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

overlap and collision

 

about this journal thing... please forgive errors and spelling mistakes, no editing is going on at the moment, and click the text to enlarge for easier reading. thanks for understanding.

thoughts on same and different

(click text for larger view)

related post

(this journal format is an experiment for the coming year, please bear with me until i get my good scanner hooked up and make this thing more reader friendly...)

place tricks

sometimes it takes time for ideas to meet up and mean something.  i have always liked the backs of things. i  have a category for them but i especially remember this.  and i see so many of us turn the stitching over and marvel at the beauty generated by the other side of process, the unintentional side, the less manicured side, the side that contains the hidden paths from here to there, the side that eventually gets covered and forgotten. a secret map of where we have been. a peek at the inner workings of a creative thought.  a clue to structure and intent. maybe even a place to hide things... and therefore a big part of the real story.

i am revisiting this idea with new eyes. the front was interesting, and the back caught my interest as a surface, but creating a front and then working the stitchery from the back and then turning it over so the finished piece is both front and back, and then to keep doing that....what if (?)  that might be a way to combine the two things. being in two places at one time. just like magic. 

the embellishment as it appears on the once was and now again front was generated by simply overcasting the seams to tack them down on the used to be back.  this is now like the path through something. i also like the discharge as a process of letting go of color and leaving the structure, the act of uncovering the nature of the cloth. i am rambling.... i will use this one as a small a study for my next big cloth. MAGIC.

refining the place idea

i have finished the first in what i was planning to call the gallery series... some quiet cloths that seemed driven by design. but design is never without story (the idea is a place to go)  and the story of place seems to be about where we touch things and the impression that makes.  this one, which is called places i have been, is complete. it is simple and now i want it to be simply functional as well.  while photographing it with some other things (dots) i collected in different places, i decided i like it better as a home for souvenirs... a place map, or better yet...a redefinition of the place mat.  a table top time keeper.  a sampler of story fragments.  a collection of tiny journeys.  touching.

place

since i have been rambling about where this touches that... here and in my head ... i have come to a new focus on place.  the place i thought i was going to by adding to the first nature of dots piece became way too big.  it wasn't a safe enough place.  i didn't like it there.  at least not last night when i cut all the chatter off the edges and made it into the place i needed it to be.  a long cloth but not too long, a short journey. it is a place where i have been. i have been thinking about dots.  and dots as other places i have been (the new title for this piece).  saving them up.  putting them in little boxes . squares.  squares can be places too. 

i added just one little square as a sign of a new place i might be going to.  i left the edge open ended to make it easier to go there.

a place is simply  where we stop for a while, somewhere we can relax, maybe a shelter we build around us or a space we squeeze ourselves into.  it could be just a set of rules to test and examine, and maybe a window for others to see us through (or the other way around ) . it is definitely a way to crop life into bite size chunks.   being in a place is a way to make a mark and move on.  or stay.

nature of dots 2 is on the work table. i am off to somewhere new....and  i magine the place where the dot meets the square will  generate a lot of energy .

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!

where cloth touches cloth

i have used the flag piece for many occasions.  it started as a what if...and it keeps becoming more.  it is about change, about peace, about many eyes and expanded vision , about evolution.  and now it seem bigger because i have merged it with my own personal journey. 

i have backed it with a section of a handwoven scarf i made when i first started weaving... symbolic for me in many ways.  it has become important for me to let the two cloth elements touch, the quilting and the weaving.  in this one they really touch.  together they have  a new feel, a new  drape and flexibility, a different kind of weight, a new sort of strength.  they depend on one another and the character of the cloth is built on that...

...i like how the edge flows from a patchwork into an open weave and then into the handwoven fringe, how the thread element is a focus...and the fringe has become a strong symbol for continuing.  fringe of my own making this time.  a keeper.  a reminder to keep going and that where we stop is a personal choice..
and oddly now, as i step back....i am noticing how the fringe falls and how all the threads were hanging out together and how somehow i still l managed to separate them into color groups. habits are so hard to break.

playing games with squares

i am thinking that weaving produces squares, and in some ways they look like patches, and so in another way i am attempting to redefine patchwork.  i am using this piece as a gameboard in many ways. today i am playing with the juxtaposition of traditional patchwork with the new woven version. a contrast in texture which also includes the softening of the grid lines.

since the piece is already backed with a stabilizer cloth, i am working on the top surface, continuing the lines of the pieced center, cutting along the lines and then weaving torn strips across for weft. i am using that invisible basting to tack it down as i go, strip by strip. 

the result has pleased me because the non traditional approach is a nice contrast but also seems so old in nature. something i had guessed all along. old and new. they go perfectly together. a new kind of time keeper.

revisiting the beginning

as i noticed of the oak leaves caught in a november tide, i thought about how the most interesting edges happen like a story .  they are not sharp and clear, they are nameless places of overlap, surprises that can awaken the senses.  i think sometimes in our never ending hurry we miss the transitions from one moment to the next.  the in-between that can hold the story of chance and discovery.  this is where communication lies hidden from ambitious eyes and profit seeking hearts.

the one thing i like about slow cloth is that it does not have to end.  the decision to make another round through coma has me taking deeper breaths.  transferring the story from the journal to the cloth will be a big task.  3023 DMC is the color of choice for the words.  i like it because it is very pencil sketchy looking and it is neutral against all the other colors in the quilt so far. 

and i have decided to start the story at the outer rim and work myself back to the center where i began the cloth.   in this way the beginning and ending will be the same and the overlap in the opposite direction will create a nice new journey through layers of thought.  i hope to see many unexpected meeting points of moments.  i fear i may get lost but maybe that's ok.

so here i am again.... surrounded by questions.