Fine-draw

Posselt’s Textile Journal from 1909 (you don’t have to pull out your own copy) defines fine-draw this way: “To sew or close up faults in a fabric by inserting missing threads etc., by hand with a needle.”

Merriam-Webster is more poetic: “to mend torn edges by drawing together with invisible stitches.”

Either way, the term is a rich metaphor.

How can we make beautiful repairs? How do we bring together ragged edges in such a careful way that the two become one? What care and precision is at play? What does it say about us that we’re willing to take the time and workmanship necessary for such stitching together?

And how does this relate to our personal relationships? Or the way our cultures intersect?

How can we ourselves become fine-drawers?