Spirit Cloth

2

...i have decided to stop dating and titling my posts. i am numbering them for cross reference only. i will talk more about this journal format and how it works in the days to come. it is meant to be some sort of teaching tool.

and please don't miss this.....or this

thoughts on corners

i guess i will take a few days off from posting to digest all this new stuff.  here is a link to deb mentioned above even though she is in my side bar under 'always busy what-iffing' .  i really like what she is working on . and  you might visit another blog and see what's happening because after a comment on my last post i discovered  this.  and i really like it.

 ( you can always click on the text or the photo for a better view)

a shiny day

had to post again today because it was that kind of day. after 24 hours of rain and warmer temperatures, the snow has totally disappeared. amazing actually. and today was like spring. the sun was blinding, its reflection creating a mirror effect on the thin layer of dampness left on the sand. we walked and estimated the length of our december shadows...i caught a glimpse of that blue moon forming.  and i found a square-ish rock!

and once back home i decided to do what i have been thinking about doing for a while. i added a shisha nine patch to the blue moon piece. in honor of the return of the light. and in honor of this past year of the dot...

the little blue cloth is evolving. i decided to square it off with a border but now i am thinking of leaving the extra that i was planning to cut off.  the mirrors were a gift from tiggy rawling, and the background is one of her hand dyed indigo cloths... tiggy is a marvelous dyer of indigo among other things. she is one of the suppliers in my sidebar. i hope to meet her one day. i love her latest project. yes, i really like this.

a time for mending

a piece of grandma's patchwork needs mending.

and so do i ...after a bad burn on the wood stove. wrapped in ice. the sewing finger. blisters forming.

but its ok. i'll be just reading and not writing or stitching for a while....good thing i have a thread keeper.
in the meantime go check out velma's little shifu books... very unusually tiny and special and ultimately not a small thing at all.and if you don't know about shifu, ask, i am sure she can tell you all about it. some things are really worth learning about.

are you sitting down?

because a little mayhem has arrived. i bought this from deb lacativa, and i must say i have been spun around in a way more entrancing that a dervish. this little piece is hand stitched.

...and will you look at this?

and it had been sealed in acrylic medium, i was curoius, with my cloth feel fetish and all. but i LOVE it, it is like some sort of fabulous fabric fossil. deb's blog is here and her new shop is here and her holiday sale is ridiculous, such great stuff. did i say i LOVE it. yes, it has an energy that just sucks you right in.

and then when thread touches cloth

...i am still quilting the first nature of dots piece. and i am using different thicknesses and sizes of stitch combined.  and i am liking that the stitches make the layers touch and thinking how many different ways the quilting can effect that touching. i am beginning to be drawn to a finer stitch. one single thread that darns the layers together into one. like weaving, these threads become almost part of the fabric they are stitched on.

i picked this on up after so long, i wandered into the edges with more interest than before.

and speaking of stitching and the nature of touching and cloth....i really, really like this. magnificent!

building a bigger square

...i spent the day surrounding this bunch of little squares (324 5/8" squares to be exact) with more cloth. because i am also thinking about squares as frames.

and i forgot to mention that i really like this.

soft spots revisited

...all i have to show today is one soft patch.  a soft spot of pink silk velvet once again but it has taken on my new shape for the coming year.

and i must say that i have already developed a soft spot for this new magazine, Needle ,  put out by the hand embroidery network. (HEN).  it is way more than i expected.  way to go!  i am happy to see so much attention being given to hand work these days.  maybe there is hope for the human race after all.

recovering purpose

the last month of the year is always transitional for me. a shape shifter. maybe this year seems more so. i will be in and out of coma and on and offline without schedule.. .a few things will be put in the shop simply because they are still hanging around in my head and i will finish them and move on. i am not sure about the shop thing going forward.

the one thing i am sure of is i need build on what i am doing... and for this reason i have chosen to change the shape of my focus. i enjoyed the dot, the range of its natural occurrence and its playful dance among friends. but next year i have chosen the square, the shape that has no existence in nature, the shape that defines human intervention and purpose. i think it represents structure and building and frame of reference. i like its relationship to woven cloth. i think it could be a symbolic metaphor for making. so i will slowly let the dots out of my system and let the square creep in. this morning. a small ceremony on woven gridded linen with walnut squares. and a bit of magic. for now they can be square dots.

and today i really liked this and this .

dot diaries - eyes

it is a sunny morning. it feels like i can see for miles. and today i am thinking,,, a dot can be a point of light, a tiny pinhole, a simple yet very special kind of lens, a gateway to perception, the very center of a personal universe. the beginning of vision.

and i cannot stop looking at that  distant dot of the sea's reflection growing larger each day, and noticing that it seems now to be looking back at me.  can that dot then also be a point where two universes collide?   i am looking back at some old notes about eyes.  eyes that are now dots.  dots that are being scattered over the surface of coma.  old eyes.  new eyes.

last night i saw this.   i really like it.   it is simple and honest with a story and person attached. i added it to my i really like this list.