Spirit Cloth

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.

a little story in the making

another small chapter was added as i stitched on that holiday eve...that miniature coyote, who has been a long time playing a game with clarity, was finally able to transport the steady rhythm of a peaceful heart to a particularly chaotic and dark corner of time.  this small journey (part of that never ending series) is complete. clarity for mom. christmas 2008.
thank you all for your well wishes on my time out post. i just checked in to share this little story and i  will continue my time out for a little while longer . later.

(if you are new here there is more about where the coyote came from here, here, and here.)

time out

....taking some time to reflect and enjoy life. peace to all of you.

studio sunday and a lifetime guarantee

.....6 AM
.....12 PM
.....2PM
.....a bit later.

quilting and taking it easy

.....we had quite a bit of snow last night. it is still snowing today. it cold and windy and icy.
.......a good day to think. a good day to finish a quilt.
.....we have been using the winter indoor days to do a bit of painting and fixing and i have moved a bit of my stuff to another room for better light and to get some stuff out of the mr. fix-it path.
.....as i started quilting the last edge of fever.. i remembered why i had left it till last. when a quilt gets big and you want to do some detailed quilting following shapes and things, it is hard to keep turning the quilt around and around so you can stitch in the right direction. spirals are the worst. so. i thought to myself, this is way too stressful and my wrists are hurting (getting old) so why not (or should i say what if?) just turn the stitch instead of quilt. well. it works just fine and there is added stitch interest as well. i am just putting the needle in where i comfortably can and taking it out the same way. and the quilting stitch goes this way and that . a new kind of meandering free motion hand quilting style which i am liking very much. it is quicker too. i am giving this away monday and i want some time to sew a label. slow cloth can only be so slow.

yesterday

 .....yesterday was a day that i thought about how things come together. yesterday i renamed her 'walks among shadows'. WAS. because that has a story built right in.
....yesterday that lion from the past  established some territory on the back of fever. like home but plenty of space to roam. still a solitary traveler, but also a friend.
.....and yesterday was also my parents anniversary and even though he isn't here, mom and i had a little party anyway.

the sun came just came up . i wonder what will happen today.

doodles and winter harvest

....i grow a few  of my herbs in large pots, since the weather is so strange lately and the rosemary plant that is spending the winter indoors has become so huge, i needed to cut it back just to walk around it.  even though i usually cut and use it fresh i have a lot laying around drying.
i happened on and old rosemary jar while cleaning and now i have remembered how i much fun i used to have doodling labels for all my herbal tea concoctions.
some old ones here. i think i'll make some new ones too.(and i have some thoughts about some dots in these drawings that i want to add to my dot journal which is on hold until after the holidays.)

stitching an open wound

.....such a tumultuous few days since that big moon.....i thought it appropriate to tend to the reverse side of fever and close up some of the scars of the process. patching together all the old and new quilt sections left gaping holes and even though a lot of the quilting is complete, the insides are still exposed along the edges.
 ....i've simply started by covering the gashes with some volcanic hand dyed strips of muslin from dijanne. i love working with this fabric it is lightweight and easy to stitch layer on layer. and the color is so intense. i am hoping for some bleed off of color after washing, to document the evidence of slow healing. there are some messier spots to tend to now so i will be back later.

outlines

.....not much new today. just some empty dots. and the cat i brought in from the cold wild woods (and fell in love with) has fallen ill and i am worried.

quilt as a slow journal

.....the colored layers of the winter sunrise makes me remember how dad used to lay colored wash over  wet paper to begin his watercolor paintings.
 fever has come to document a strange year. a year filled with layered change and blurry edges. there is still the sadness of my father's absence, a dark hole i fall into now and then. but there is my mom who fills emptiness with amazing grace.  and there are new friends... and fabrics and more stitches than ever. 

and there are always jeff's (aka walter)  pictures when i have no words.
.....one of my favorite edges on this quilt is where the pieces of the old and new didn't match up and the mended path of the edge has become a zig-zag pathway. it holds together just the same and has become  a bit more interesting in fact.

i have decided to make an effort to wrap this up soon so i can go down to the union square market and wrap it around  my brother nemo (don't miss this post) before he freezes his ass off trying to make a buck.