Spirit Cloth

hand and eye and coma

thanks to elaine lipson...and her quiet yet constant dedication to bring us crumbs on the textile trail of slow cloth, i recently subscribed to the new handeye magazine.  a wonderful new publication focused on textiles and connecting cultures in the spirit of sustaining craft.  my copy has arrived and the format is large and the concept clean and simple and the photos are enough to whisk you away.  you can read more on their website (click the image), the mission statement is here.  a great new read, i love it.  i have added it to the publications in my sidebar.

and so i have been whirled away. the sun has returned and so has coma.

quilting with shibori

...i remain focused on expanding the use of shibori in quilting, both for traditional and contemporary style. like all hand dyes, the one of a kind aspect makes it really special.  there is an element of light that is so inspiring and the glow of the soft edges brings a new dimensional element to fabric. there is a warmth contained in this technique that i compare to a good red wine. the spirit of an ancient craft.
my experiments are expanding with many collected scraps and generous gifts from friends. i did a post a while back about supporting this craft. and i am focused on doing just that. recently i came across laura of IndigoNightOwl. laura does beautiful shibori and and although she is focused on raising a family right now, i love her work and encouraged her to sell me a few scraps so i could incorporate them into my work. she has no blog, but do  visit her on flickr here...and say hi for me or leave a comment. what i like about what she sent was the array of wonderful fabric she has worked on which includes silk, linen and cotton in various weaves all suitable for quilting. the fabrics are soft weaves and stable, not shifting out of shape in any way, making them easy to piece with...
shibori fills my head, especially indigo....and glennis has been playing with indigo ombre, how delicious is that? if you are going to the Long Beach Quilting Festival, find her there. she will be offering some great stuff.
this is the beginning of my quilting with shibori series.  i working on an article about this. i am on the prowl for new dyers. i already have a list of dyers in my sidebar to focus on my sources, but i will break this down to focus on shibori specifically.  i have set up a flickr group if you have any show and tell.  let's play.

some new experiments are in the works but for now, the coming full moon has pulled the wild thing out for some night air. 

when the tide comes in

...it has been a quiet few days. the weather has been sunny and rainy and cool and warm and rainy and sunny. the extreme weather these last months has literally washed a lot of the beach away...leaving a narrow strip which means less humans and more of the natural animal life. we took some walks to check out the new shoreline.
..... and we were not alone.
i suppose i was inspired with the tides edge. 2 sides of the shift ( now aka 'the sands of time') have become blue. shades of indigo of course. one washed out and soft, the other deep and dark. and a few new details are starting to show up on the shore in between.
the other two sides were inspired by holding things together. symbols. keepers. strips of knotted silk. i think i can say that they are a tribute to the storm that life can bring, the battle we endure to hold it together. the simple beauty of that when seen from a distance.  and some attempt at immortality on a quieter scale.

... i am enjoying the slower pace. there are  new  old friends here.

quilting for change

yes it is raining. i added the evidence of some older spin. something traditional.  and i let the new shift interrupt the old arc.  lace always seems like a net of time somehow.  beautiful in its tangle.
change is the word that the scribble evolved into. what if we all grab a needle and thread today and stitch something up , mend something, sew for change.  and i don't mean the weather.
i will be slipping into a coma for a few days.  do check out jeana's teeny petticoats.  and check out  teresa ...her etsy shop has some great little bundles of silk and wool hand dyes. i got me one and i can't wait to dig in.

still shifting

a break in the rain allowed us to try for a beach walk this morning. before we had to take cover with the next shower there was an odd whirlpool, some mystery wind isolated over the shallow water. all else seemed motionless except this expanding spin. i tried to take a video but my skills with the camera are still lacking.
once back home it was obvious that this shift (coma) study had already become a cloth on its own, growing to include layers of shift. i am concentrating mostly on ikat as a fabric theme here because its design is built on a shift of sorts and i think they can all work together based on that harmony. i was surprised how quickly this one came together. after that scribble worked itself into a word....i remembered sometimes an idea centers itself and you are just along for the ride. we got really wet walking back to the car.

digital doodle wednesday

another wet wednesday. experimenting with digitally altering an old watercolor . for fun. sea dots.

a not so quiet heart

this one just keeps changing and has become a personal collection of crazy edges. i had to add some red because i needed to see it bleed a bit. the fringe helped that too. and i used a really fragile print with cutouts. a little  heart mask. the faded tan  gave a nice antique quality...
 ...i ripped and stitched and cut and patched and seemingly created a frame from nothing. time to let it go.  a heart shaped moon. that is what it reminds me of.

dots as place shifters

since i decided to go with the shift theme as a border for coma, i am playing around with changing things on hand.  this one was an issue way back, having some stress attached to it and abandoned...so i thought it would be appropriate for the shifting game. the slight rotation is nice.... and i love the resulting crescent moon after a sideways shift...but, well, i am particularly fond of the inside out. either version.
there will be a shift in my approach for posting for the summer. the plan is to leave myself 2 or three days a week to be unplugged.  but on the remaining days i might be posting more than once.  i am going to try that for a while.  there will also be a change in the shop situation so i will keep you updated. i need to mix it up a bit.  life is like salad.  it needs to be tossed.

summer hours

i woke up to a mini coma this morning. still no sun here  and i seem to be moving to a new slow. i scribbled a border on The Shift...and i am being pulled by its spin. dizzying. i am planning a new posting schedule for the summer months at the same time i am thinking that this shifted design  could be a great border idea for a bigger coma. 
its a funny thing to say but it feels so good to be back in a coma again.

a wish

dad was a regular guy. unassuming. a father,  a chiropractor,  a gardener, a fisherman. he loved the sea, his family and his life.
 ...i've been working on a wishing star. because he gave me so much and i wish i could hug him right now. sometimes i use sewing to mend my heart...