Spirit Cloth

stitching a face cover

...it is the mask that i have chosen to be the transitional element from the house to the lava. the inside ring of blocks will be a wall of masks. i have been thinking of the mask as a kind of window. walter likes windows and there are plenty of the regular kind around the outer edge, separating the front from the back, the garden. so now walter can look out to the garden, or in-to himself.

doodles for masks were made earlier on and now i am ready to move forward. there is a new what if in my new notes, a project for later. in the meantime i have applied the first mask to the quilt, an adaptation of a monkey mask from bali. it is interesting how the face sort of evolves as you stitch, changing at every moment. a choice in each step along the way.

i suppose these face covers will be the keepers of secrets.  symbols of our evolving edges.

quilting inside out

i started what if as a behind the scenes process log. this is the behind the scenes what if from #10. so surprising to me now as a successful element on its own... now that i have embraced this new discipline of acceptance. the observation. the first hand doing. explaining things as they are to you, for real... it is a way of speaking from the heart.

.....i like the knots. they are like seeds, like breadcrumbs, like lifelines to a process. i am planning something to illustrate "this seeing though, getting to the inside"  for the quilt.  like a path or window but some other kind of window. the lava is just about complete, it is the inside. i need a transition element to the house blocks.

(the face here is an old carved pipe bowl from turkey)

quilting the lady in the shoe

the areas left to be filled in on the tigress coat are irregular. i used a small sheet of acetate over the areas to trace the shapes needed and cut them out as templates. see through templates work well because you can also see through to adjust the placement over the fabric to be cut . in this case i wanted to include the lady that  Dy discovered in the patchwork (what if # 8), and lo and behold, now she is in a shoe.... all fitting together like pieces in a puzzle.

weaving a coat for a tiger

the tigress is being built from many scraps and i have been tearing and applying pieces one by one. it occurred to me that i could use my quilt weaving method to prepare larger scrap patchwork piece, shortening the process. this will be  developed and evaluated over at  what if but it is being prepared for use in this quilt.  i will cut from this newly made ragged scrap patch to appliqué and fill in  the remainder of HER coat.

there is a bit of velvet in there.

thanks to Glennis, i have added narablog, a new link for inspiration. it has given me the idea of documenting my antique fabric collection. i started to do that on flickr, i want to do that, yes i want to do that. maybe that will be a WHAT IF. What if i do that?

where the ragged tigress lives

keeper of change ...with a watchful eye on the center, the ragged tigress adorned in all her tattered  glory, begins to unravel a story. she sings of churning and burning and learning and shows signs of organic transformation.
there is a metallic printed medallion applique(on linen) on her back which has not been integrated enough, i will add stitching between the metallic lines to created a mico-mosaic texture to make it blend in better.