Spirit Cloth

 

Centerport Beach grass. When it's almost March.

it's almost March and I'm no less puzzled

Last night.

I stitched. Added a wrinkled edge to a piece I started when I decided to rerun SunMoonStars and then changed my mind because my mind got all tangled up in yesterday and today. And I couldn't straighten it out.

I last posted about it here.

I put an edge on it. A binding is a bit like a hug. It doesn't have to be planned or perfect. As long as it holds it all  together. Even for a moment. You exhale.

The man wasn't feeling well. So he slept, I stitched. Fireside.

It's cold again.

This morning.

The other side of a foundation moon cabin, (this one) looking at that. A kind of ghosting. Inspired by something so simple. Like a diagram. Just a running stitch. Like  drawing of the plan of how the pieces might fit together. I think it is an idea. SeamLines. Making patches that are like plans for quilt blocks. They would look great together as a new type of component. So I will keep going with this. Make a little sampler. Let's see. I'll start with nine.

How it goes.

Old Sea. In winter.

I can't believe we can walk  to this spot. It's all downhill. About a mile. The walk back uphill gets more difficult each year. And more important.Yesterday, I thought to myself...I need to live near the sea.

But I have always lived near the sea. Maybe we think we need what we have, out of habit.

How easily I might slide into a laziness of days. How a lot could slip away and I would be left with just sewing....just going. Yet still holding pattern.

While cleaning and sorting, and exercising less, I've begun to gather a few things for a Paper Sanity Series, mostly loose pages. Paper scraps of self.

 

 

The Place I've Loved

The moss is still here.

I love this picture. It's foggy this morning. The moss seems joyful. To be there. For now.  And the trees seem to be growing right out of my studio. This house will be demolished if we go. No one here will bother with it.  The land is the valuable part.

Over the years we pushed back the brush to expose the curve of it. The garden was always on a slope. Part of the property, the gully at the bottom of the curve, allows for the rain to run off toward the sea.  The water often sits down there now , encouraging mosquitoes, since the neighbor below blocked the right of way. He can be a nasty bastard. You can't reason with him. Whatever. I've removed almost all the bricks and crop circles from the hill, slowly.  Grass and weed took hold even under the snow. This is where the deer move through. Now that it is clear, even more so.  I love that the place has become a path.

I left a mound of parsley I found under the leaves. In the background, the neighboring property on the other side. They like to shrink wrap their boat and other things in plastic for the winter. No comment.

It is way warm again today.  We've enjoyed this little window into spring. Winter isn't over yet.  But spring has sprung all the same.

This piece isn't new. it was just there on the wall with all the little things. It's an old cloth woven (woven into on one side) base. But the window is new. I like how it floats there. Like an idea. 

Maybe it's Joy

 

The sense of that something, I said to myself this morning.

Maybe not just because it's way warm for February.

Because, I know, Joy wells up in me. I am very lucky that way.

I cultivate it. Getting better at that every day. After a while it becomes second nature. To root out the sparks of it. Knowing how just a little spark can start a fire.

There are a lot of little bits of things on the wall. So many they have begun to overlap. I do believe this is how it all began for me. The cloth joy. Just little things.

The cabin blocks have reignited the fire from a simpler time.  Many stories have come back to me, lifting my trust in human nature.  It is like the smell of damp earth that was there on the warm breeze yesterday. As I undid the rest of the garden. Making the place back into a deer run. Hoping that when we leave they might still have a path through.

The new Star Cabin Block is holding a special silk scrap from Richard Carbin. I grabbed a bit of silk and indigo from his shop a while back, since he's right there in Japan. Richard and Glennis put together a mandala class way back.  I haven't quite mastered the technique yet, ha!  Anyway, he included this scrap that he dyed. A scrap of Richard Self. It has a few holes in it, a great fragment (he knew I would love it) and it holds up just fine. I think I found a fine use for this little gift. A Star Carbin block?

I'm rebuilding the resource list form PlaceKeeper, and I will put it here in the sidebar of the main blog page. In a day or so.

Joy to all of you on this fine day. Hoping you find something small to make you smile. And pass it along before it fades.

Note to self:  these cabin blocks with the sun and the moon and the stars, they have become log cabins with windows.

More thoughts about Joy

 

When Spring Comes Early

Awakenings.

No doubt about it.

 

I stitched this yesterday.

This time I took the foundation approach.  But I cobbled it more or less. Invisibly basting as I went alog. Ha! Along. Sometimes folding the edge under. (A seam is just a fold after all. Consider it as simple as that.) Sometimes not.  I used a VERY thin foundation. (an old cotton lawn blouse fragment, worn thinner...) So I would not compromise the feel of it.  What I never liked about foundation piecing was that. The feel of it.  So a Sun Cabin... collage. Easy going patchwork. A design mended into being.

Today a flag for an early spring. The sense of home, warmth,  in that.

Thank for all your comments on my last post. I am still working on the Travelling (I really like the double L version) Companions list. I suppose it will be ever changing. Like the ways things go.

Later... there is no way I will be staying inside today.

Travelling Companions

I did this drawing a week or so ago.  To put in the sidebar.  As the header for a list of links (now working on that), replacing the PlaceKeeper page. Which has grown too large in comparison to the sense of the smaller  circle around me, the one that keeps the basket from unraveling.  I'm older. The time I spend is precious time.  I've grown weary of reaching beyond my means and now content myself in simply vibrating outward, however that might occur. I'm no expert on art and inspiration. Some folks do that so well. The gathering and curating and such. I don't need to be that.  Me, I just go along. In good company. I know too that the bulk of those who read this blog are subscribed by email. The list has grown and grown.  And statistics show that most do not click through to the blog itself, therefore sidebar links and menu bars, even comments and such have no real meaning. I also notice that a huge number of folks have migrated away from blogging to platforms such as Facebook and now mostly Instagram for interaction. I understand all these changes. People like images. They read less. And following large crowds is easier. Anyway.  I am making changes to reduce the "places" here.  PlaceKeeper will go away from the top menu bar, replaced by a small list of Travelling Companions, on my main blog page. 

I'm back to less. Trying once again to simplify, like we do.

I've just added Glennis. We go back as far as I can remember here. And we are still going.

And Wendy, she 's been there for a while now.

One way to Cobble a Cabin

Another Moon Cabin.

Because I have some leftover circles here. And because I like them. (don't you love the weave in that one?) And because I know there will be so many ways to make them.

And just to get back in the habit, a video.  Again I am using my basic free form seamed piecing here. But following a loose pattern idea.

 

click here to watch the video if you see no player or a black box above.

 

I placed it over a few things that were hanging on the wall.  To watch it become the center of something.  I like the one block as a center idea.  Instead of repeating the block over and over in one piece. Maybe just as a way to honor it.

 

Expect the block to shrink as you work, the seams depending on how big you make them, diminish the size of what shows. Of course, like everything we do, we get to sense how it might go. And we work with that. Come to love it.

I like how the circle got cut off.  I didn't plan that, this time.

And my audio here turned into a bit of a cobble as well after a mis-speak.

My life is a patchwork.

 

 

click here to listen if no player above.

This is me, hiding behind cloth. I was actually just testing a web cam format. I am thinking about doing something different.

I had a wonderful day yesterday.

Just being outside in the warmer than usual weather.

 

I feel calm.

 

I feel too calm, if that is possible.

I feel changed, but not because I'm 66.

 

Not much fire building now for 2 days.

Bizarre for February.

We went out for Chinese food.  And then drank not too much wine.

I sewed a bit.  Stayed up way too late and got up way to early considering that. I'm not tired.

 

I made this today...

A Star Cabin Block. And yet still a Nine Patch (forever).  (remember the Moon Cabin?) I enjoy the idea of sheltering the galaxy, holding it.  The idea that the whole thing might be as personal as home. But then so much bigger. Reconsidering space maybe. I piece these together by hand, generally, this way.  But maybe I might be more specific.

This might be cabin week. The idea is expanding. At the same time it is holding tight.

Hope you had a nice weekend.

 

 

 

The glacier is receding.

Like it does. We wait.

To celebrate...

...some new growth around an old broken heart. (a Double Running Stitch is Magic) With a note to self.

Feel Free from worry and have a nice weekend.