On the Grain by Transformer Press

"On The Grain is a fabric accordion book with pop-ups. The screen-printed text is a poem by Cindy Veach, from her book entitled Gloved Against the Blood. The poems explore the relationships of four generations of women against a backdrop of the textile mills of Lowell, Massachusetts. As someone who struggled with sewing a lot of my own clothes as a teenager, this poem about being an impatient learner resonated with me. It was fun to deliberately mess up the sewing, mis-matching patterns and bunching up seams. The last verse speaks of a piece of fabric woven by her Mémé, her great-grandmother in a textile mill in Lowell. A friend had recently given me a piece of woollen fabric woven in a similar textile mill in Almonte, not too far from where I live. There was just enough to cut into ten pieces, one for each copy of the book." - Lise Melhorn-Boe