The Long Road Home
Some of you have been here since the beginning of this story.
Some of you may just be immersing yourselves in it for the first time.
Whichever it is we hope you enjoy watching the unfolding.
The unfolding of two people and a story based in finding possibility and beauty in that which is often overlooked.
It felt fitting to hit The Road to document these coats, for that is where we found most of them, albeit in a different form.
Driving down favorite and familiar routes, pausing at seemingly broken places and finding beauty in them. So it was with the textiles that were transformed into these garments.
A mirrored practice.
Finding importance and meaning in layers and histories, however unraveled and unknown to us.
This is season two of The Heritage Quilt Coat Project. It has been a year since we and Sarah of Potters Daughter have joined together to turn damaged quilts into beautiful wearable coats. Indeed that is at the center of what we do— Finding beauty in the brokenness and highlighting it, not as flaws or imperfections, but instead as a remarkable and important testament to time and story and the beautiful undoing of things worn and loved.
We are in a way textile preservationists. Purists in what we choose to cut into and redeem. Saving those that are more useful and rare as works of art in and of themselves.
This collection has the added layer of largely being indigo dyed. A process of transformation all on its own. One that is no small task or has a quick turnaround in and of itself. In fact, this collection has perhaps involved the most process and time and care and attention of any thus far.
We tend to like doing things that way around here.
Taking the scenic route, if you will.
For the simple fact that we believe that most good things are created in slowness.
When we take our time.
When we dedicate ourselves to doing things well, even if they take longer.
When we pause and take in the whole story and don’t skip ahead.
When we take the long road home just to feel a little bit more alive and present and connected to a larger narrative.
It is, after all, that larger narrative, that story, that heartbeat of purpose and drive, that keeps us doing what we do and dreaming what we dream.
