Spirit Cloth

sunrise

undoing stillness

....the weather is warmer. little by little the days are growing in length and so we are walking. getting off the couch and walking. every afternoon.  trying to establish a pattern for moving around. to stay alive. it is so easy to become motionless when you are not working.
 ...the beach was smooth and flat at first glance yesterday. the winter storms have beaten down the surface and compacted the sand. but as always, looking closer revealed a different story. this was just the inspiration i needed. the pattern of wear, the motion created by history and especially disturbance.
.....so i have decided to work more on the surface of coma, especially on the background... to create a texture that might not reveal its detail unless you look very close. like the surface of the moon. holes cut in torn strips will be overlapped and sewn down over the old quilt surface. i am thinking of still following the block framework, with some changes of direction. the new ragged holes give a nice worn look but also reinforce the old surface while revealing small bits of the past. another mask, keeping time layered in a rhythm of white on white. with lots of quilting i think it will hold together quite well but still look like it needs mending. old and new at the same time. yes,yes,yes.

undoing oneself

...i am engaged in a little bit of looking back. digging through old stuff. quieting down a bit. i am just all over the place lately. i want to focus once again on coma. in preparation i am slowly sorting through everything i have done in the past. a bit of pre-spring cleaning maybe. but mostly handling cloth and digging deeper into myself.  pictured here is the oldest know surviving jude patchwork. originally the front of a muslin shirt, since cut apart. it was pieced using scraps from a worn quilt from my grandmother, along with some of the first fabrics in my collection (the birth of my fabric fetish). based on a 3/4" square, the fabric was already faded and soft. as i recall it was pieced on the subway, commuting to my first job in new york city. i remember people staring at me, but not in disapproval...like they were remembering something.
.....one star remains fairly intact which is reassuring. 

.....i like looking at the holes and the order that still remains despite the deterioration. i like the framework that remains where the hand stitched seams hold the planned lines fast with bits of thread from the the meeting places of patches, even though the middles are disappearing. keepers of original intention. that is what i find comfort in today. a soft reflection.

i am also back to what-iffing again.

doodle wednesday

a new moon story

.....she often goes outside to let the sun color her faded hair.

.....he spends a lot of time quietly imagining his face floating in the new moon.

  .....they have noticed that destiny has been framed by something that seems as much a part of history as it does the future as they come to accept  timelessness.
i like this little piece (11" x 15") for many reasons. it quenches my thirst to illustrate and tell a story. i tried a few new techniques (later). i used a lot of old and gifted fabrics. and it is on its way to laney and i think that she will appreciate it. all good things.

another in the small journey series.

another ode to nook

 from the lion quilt....
 great white nanook of the north zone. fuzzy nutted winter dancer. sometimes fat, legs out flat, disappearing lover cat. nook was stitched with the moon in his eye. one day he walked away and never came back. now i am thinking may-be he came back as WAS.

(i have created a category for the lion quilt... a pre-blog cloth.)

context

.....if you weren't right here in real time, you would think this was really my nook (long gone now) napping on my studio chair.
.....the photo is one of my favs, taken by my son, a master at stopping time without pretense. i might be thinking about how much context plays a role in expression. i might be thinking how we think we fit thoughts into situations and settings, manipulating them into our own frames, imagining that we have captured them somehow.
.....i laughed out loud this morning as i went to work on that  destiny piece. how WAS has perfectly arranged herself within its newly planned border. all of WAS self-contained without cropping. anyway.... i am playing around with old and new fragments (gifted of course) to make the frame for the date with destiny a little more confusing and open ended. more like a blind date. love is blind right? so maybe art is too.

rainy sunday

.....it was that kind of day. we went out driving, stopping for coffee and donuts and planning a walk by the shore but the weather was not very inspiring. at least it didn't turn out to be snow.  there was some fun taking pictures through the car window. ...
i really like how the edges of the raindrops grab the bare tree branches and morph them  into liquid dot like things.
.....a walk along the wood's edge on the way back to the house revealed some good things about this day. i planted a bunch of unidentified bulbs in the fall. i don't know what they are but at least they are growing.
the alphabet quilt has been given a bunch of greens as a border in honor of rather gentle rain and some new growth.

maybe

M might be for Maybe. maybe i will finish this quilt before spring. today i will add an edging because i like to do that before i am done. i like working against an edge.
....i have taken a few picture this morning showing all the quilting and details i have completed so far. the kantha style stitch takes time and i am also adding appliques and details to each letter as i go.
....i am up to M. last night we decided that besides Mushroom, m might be for Mouse, or Moose, or Mittens or Mommy... maybe you have some suggestions that could be stitched in. (keep it clean, it IS a baby quilt)
Monster? maybe the mushroom could use some Moss? and yes, i am already working on a Moon.

(the history of this project is logged as alphabet soup in my categories)

birthday presence and the date with destiny

...my birthday was swell, especially since i thought i was 59 and now i realize i'm only fiddy eight. i am obviously getting old enough to forget things in new ways. the day was spent with mom who passed me some cash and a PIE. and my son dropped by and surprised me with a print of his great photo of  a beautiful open road . (above)
more presents. ...nemo and mom gave me a partially re-assembled puppet from Myanmar that was broken while traveling back from elsewhere. i look forward to some mending and refurbishing. the eyes and mouth each have separate controls! ...and jeff's  gift the  book "in defense of food" by michael polllan is just the kick i need to get me back on the right path since i have vowed to make this year a journey back to better health habits.

....'metsky' gave me.... well..... we have an ongoing date with destiny and we are going dutch. 

AND it was just amazing to find all your presents in the form of comments at my blog doorstep this morning. and so in the spirit of presence presents... the comments on my birthday post have just been closed and i've put all your sweet names in a hat. this piece is almost done and will be  my surprise birthday giveaway... winner to be announced on the 25th with the new moon. gotcha!