Spirit Cloth

The Soul-o saga

Loves to eat.  Anything really, but especially Chicken. Soul-o loves chicken.

After Chicken there is happiness.

We are considering the nickname Chicken.  Say Chicken. Right there.  My grandmother used to call us grand kids her chickens.  She brings back great memories of simple kindness.  My mother's mother. They say I have grown to look like her in my old age.

Soul-o rarely stops moving, except to sleep, and that is mostly done up in the loft.  Most of the pictures I take are like this.

Winter's blur is more fun this year.

What it is

Sitting here in this one room that we are heating for the winter.  Sitting here talking to myself a lot more as I work. And look. And grow older.  Different now that I purposely reversed the habit of video and audio when, as I talk to myself, I am really talking to others.  So conscious of how different that actually is. Turned out to be. How long I have tried to consider it the same, make it that way.  But it isn't. Hasn't been. I ask myself, once again, could it be? 

Why doesn't it become that?  Does it need to?

The hearts on this one seemed very trite this morning.  I thought about heart.  Heart as core.  Also heart as shield.  Then, can one heart really touch another. Without something more than just proximity, pull. Alliance ?.

I thought, take them off. They are too...too common place. Empty.  I cut.  I reconsidered how one heart might affect another.  And the symbol itself as an easy language component.

Honesty.   How uncommon it is.  How it is the ultimate gift. How ever much it might hurt.

Still it is there to offer isn't it?   Shall we or not?  In this  past year that I grew old, I realized more clearly that I wasn't born yesterday.  I have many  things noticed, realized, yet unspoken.  For fear, Just Maybe, of ripping hearts open.  Maybe even my own.

Today is a big day in a small room with many questions.

Whew

Last night after a busy day.

This morning, a heat wave, a whopping 13 degrees.

We don't take the screens down anymore. Spring will return.

I felt a cold coming on.  No way I said to myself. I told it to go away. So far so good. Sometimes that actually works.

We are sleeping in front of the fire,  all the large cloths layered for warmth.  Nice to see the old and new touching.  Making each other more useful.  Telling stories.

I sure have stitched a lot of stitches. But I'm not done yet.

A Beast Tale

Enough side trips

Back Home.

New De-Tails.

Ok, Just so you know, I'm going for it...

It's been on hold, but I am going ahead with the hosting of a new What if Diaries Series.  Just waiting for Spring because it is just too cold here in this one room we are heating.  Just Considering Weave.  And it's relationship to sewing.  Since I have been talking about that for so long.   A different format.  But Just Going all the same.  before I get too old for all this.

This class will be available for registration soon. Beginning in April or May. Still working out the timing.

This series will cover the basics of weave ( as you know, something very close to my heart), it's tradition and it's nature  and a lot of considering how to redefine all of that.  No experience necessary really. More details real soon.

Just Patchwork (or anything) again

But not really.

Because really nothing is ever really Just forever if you spend some time considering it. One thing I really love is redefining tradition. Or redefining in general. It is an exercises in another kind of acceptance.  It is kind of like, well, having a child, holding it close and yet not wanting that child to be exactly like you. No.  You would like to be Understood. Respected.  Yes.  Acknowledged. But, then. You.  You might, would hope that this child would use all that to become more. Something like that, yes. Not a copy.  More.  Or then, maybe even Less. Just something. New.

I'm always in the mood for that. Becoming. Redefining That in any small way possible.

Even Hope is a beginning. 

2. Two degrees. The house is encased in cold.  A bit like an igloo.  Strange.  Like beasts in a cave we are.  But warmer.  Each willing to become less in many ways, to make space to be.

Winter seems much bigger this time around. As if we have made more space for it to be. More.

 

After a big snow...

It's not really warm in here this morning.  But it is warm enough. Barely.

And that's how it will be for a while, it seems. 

My son, the woodworker, kindly donated all his hardwood scrap to our fire keeping cause.  Mixed in I uncovered a little piece of wood patchwork.  Wood is his cloth.

During a big snow

I was out early.  Surprised, really at how early the snow started, how fine it was.  Some hauling of wood.  Making sure the tarps were secure in case of big wind.

There is a large  roof overhang that serves as a small porch. We always have an extra supply of wood there, stacked up to, but not past, the window level  so as not to block the view.  I've covered the wood with an old blanket this time to keep the blowing snow off.  This Cloth. I love it.  Grace sent me this blanket.  I have used it for so many things that have to do with making do. A useful gift is really something.

Although there are feeders hanging out there,  this storm seems big. The feeders get crowded. I spread some extra seed on top of the blanket.   So many hungry birds, more room to prepare for a cold night.  Entertainment from inside as well.  Easy to watch up close because, thanks to the man, there is a triple window there now.  Easy to see out, not so easy to see in  during the daylight hours.  Wait till Soul-o wakes up from the afternoon nap. I'm not stitching today, just thinking about it. 

Later, since it will snow all night, we will take the Jeep out for a spin.  Just to see.

Nope. Ice.

Before a big snow

I woke to that whitened light.  I knew. 

Readying for the worst of the winter.  Big snow has begun.  Big extended chill to follow.

And then February.  February is my birth month.  It always the one that tests me somehow.  I  think the test will be something more this year.  In this one room we are heating. Just to see.  Feeling wordless already.   

Soul-o is home

Cold moving in again.  The fresh wood stacked by the fire (and this cloth) seems like home I think.  Nice and warm with a tad of forest.  Fear subsiding.   Ate from my hand today. Gifts have been exchanged.

It's gong to be OK.