The Little Seamstress

Welcome to Silverlode Needlecraft’s new site!

Why the change? Over the last few years I’ve been transitioning from making custom, one off Irish dance solo/performance dresses, to stunning and unique liturgical vestments and other fabric art pieces.

A little about Silverlode’s history…

I had never sewn seriously before, when, in 2003, I agreed to tackle the freehand Elvish embroidery for my sister Maire’s first Irish dance solo dress. My mother Debra had been patiently studying how to make these elaborate dresses after not having sewn for 20 years. (Like many in the Irish dance world, the high cost of these dresses was prohibitive ~ though it’s arguable whether we actually saved any money in making one, after all of the time and trial and costly materials! And we still try to make even the most time-consuming designs affordable.)

But as to my first embroidery practice, what fear and trembling! I still have, attached to my backpack, a humbling reminder of an early effort: the name “Frodo” in an awkward scrawl of thread ~ hardly legible. But through it all, I fell in love with the embroidery process, and the embroidered lettering remains my favorite part ~ on those few occasions when I can utilize it. And still, and always, all of the Silverlode designs, including the embroidered script, are hand-drawn and embroidered with my simple sewing machine (“My Precious”), freehand, using the satin stitch ~ nothing is computerized.

Debra, having finished the beautiful “Silmariel” dress for my sister, guided me through the process of making a solo dress for a mutual friend ~ and so it began. (And began in a chilly basement which was the workshop for several years ~ and to see me down there looking like a Dickens character regularly muffled up with my fingerless gloves and headscarf, must’ve been hilarious…and by the way, the unnamed “little seamstress” IS actually a Dickens character, very dear to my heart!)

From the first I cherished the hope of making liturgical vestments…but i became so enthralled by the strange world of Irish dance dressmaking that this occupied me full time for years.

Whether dressmaking, vestments-making, or in any of the fabric art pieces, colors and themes/symbolism have been constant inspirations for Silverlode creations. (The “Silverlode” is an icy river that runs through Elf country in Tolkien’s Middle-Earth.) Whole dress themes have been worked around an inspiring fabric, such as the blood-colored metallic silk which inspired “The Blood of the Irish Martyrs”, or the image of a birch leaf, or a poem, such as the Irish poet W.B. Yeats’ “He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven.” Some who have requested custom work have offered a theme for its inspiration (such as Monet’s Waterlilies, or the Two Trees of Valinor). The nineteen vestment sets that I made for my friend’s first mass as an ordained priest, were inspired by the themes of the sword/cross piercing the two hearts of Christ and his mother.

Inspiration is everywhere, and timeless Beauty: the Beauty of the word and of the cloth and thread; the beauty of the natural world ~ of every leaf; of the Celtic knot and of the dance; the Beauty of the liturgy and the symbol, and of everything that has a wholeness and integrity. Surely, as a Dostoevsky hero believed, Beauty might save the world ~ and so if even by the littlest means (fabric, thread; a word) some little beauty can be woven in this world, it is surely worth the effort ~ and of doing it as well as one can. As the great writer Joseph Conrad thought, and which can be applied in small undertakings as in great, “A work that aspires, however humbly, to the condition of art should carry its justification in every line” ~ be it a line in ink, or in a thread of gold.

~Rachel, the little seamstress

Rachel can be reached by phone, snail mail or e-mail:

Phone: 541-613-7021

Address:
P.O. Box 3219
Ashland, OR  97520
U.S.A.
Or contact via e-mail

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