introducing the shapeshifter

a zero-waste pattern

One of the things I have most trouble with in my work is cutting through beautifully printed pieces of cloth and finding that the nicest leaf is on the wrong side of the scissors, which may explain why I prefer to stitch a garment in blank cloth and then consign it to the colour gods when all the stitching is done. That’s one of the reasons, at all events, the other being that having a somewhat neurodivergent mind (for which I am grateful, otherwise I might not have found a way of making a living by playing with leaves) I find it easier to stitch on plain expanses of cloth, the calm of the uncoloured allowing my thoughts to wander more gently. I do occasionally work on intensively hand-sewn things such as my never-ending story travel shawls that become more and more complex and stitch-encrusted with time but there comes a point where they get laid aside and abandoned because of their overwhelming busy-ness.