Spirit Cloth

undoing oneself

...i am engaged in a little bit of looking back. digging through old stuff. quieting down a bit. i am just all over the place lately. i want to focus once again on coma. in preparation i am slowly sorting through everything i have done in the past. a bit of pre-spring cleaning maybe. but mostly handling cloth and digging deeper into myself.  pictured here is the oldest know surviving jude patchwork. originally the front of a muslin shirt, since cut apart. it was pieced using scraps from a worn quilt from my grandmother, along with some of the first fabrics in my collection (the birth of my fabric fetish). based on a 3/4" square, the fabric was already faded and soft. as i recall it was pieced on the subway, commuting to my first job in new york city. i remember people staring at me, but not in disapproval...like they were remembering something.
.....one star remains fairly intact which is reassuring. 

.....i like looking at the holes and the order that still remains despite the deterioration. i like the framework that remains where the hand stitched seams hold the planned lines fast with bits of thread from the the meeting places of patches, even though the middles are disappearing. keepers of original intention. that is what i find comfort in today. a soft reflection.

i am also back to what-iffing again.

facing forward

... it seems appropriate that i've been painting and stitching and playing with a single image over and over again to see how many things it can be.  maybe i will use them all in one piece.  as the end of the year approaches i face many changes.  the most major change is that ...(NEWS FLASH!!!)...i am no longer a commuter... not actually retired but planning to be self employed ... wow!  i feel like i am dreaming.  i am thinking about how dreams are often layered, how the same thought seems to be processed many different ways and compounded into some strange visual soup. this can happen with dream faces.  often as i remember faces in a dream, they are many faces in one that can be peeled away one by one as i remember the dream story.  the character keeps changing.  and so i wonder who will i be this coming year?  i cut my hair just to start the ball rolling...one of many year end ceremonies planned for 2008.

doodles without pretense

....so it is doodle wednesday and i have been thinking....what if i take a step back. a journal after all is something like a diary, and i am thinking since it has become so "hip" and all.... well are we missing the point? i have a new scanner and a lot of old journals. the kind you just write in. to keep your thoughts. the diary/shopping list/daydream kind. real thought catching on paper.
i was scanning this sketch for today. a sketch made way back when i was commuting to college and looking around at all those people going back and forth to work on that train and thinking gosh! they are all dead...zombies. and i said to myself, i'll never do that.
but i did. and i have scanned the actual page from my first journal when i started commuting to work. and i found some keys to where i started catching very important thoughts. somewhere in among the clutter i found the words, "sew on the train!" and checkerboard. so today my re-journaling project has morphed a bit into real documentation of a time-line of thought without contrivance. in real time context.

quilting the morning after

..... well it all seemed like a dream. monday this morning before work everything in the studio was calm and back to normal.
  .....until the the moment it came back on me...
 
there are new edges everywhere...many confused glances on that commuter train this morning.

composite applique

.....i find it easier to work complicated applique as a separate layer/unit. you get your hands around the section, stitch more freely...and it is portable. this is a bit of a self portrait. as it turns out it is easier to see you own face if you take it off to get a better look.

quilting out of the darkness

the darkness quilt was made for my brother nemo. nemo wasn't his real name but now it is. more about that later.
this quilt was used for years and has recently been returned for mending.
so now the idea is three quilts in one. this is my first experiment with what i will call extension quilting, adding one quilt to another, after all elements are already backed and batted and sometimes quilted. the reason i want to do this is because i am a commuter quilter and it becomes very hard to work on the middle of a quilt on the train. so i am finishing the center first and then i will add borders and edges one at a time so i can always be working near an edge where i can get my hands around things and not be sewing in someone else's lap. makes sense to me. and probably to "them" too.

how things could happen

you could be sitting on a train. sewing. and you need a pen to draw a face on a lion, to guide your stitches. and you can't find it. and while you rummage through your tangled nest of thread and scraps, a piece of shibori seems to be watching you.  those shibori eyes seem a bit wide apart so you think what if i pull them closer? and you do.

and then you come across that linen scrap you were pulling apart yesterday. (remembering linen frays really easily) and you make a face without the pen, and the fringe has screamed mane. that ghost of a shadow lion (lion #4) has a face. coincidence. developing nicely. burning without a flame, but when i close my eyes i see an explosion of possibility. glad i didn't bring that pen.

SUN-day

the sun was amazing today. just for a short while it seemed like winter was over. right about when it started snowing i realized i was mistaken. an applique elephant was added for the E. it is so easy to sew in the sun. alphabet soup will be put away for the week.

i am packing up many hearts that are coming together for tomorrow's commute.

day 11

some kantha stitching (on a commuter train) has also softened that white leaf motif.

i love a running stitch.  i want to count the ways.  and this would be number ONE. and this might be  TWO.  THREE....and counting.....

commuting with pins

the magic pink project will travel with me today. i am hoping to complete it and get it mailed by tomorrow. i slipped a bit of batting under the floral at each side and i hope to get some nice quilting done during the commute.
the backing has also been placed and every thing is pinned. i normally try to baste and get rid of the pins because they cause a bit of fear on the train. but today they must be  the keepers of my intentions...oh well. deal with it people.