Spirit Cloth

Fresh

April. Almost May.

The best time to witness Fresh. I think it's that green that is like no other.

Outside. Stay outside. Still quite cool at night, mornings require one small fire to take the nip out of the inside air. Sleeping is very fine. Waking to birdsong.

The warm winter allowed a lot of clearing. Keeping the brush at bay. This has given us more open space around the garden and an open path down the hill to the back of the house. Robins are loving it. Some fresh green weed has carpeted the exposed soil and made it all glorious.

Unfortunately the deer also have a clear path to the garden. I get up extra early, keeping watch over new growth, especially the lilies that they love to munch on at daybreak. We already lost most of the tulips. Time to use some pee.

There are piles of fresh cuts seasoning. One other reason for all the clearing is to make this land seem more usable, for putting it up for sale is in the near future.

I've got this under the needle today and fresh thoughts are forming.

This cloth story continued from here.

 

A Quiet Cloth

About 37 x 38 inches not square.

A cloth that simply has the sense that decisions are being made. The safety, sanity and natural order in that.

A Heart's Path Home in progress...

I decided to do a bit of talking today because seriously it is easy to forget how I was doing all of this. Use it or lose it.

 

audio link if you see no player

 

 

The Morning After

Yes. It's still raining.

I'm continuing from here. In the blue light of morning.

The raw seam will hold the center. Maybe a kind of honesty. A frame for that.

I'm not around on the web much. I'm reading some but not saying. Short on words and working through that. I suppose I might go either way. I find myself caught by the thoughts between one word and another. They echo back at me and I say "what?"

I am using up some old linen and cotton upholstery samples I have here to build the cabin. Using things up. The back of the cloth is on the up side here, the print will show on the other side, thought it does show in a subtle way on this side as well. Since the base cloths are thick yet soft, this will be a single layer blanket, no batting or backing will be added. So the one side and the other side will actually be one, exchanging places now and then. Inside out. Outside in. Exposed. Quiet.

Wandering like Home

I suppose Path and Home have crossed over in my mind today.

I did do some stitching. The center panel is eco printed silk. You might find out a lot about the Eco Print process by looking into the books by India Flint. The only departure here is that I cut the plant material (in this case onion skins)into shapes because leaf prints are not my thing and everyone is doing that at this point. Right? Just trying to find my Way. I don't feel it is my place to teach this process. India is listed on my Placekeeper page under Wander and not Get Lost. I made a few jottings today. To gather my thoughts. Noting more than ever how they cross over. And Patchwork has surfaced again in more of a story form. I continue.

Ultimately I arrived here. With the Heart's Path at the center of Home. Now configured as some easy going Log Cabin arrangement. And I think I will leave the center block framed by a softer raw edge by simply making that seam inside out.  Normally I might entertain doing these long seams on the machine. But I put the machine away for good. A long hand stitched seam is more like wandering than running toward a destination. So I will do a bit of that.

Notes to self:

1-The log cabin block is very much like a basket.

2-Seams might be used as personal symbols in some way.

 

 

 

A Heart's Path

Next under the needle. It's been waiting

A heart's path waits.

I've tried to update my newsletter and organize my selling situation.

No Luck. Can't seem to focus on any of it.

I'll stitch on this. And do some walking. It's cold but it will be colder.

Maybe this will serve as my path back to patchwork. I've been wandering off.

Fringe - the natural edge

A new small cloth  emerged in the last days. Just to stitch. And I'm calling it Holding Steady between Regret and Expectation. Which might be story enough. But I will talk about it later.

I found myself playing with raw edges, maybe just a reflection of being a bit frazzled myself.

But all is well. Though today is an indoor day. April showers are keeping the day cool and damp. And the wind is a bit to high for my liking.

 

One of the easiest way to get a fringe is to use the natural edge of cloth itself.

Just tearing cloth  makes a nice soft composition. The tearing process itself creates a fringe by pulling the threads and shredding them a bit past a clean cut. You can also cut cloth into shapes, and safety pin them to a larger base cloth before running them through a washer (lest they get lost) to get a soft shaped edge. A video here from way back shows some results. (From this post)

 

video link if you see no player

 

Ragged cut edge applique is popular these days. I think it seems easier, no turning of edges. Also the culture that has emerged around mending and boro has freed many (the less patient) from trying to be so neat and move towards more of the collage method of composing with cloth. When it comes to deciding between turned and ragged, well, I choose according to what works well at the moment. What functions, what needs to be expressed. What creates the image I need. Having developed the skill to turn gives me the freedom to choose one or the other.

I do enjoy the raw edge as an expression of the nature of the cloth itself. As well as experimenting with different levels of ragged instead of just a cut,  I do often take extra care to keep the ragged in place and integrate it more into the surface of the piece.

Here's some chat about that:

 

video link if you see no player

I will round up some of the other natural fringe videos I've made over the years and add them, in addition to these, to Feel Free. Soon.

So. We had a freeze last night.

The man is in the air somewhere between there and here.

He's not feeling well so I'm making soup.

I kept stitching yesterday. The day, like quite a few days before, passing in a kind of unfamiliar blur. Not understanding why. Normally, I enjoy time to myself. I get stuff done. Clear my head. This time I simply missed him terribly. There, I said it.

So this Early April Stray. Weary, Waiting, Wallowing in an old sea of confusion. Feeling Incomplete. Conjuring a way to rescue herself using what's in her heart to build a better basket.

 

No Focus

Sometimes you just go with that.

And you don't worry about it.

I'll call this Not Full Circle. Half a moon, Half a face. Half a basket.

Just a cloth doodle. Not getting anywhere but still going.

April Going

It's April, still warm with cold coming. But mostly plenty of showers, true to form.

Yesterday, we, Soul-o and me, were out all day. I feel better for that.

Close to the earth.

He is always in motion in Spring. Mostly outside, going. I find it funny how he walks the paths if they are there.

I patched some path-work work. Offsetting the seam lines, making the stitch lines contrasted and messy, so they would show some imperfection. Working with thin coth that is more difficult to handle and less stable gives a nice organic feel to a grid. Here offset to look like brick. I am not crazy about this type of thing as an overall arrangement but I do like it here as it runs through the cloth like a path. Path is on my mind. How it divides space. Creates a place out of in between and makes that useful.

I like, here, how the patched pattern says solid but it has a feel of weightlessness.

I need to update my Newsletter. I am lazy on this humid spring morning.