Journal

A hoarder, a collector and an archivist walk into a bar...

Halley Stevenson have waxed cotton in Dundee since 1864. Part of that process means keeping a record of every colour they've ever run – trade swatch books, bound for buyers and mills to leaf through before a production run gets commissioned. Once a book falls out of date, it's usually binned.

I couldn't throw mine away.

They sat, kept rather than used, just waiting. For the right project, the right pairing, the right moment to be useful. When that moment arrived, they came off the shelf and onto the bench. Sorted by hand, into colour groups. Trimmed to a working size. Stitched edge to edge into a new patchwork textile, the join always left visible. No blending, no colour-matching. The seam is the point, not the flaw.

The Full Range is the first thing made from it. Five sacoches. Each one built from whatever colour ran through the stack at the time it was cut – one of one, no two the same, no repeats coming.

Every thread counts.

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