Spirit Cloth

awareness on friday

through the studio window the scene is warm . not so inside.. we woke up to no heat today. i am sitting here  waiting for the boiler repair truck. no doodles today . it is cold and i am stitching.  and thinking.

...i am thinking about halloween and stitching a black cat. an october beast on a field of warm color.

...and there is a cold and ragged moon because winter is coming and also because i was thinking of the dot as a random collection of  things accidentally coming together in a a circular frame of reference.

and i have added a few details to this seasonal lion to give him/her a heightened sense of awareness. because it is cold and i am thinking about being warm and about the possibility of need being the mother of awareness. and awareness being the mother of inspiration. so happy halloween.  i will go visit mom later today and i will be back on sunday.

de vrouw spint

the blue spins up beautifully. on the spindle that i made in 1975. still "spinnen" after all these years.

spinning alternatives

... i got side-tracked yesterday....and ended up trying another version of that "face off" howl....still loving velvet and the contrast between its soft changing surface and the hard permanence of the stitch.

this is one of 2  moon offerings. the physical characteristics of the elements here were chosen to depict conflict but also unlikely alliance. the background is cut from an old kimono and is a fabulous printed silk ikat that has a very fine metallic thread woven into it here and there. very old. the fringed velvet is a new gift and a very modern fabric. i am playing with mixing in some wool and also some antique black and whites as both contrast to the rich color and as symbols of some sort of inevitable logic.

it is a very wet and blustery day. i need to dig out my spindle. i think spinning could be a nice way to relax into november. too many things spinning in my head. i need to transfer them into something useful. 

and today i like this. and this.

spinning and spinning

some things are too good to resist. so yes. i bought something.  how delicious is this indigo dyed wool from laura at indigo night owl???  laura is a mom and it amazes me how she does all this wonderful stuff at home with kids.  her energy and focus astounds me. i spotted her dyeing wool on flickr and begged her to share some of this with me.   now i have to dig out my drop spindle because i want to work with this stuff nice and slow..... and then do some slow weaving with it. the weather is cooling down and its time to work with some warmer fiber.

...and speaking about spinning, a  friend picked up this wheel which has some missing parts and she  was wondering if anyone , (maybe laura?) can identify the make of this wheel or whether anyone knows if the parts are replaceable and if this wheel is fully functional? i don't know much about wheels, i spin mostly by the drop method. your help is appreciated.

comment issues

just a note to let you know that although comments are showing up on the recent comments list, some are not appearing on the posts so i may not be able to read them. sorry. typepad's problem. stupid.

that kind of day

still playing with lions. anticipating the full moon. the dot as a heart is a what-if i forgot to mention.

the cat as a dot

it's raining and cold today. a good day for napping. a good day to curl up into a ball and sleep with the lions.

 

...or play with them.

quilting the alphabet

alphabet soup is an old project. (it even has its own category)  i started it during my " electric jude" phase (another category) while trying to get comfortable with the sewing machine.  it is a baby quilt and there are no babies being born here lately so i just stitch on it now and then. i considered cutting it up into several smaller pieces and making mini quilts but every time i take it out to work on it, i fall in love with it again.

the thing about the sewing machine is it makes me crazy. the speed of it sucks me into some kind of frenzy and i get ahead of myself and confusion sets in.  yet i love the free piecing i have learned from tonya and i like the graphic result of the shapes as they form.  i have formulated a way to revisit this concept with out the frenzy.  firstly, a treadle machine ( which i don't have yet)... and then working my way through this concept again. more slowly, with a bit of what-iffing thrown in.  something more deliberate. something to make machine sewing into slow cloth. just a series of tiny folk art pieces. to test a few ideas i have about color and piecing and concept and method. 

but today i am back to quilting part of the bigger piece. the pumpkin. it's time.

A short Apple story

so when brother jeff was visiting from out west, he brought me a home grown apple. it was just the most perfect red dot.

and he brought mom an apple too. like an apple for the teacher.

we all got together and drank some  wine and picked a few of those little dots called crab apples... from the little tree that jeff planted on mom's patio a few years back.

....i cut the apple to see what was inside and to use it as a model for the little apple sampler.

and now there are more Apples in cloth. because A is for Apple. and also Applique. and because i am working on a new Alphabet series.  more about that later.  today i will visit mom because she made some Apple pie.

the character of shadow

that last piece of  that foggy fabric has been used to complete a soft scream. it was irregular and some additional holes have been cut here and there in this new layer so that the shadow would seem to be disappearing (or at least changing shape) and also so there would again be a few scraps left in the bin. i am thinking that you might never know when the shadow may reappear but the possibility is always there.

the upper left hand corner/edge of this piece was missing, filled in with the striped backing border and it was a bit empty and lost. i scribbled a few words there in permanent pen....i wrote...a dream of a more unstable time... and then i shrouded it in the scrap of fog, i hid it in the shadow. sometimes the light is blocked, sometimes by you yourself .

you yourself  might cast a shadow, darkening your own path. to yourself. at least that is what i was thinking.  and what you are thinking is not always clear unless you explain it. something like marketing. so now you know.

anyway, this one is close to done. i decided to take a photo in the morning's shadow. a still life with an october dot. 

the back is a whole other story. the kind that just happens.