Textile Balls

Seeing a variety of exhibits, websites, and catalogues can be a source of inspiration for both large works and smaller explorations. After stitching regularly for many years, I am drawn to anything made of thread or cloth the way a dog perks up seeing a squirrel. Each quilt I make has its offcuts, scraps, and seemingly unusable leftovers that I have a) saved in color-coded bags b) become impatient with and discarded c) made into textile balls. The balls take up less room than the bags, and when I look at them they energize me. They also become a kind of memory jog for the quilts, sort of. Of course, then I can't make cards out of the scraps, but then, of course, I don't always create a ball for every quilt or color.

Inspiration for the balls comes from a few sources. One is my continued awe at the work of Christina Kim, whose work was in the exhibition "Scraps" I saw at Cooper-Hewitt Museum in 2017; my blog post is here. Briefly, as a clothing designer, she saves the scraps, then makes the next line with the scraps, and on until the tiniest scraps are made into amulets. The second inspiration I wrote about when I made my "wabi sabi egg" in 2018 here and turned into "enchanted egg pin cushions." I had seen an article with images of "objects of comfort," scrap-wrapped objects by Victoria Gertenbach (this is a link to her website: really exciting work as a whole). And a third was inspired by Japanese temari, thread balls that I first noticed as kits at the kimonomomo store, and thought about more when I saw an exhibition which featured art balls made by Lucy Arai, about which I posted March 2024. A history of temari as a toy is here; it is also traditionally made from scraps. So, my interest has been continuing, and I have been mentally collecting examples without knowing to where they would lead.

And really, I was just moody and restless one day and took a spool of thread (I have a lot of thread) and one of the scrap bags and began to make a ball. It felt good crushing and winding, adding and deciding.

I feel like they ought to have names.

Here are their portraits.

I recently saw another kind of textile ball in front of a shop on Solano Avenue in Berkeley: wool felt dryer balls. I read a little about them. By bouncing around in between one's clothes, they keep the air circulating, reducing time needed in the dryer. An added bonus is that they reduce or eliminate static as well. And I would imagine they would be pretty quiet. These are fairly amusing, I think. Hmmm.