Spirit Cloth

Earth Math

Sleep came.   And this morning, a sense of order has taken hold.   The natural order of nine has come to the little Earth Kantha, a study for a larger cloth.   A new logic has been planted ,  this little cloth is its safe-keeper...and I know something  will grow .  Strong and healthy.   Food for my soul.  

I'll be wordless for a while.   

A busy time while a  few things fall into place.

Celebrate earth

Continued from here.

Spring goes

The grapes are happy.  Which brought to mind this old doodle....

Garden Study 1 in progress.  Layers of brown.  Using some of winter's dyeing  for new growth.  In sympathy for season.  This is the way most of the garden looks right now.   (This cloth is continued here.)

Gardening in nines

So this was basically the plan...

And we  have nine kinds of greens well established  at this point.  Extra room for the radicchio.  We'd like to have nine kinds of  grapes as well. I need to research that a bit.  And berries.  So far we planted gooseberries, blackberries , raspberries, strawberries  to add to the mulberries already growing.  Three kinds each of the blackberries and raspberries, that could make nine.

A garden quilt could be nice, right?  A record of this long growing season.  What if I start with a lot of brown.  layers of brown.  I like that idea.  Yes I do.   A season keeper.  Something to snuggle up under  like a couple of seeds on a winter's night,  trusting in  a new season.

Pomegranate

So it was me who said, pomegranates don't really grow  here.  But He, who grew up in a place where they grow like weeds, said let's try.   So we saved a few seeds from the ones we purchased in the market.   Planted them in pots last summer and brought them inside for the winter.  This one is now five feet tall.   Thank you to a very sunny window and some loving compost.  Since then we have found a   Russian Pomegranate that should withstand the winters here outside .  So planting a string of those along the road's edge is on the list for this season (a string of trees, I love that) . Growing  them . Because we love to eat them. They are good for you. They are beautiful.  They are ridiculously expensive to buy here.  And as you might recall, you can dye with them,  without a mordant...

I have been getting  more of a tan on cotton,  yellows on silk and wool,  but amazingly, a very rich greenish brownish gold  on the silk velvet (a bit of mom's wedding dress) that was left soaking in the copper pot over the winter.  Like 4 months.  Forgotten and rediscovered. 

And it is doodle wednesday.

and then

... for a moment,  she puts the  art   back into it, makes it a potential conversation. Imagines a new form that might emerge as the result of some sort of  exchange. Hopes that this might help her  understand something.  Maybe just one small thing. But of course, she will continue anyway. 

AND

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the patch

 

My studio table split during the winter. The dry heat of the wood stove no doubt. Obviously it had some hidden flaw in its construction. Or may not.  Maybe that is just the way it is over time.  Anyway. It is still standing. And functional. Its advantage being that it doesn't look at itself in judgement. Cannot sense the change as a wound.  But if it could I imagine it saying..."what?, I am still a table..."

Today I cut a 5"' square. I like odd numbers. They have a center. Some kind of natural order.  I will start with 9 of them. To begin the first Magic feather cloth.  I have no set plan.  Just a simple centered beginning based on tradition. I will hand piece these 9 squares. Plain old patchwork . I love and respect  the simplicity of it. The careful stitch holding the cracks between scraps so gently  yet so strongly.  And like my table, if made with care and a few seams later wear thin, the whole cloth will still hold together. Patiently waiting for the gentle intention to stitch things back together. An ultimate kindness.

Yes, I will hand piece these 9 squares. Of hand dyed cloth.  The browns I dyed during the winter.  Something like earth. I may cover it later. But it will still be there.

Something like earth.

  And thank you Michelle. i really like  this on this, Feather Friday.

Watch the film, it is beautiful.

 

three things

1. A ring

2. A nine patch

3.  Brown. Walnut to be exact.

Set in stone. At least that is what I have planned. Doodled at the moment because it is Wednesday. Maybe a small series. Just to see how these things might fit together in sympathy with one another.

There are stones everywhere actually.  They have just crept in as some sort of anchor. To keep me grounded.