Ingredients

As we ate what might just be the world’s most impeccable salted pecan and maple gelato at Bottega Gelateria in Henley Beach, South Australia, we read one of their simple, but considered signs and found ourselves thinking about our time with needle and thread.

‘Our philosophy recalls a lost art. Our ideology of ‘Crop to Cone’ or ‘Farm to Table’ is what drives us to preserve the true artisanship of old-world handcrafted gelato. Farm fresh, seasonal and locally grown are the hallmarks of our ingredients. Our mentor, Maestro James Coleridge always said that to make five-star gelato you must source five-star ingredients. Shortcuts don’t exist if you want to be the best.’

Can’t quite see the connection between gelato and needle and thread?! Stick with us.

One of the tasks on our To Do Lists at Inspirations HQ over recent weeks has been to gather the requirements for each of the projects for a publication that’s currently in production. From fabric, thread, needles, beads and paillettes right through to zips, feathers, paper covered wire and even PVC piping, the requirements were many and varied across the twelve projects.

For those of you familiar with the first volume in our ‘Design Collective’ series, The Design Collective | Pincushions, you may recall that alongside the requirements lists for each project, an image of the materials appeared. So, as we were putting the final touches on our second volume in the Design Collective series, the requirements for each project were gathered to replicate those images once again.

Throughout the process we found ourselves referring to the requirements as ‘ingredients’, and just like those at Bottega Gelateria, we appreciated how the inclusion and quality of each was integral to the final product.

As we sourced the countless ingredients, correlating them against the requirements list each of the designers submitted, organised them for photography, styled them within each of the images we took, then finally packed and/or unpacked them at the end of the process as required, we handled each element myriad times. And do you know what we discovered?

From the largest pieces of fabrics and the longest lengths of thread, right through to the tiniest seed beads and smallest paillettes, each ingredient is essential, and the quality of those ingredients is paramount to not just the final result, but also to the experience we have throughout the incredibly tactile experience of stitching.

And now in our own time with needle and thread, we’ve once again committed to always sourcing five-star ingredients to ensure the product we produce is five star, no shortcuts for us because we absolutely want the best of what our needle and thread have to offer!