric with the selvedges on top, and patches of fabric with their edges turned under:
This piece was made with dark indigo-coloured fabrics. The edges of the patches, showing the pale inner fibres of the fabric where the indigo dye hadn't penetrated deeply, form a pale frame around each patch. All the stitching was with dark blue thread so the only light tones were from the patch edges, not the running stitches.
Some of the upper layers were severely worn away, creating a coral-like appearance on some of the surfaces. I can't imagine the fabric would have been worn away to such an extent while being used as a futon cover, so I wonder what use was made of them when they had been discarded from their original purpose? Perhaps they had been used as rugs or, like the Welsh quilts rescued by Jen Jones, had been used in an agricultural setting?
I was surprised by the long length of some of the stitches. Large stitches are of course quicker to sew but I had thought they would be avoided for fear of them catching on something when the item was in use. This doesn't appear to have been a problem through, and in fact the thread has been extremely durable. The catalogue says it would have been made from home-spun baste fibres. The piece below included a 'dot dash' pattern of stitching:
Most of the stitching is functional rather than decorative, but one piece incorporated some simple geometric patterns such as a rectangular spiral:
I was rather taken with the stitching on this fragment. The fabric had alternating narrow and wide stripes, and the stitcher had made the decision to stitch along the narrow stripes, creating a white-blue-white-blue pattern along the rows. With so much of the boro stitching being unpatterned, it was touching to consider the thought process the stitcher must have gone through, finding an opportunity to create a decorative pattern in a sea of functional rows of running stitch.
