Spirit Cloth

A family thing

I took this picture while visiting mom recently.  When Dad was sick  he used to sit in the "yellow chair" (an old garden chair that Mom and I painted yellow to brighten  some dark days) to watch TV.   After his stroke he couldn't really walk  and he was heavy and hard to get in a standing position so we used to slide drag the chair around  to the table so he could eat.  Eventually,  the old linoleum floor tiles wore out there.  Mom said let's patch the floor.  We couldn't match the old tiles so we went for something a little bold.  It is great isn't it?   I am imagining a floor with nine patches here and there.  Maybe the studio. 

The lives of cloth

After a weekend of fresh air, digging in the dirt, letting things go, I feel good.  More like myself.  Able to get back to my basic thoughts.   Nine.  Old cloth.  Hand stitching.  Redefining tradition.  The texture of weave.  Indigo.   Patchwork.  Recycling.  I'm  in  love with the simplicity,  beauty and usefulness  of cloth.  Just that.
This old linen has been used for a long time, dyed 3 times now.  Still strong and useful.  Dyeing over stains, cutting up and piecing  gives the color an interesting  random depth and new life.  Cloth has at least nine lives.

At least.

Enrollment for Contemporary Boro 2 is closed.   The class forum will open  next week sometime.  Class begins on the 28th. The user name and password were sent out with order confirmation. A reminder email will be sent out soon.  If you have not given me an alternative email, the note will go to your PayPal email.  Please check you spam folder if you do not receive class info by next week.  

 

The day after yesterday

 Sometimes it is just enough to wake up.   And even better if there are flowers.  And cloth.  We are planting grapes today.  I am thinking raisins.  A form of solar energy for those grey sunless days.   We are aching from long hours working in the garden yesterday.   Dad always used to say the best way to fix that is to go out and do it again.  Hey ho!

Hey

Turn off the computer , it's a beautiful day.

Through and into April

 

Morning through miss  pansy.

...and morning through cloth....( there is a small shop update  today and I am finishing up a few leftover heart pieces that I hope to drop in here and there throughout the month.  Spring cleaning )

And morning through the memory of looking through things last April.

And then,  there is the woad...

...which simply sprouted during a very warm winter and kept going right through some imaginary new kind of season.  I am hoping it simply spreads down the hill  and takes over all these boring weedless suburban gardens that surround me. 

I had no luck with my woad last year. I got lavender.  I hope some kind person emails me and gives me some good sound advice, based on experience,  on how to dye with this successfully.  Because I have a lot of it.  Of course I will try to muddle my way through it once again in any case.  Because that's what we do.   And soon it will be May.

Enjoy your holiday if you are celebrating one. I'll be planting trees. And sorting through magic feathers because I think I can finally see through my confusion on where to start.

 

Easing the blues

 This one is coming along. I started this way back in whispering hearts and it has finally been tamed a bit.  I've been experimenting with ways to control the tension with variations of a Kantha stitch,  a good exercise in relaxing all the blue that included linen, silk velvet and silk gauze, all so different in weight and density.  All so individual  but  now working together.  The new yellow rays have created some excitement,  pushing the blue right off the edge. Fly away blues.

This started as a heart sampler and formed into a circle of hearts.  A community.  Like the sun, something life sustaining.   To balance the Blues.   There were 9 hearts,  until I cropped the piece,  but I can fix that easily enough.

Continued here...

what I might imagine

Because it is doodle wednesday.  But because I think in nines.

expressing oneself

I stitched on this one yesterday.  Quite casually, but with the  underlying intention of continuing something quite important.   The weave thing.   That thing that constantly tugs at me.   Not just weaving itself anymore I realize,  but the feeling of weaving if that can make sense.  How that might move through me and find new form in cloth.   I am working from old sketches that seem relevant all of a sudden.  Because I have never stopped thinking about this really, ever since I learned to weave. Maybe even before.   I suppose what it is, is something that needs to take the shape through some sort of wordlessness  as it has for so long.   So I cannot quite yet explain it clearly, not even to myself.    What was interesting was the  bloom up top,  why I chose that to  be part of such a study in  something so logical.  Mathematically focused  almost.   These sudden thing we choose when we are not watching ourselves.  Over and over, what are they there for?   I think balance.  That bloom is the wrong side of a floral print that I just think is hideous.   But by itself,  it is simply perfect anywhere.   Without any other reason.  A lot of times, especially recently,  I notice that stepping outside of the frame of focus,  beyond it for even a moment, unconsciously even,  seems to offer a more complete picture of what we might ultimately be thinking. 

3:34 PM...

 

Happy April

It was a quiet rainy weekend here.  Not many words and a lot of stitch.  Today is Mom's birthday and I will go visit.   She is 88 and we have planned a pajama party.   I have updated my News for April, although I found it difficult in some way.   I was looking at this picture while having my morning coffee. I was looking at it.  For a while. I think I was considering direction and how complex that really is.  What if direction is only a momentary thing?   A thing you cannot hold long enough to be sure if it exists.  Closing my eyes seems to make it easier.

I came across many stories this weekend that made my sadness seem small.  Sadness is selfish in a way. This is what I concluded.  I will redirect it .  Make it into something else.  Something useful.  After all, that is what we do.