Felting Fabric and Form with Laundry Lint. Prompted to construct intelligent skin or garment, this work looks to cycles and rituals associated with what we wear, such as washing, that are reminiscent of geologic processes. Rather than focusing on the subtractive and what is washed away, this project gives purpose to what remains post erosion. The ritual act of wearing and washing our clothing is rough on our clothing. Our dryers’ lint traps expose the eroded particles and fibers of our clothing. This project harnesses eroded materiality as a means of resetting the weathering process. Lint remains are reintegrated into fabric and used to reconstruct material through needle felting.

A tool was developed to hold 6 felting needles, which are burred to help drag fibers up and down, encouraging tangling. The 3D printed tool clamps on to a jigsaw blade, the jigsaw enabling a rapid up-down movement to speed up and ease the needling effort. This contraption was then zip-tied on to an Onsrud CNC, which moved in the x/y plane simply supporting the jigsaw and its needling effort.

Born out of overconsumption and exploitation of resources, as well as geologic weathering, this work challenges traditional perceptions of beauty. Humanity has been intervening in these feedback loops without considering the consequences. This work makes use of these byproducts, embracing the systems and cycles of materiality. Embracing extreme waste and creating a material culture based on radical upcycling, laundry lint, as waste by-product of clothing erosion, is seen as the materials beginning rather than its end. Abundant and free, lint transcends its origins.