Spirit Cloth

placekeeping

I keep thinking about cloth as place.

I imagine it being happier as something useful.

I think of cloth as kind.

roughly

I have rescheduled the Contemporary Boro 2 Workshop  There are 3 main reasons for this.

Number 1, I am running the Magic Diaries 2 Whispering Series through June of this year, and right now, I am immersed in it, too focused on it to start the other class, although I see them overlapping in some ways.

Number 2, I plan to take Glennis's Online Indigo Workshop in March.  I would like to complete and use some of the knowledge gained to supplement the "working with indigo" segment of this workshop, using her guidance to prepare some cloth to work with...maybe some of you will join me. I know Grace is in.

Number 3, I have chosen a slightly different format for this workshop.  I will make it slower, spreading it out over a longer time period, leaving time to work in between.  We will gather, research, design, dye, stitch, share, and stitch more, use, mend, well, you see what I am after.

The Contemporary Boro 2 Workshop will go on sale February 7th (with the moon). It will not begin until mid to end April. Date to be ratcheted down soon.  I plan to cover the making of various useful cloth items from start to finish and present ideas for others. An outline of the course will be published with the release along with the details of the scheduling of lessons.  Enrollment is limited because the size of my classes has grown to large to manage.

 Now I am off to load the remaining feathers that have been gathering , floating in on a slow wind, so I might begin the Magic Feather Cloth. After all it is Feather Friday.  I am no longer accepting feathers for round one, unless you have contacted me and told me to expect one. If you are not familiar with this project you can read about it in my sidebar. You might follow the progress of the cloth here. On Fridays.

a cold morning

Up early with not a lot to say, except  the lamplight looks like moonlight.  And the Magic Cloth 2 is on the wall... but not for long.

The nice thing about large cloth is that you can sit under it while you are still stitching it. This morning the Magic Cloth 1 is a shelter from the chill of the studio. I sat under it before lighting the fire. To watch the sun come up. It kept me warm. It is a good cloth.

If you didn't have a warm cloth, this morning would be a good morning to be covered in fur.

I. We. spent a couple of days trying to imagine a world without internet.  A life where building a shelter, growing food and staying healthy and occasionally stitching a warm cloth could be enough, everything.  I stitched while we chatted away.  And the eye that was born by opening a seam just wide enough to see through it gained focus.  I placed the eye's center to coincide with the first simple ring, thinking to myself, that a ring of vision starts with an eye.  The tiny brown kantha lightly defines the nine patch as a symbol of my beginnings in cloth.  The  brown thread was salvaged from the hem of an old skirt and dyed with walnut.

Some say dreaming is a waste of time. That dreaming is separate from doing.  I think dreaming is part of the natural order of living a life.  And when you look back , it seems like a dream anyway. But it wasn't.   Sometimes I think a dream is just a way to reorder moments into a story that can make more sense. To see in a new way 

 Close your eyes .

 

the big old button

i probably need a button hole next.

i have been thinking about keeping.

gathering and saving.

too much gathered , not enough used.

rethink.

kimonos don't have buttons but this one will.

 

undone

just to say i've caught a bit of a bug and will be resting most of this week.

above, some rescued garden ties, a bit of natural shibori. sunlight resist on cotton. i have more un-dyeing to talk about,  but not now.

see you later.

no end in sight

so last night i decided to launder. and the results are as expected. the garment, this human wrapper, has been warmed by the walnut tone.  the same but oh so different.

early morning. dry. the dye held well considering the quick application and heavy laundering. i feel it will work well now as i apply more layers to specific areas as i go. it is grounded.  the weaving has bloomed nicely and is ready for more stitch.

and the thinnest linen has given away where weak, calling my attention back to mending. these points give me some feather ideas.

and there will be more feathers, this IS the magic feather coat. the first of many special human wrapping cloths.

it is still raining.

i have decided to put together a small free workshop in cloth weaving especially for kids education.  if you are a teacher and have internet access in the class, please send me a group photo with your class and i will send you access to the workshop once it is up and ready. this is part of the magic feather project.

i really love this her blog here.

how about that?

i received a small gift , some vintage linens, from michelle, thank you.  and well she thought they might be machine stitched, but on closer inspection, no, hand embroidered. how about that?  the linen is thin yet still strong. linen is like that.

and with all my thoughts over at diaries about transformation... well the timing was right to think about ( what if?) making them into something, so i clustered them to form a center but i needed to use the backs of two of them to make that happen.  this works. a four patch, rotated to form a center.

i love the way they magically fit together, where the edges meet so casually and unevenly but still how they seem to fit together perfectly even though they don't meet up exactly. each edge slightly different from the next. organic puzzle pieces. like seasons.

back down to earth

for years i have been throwing things over the arms of this worn and cat damaged chair but the stuffing is starting to fall out.  i have a lot of heavier weight cloth that i hardly ever use for my work.  i have decided that i will mend the chair, sewing scrap cloth right to it.  so far a piece of ikat and a scrap of mud cloth covers the top of one arm...  i think i will just wrap the piping with thread... this chair will be so cool. maybe better than new.  and i will significantly reduce the pile of fabric that has been sitting here unused.  that is cool too.

new light

this one has been resting. almost all recycled silk. resting on a worn cotton woven with air. an exercise in thinness. ready to continue. absorbing new light. again layered thinness is on my mind. and silk. and light.

now that my taxes are done....i will celebrate this warming weekend with silk. and light. and airy optimism. a little whispering, maybe some new curtains for the studio. and a bucket of whitewash is waiting.

but first, off to mom's...see you later.

this piece is continued here