Like many eco-minded crafters out there, my use of recycled materials in my creative work is just one thing that I do to try to lighten my footprint on the earth. Another thing that I have done for several years is composting – a simple and environmentally friendly practice that diverts much of my household waste from landfill.
But when this story begins, I had just moved to a new city and was looking to start a new composter. So I was excited when a local company (cathyscomposters.com) that raises and sells red wriggler worms for home vermicomposting agreed to barter with me. Yes, worms! I traded my skilled time as a designer and seamstress against a composting worm colony of my very own, and a larger-than-life recycled textile worm puppet was born.
As an avid salvage artist, it was inevitable that the worm would be made from reclaimed materials. And since worms are effectively nature’s recyclers, too – breaking down our food garbage into a nutrient rich organic fertilizer that can be used to grow more food – making a worm out of recycled material couldn’t be a nicer metaphor!
[Cutting old t-shirts into blocks.]
The worm’s “skin” is constructed from about 30 blocks of coordinating cotton jersey, salvaged from discarded clothing, which are pieced together in a long strip like a mini quilt top. A second seam between each block creates a casing for the wire armature; when the strip is rolled into a tube, the seams line up allowing the armature to be inserted as a continuous coil. The wire reinforces the sculpture, allowing it to stretch and contract in a springy way that mimics peristalsis – the muscular contractions that control the movement of real worms. The tube was then stuffed with batting, salvaged from a damaged mattress cover, and stitched closed.
[Felted wool eggs and worm clitellum.]
The pink section midway down the worm is its egg sac, or clitellum, and contains 5 hand woven and felted “eggs”. The clitellum is a free-moving element that can be slipped off the end of the sculpture, illustrating the way red wrigglers shed their clitellum once they have deposited their eggs.
I presented it in its very own “compost bin” – a cardboard box filled with shredded newspaper bedding and play food scraps made from more salvaged fabric. In exchange I received a plastic bin filled with many little recycling worms!
[Recycled textile worm sculpture in its bin.]
[real worms in their bin]
It is several weeks later now, and my new vermicomposter is chugging along happily, almost ready for its first batch of “black gold” fertilizer to be harvested. Cathy loves her worm sculpture and has seamlessly incorporated it as a teaching model into the workshop lessons she runs in local elementary schools. As for the worm itself, it is has given a new, long life to those unwanted clothing items, and is enjoying its reincarnation as a valuable educational tool that will delight children for years to come!
About the author: Anna Borstad is a freelance artisan and garbage-picker extraordinaire. While not busy exploring the alleys of her new city, Toronto, Ontario, Anna likes to cook elaborate vegetarian meals and squish her cat. You can read about her various misadventures on her blog, freeplaycraft.
