Spirit Cloth

It's All OK

Just Going.

Always in motion, hard to capture.

And just growing.  Side by side. No rules except it's oK. The batik trees, in between two of my old patches,  are by Teresa. She is off somewhere, but she'll be ok.

 

video link if you see no player

Territory

 

(Yesterday's Lottery is closed. I will be in touch Monday if your name was picked)

 

What Guides us?

 

There sure was a lot of wishing in April.

There  was, finally, (1)The Star with a Way Through It. (2)Old Feather Brows appeared. (3)And Suddenly a Tree! There were, as always, (4)Growing Pains. And ultimately a (5)Coming Together.

These are for sale. The star $25. The strays $75.00. They are not quite done, but will be soon.

Shipping is free in the USA. $15.00 everywhere else.

 

 

A Little ThreadCrumbs Game...it's more fun this way.

 

Pick one.

 

Send me an email.

Names in a hat Basket.

 

 

I'll be in touch on May 1 if your name was picked. I accept personal checks (USA only) and PayPal.

 

Have a good weekend.

 

 

Thursday's Imperfect Circles

 

Or dots, as I more lovingly refer to them.

I used to talk about dots a lot. Is the word circle a more adult, a more serious word?

The curve of this wood, just part of the circle. My mind completed the rest. Wood. To my son, wood is like what cloth is to me. I think of him. How this helps me know him. Trust him.

I didn't burn this piece. I save it for looking.

The cloth here, except for small scraps, is stored like this. Curled. It makes it seem quite human. Resting there.

The Earth Dot Cloth is a quiet cloth in the Sanity Series. Silk is more fluid. Harder to handle. Prints and seams shift and slide. Sometimes I baste it to something else to stabilize it. But here I wanted the silk to speak in this way. To be as it is as I stitch, yet still accommodate the sense of natural order that calms me.

There is not much continuity to my April. Maybe time will tell me why. Ha, really it doesn't matter. A big Jack Rabbit just hopped across the deck. No pictures,he was too fast.

Today, I really like this.

When it rains here

(And it has been raining. Still raining.)

Things just grow.

There is growth. New growth this morning.

Salad. Right there on the steps.

And growing pains.

 

I woke up wondering ... should I take time off from the internet? To see what it might be like going back to that kind of life. I have seriously forgotten that life. It's been so long. It's not that I don't enjoy blogging. It's that I am curious. I remember a while back when I was working in New York City, commuting every day. I was in a crowd, we, like a sheep, all moving in the same direction, packed into a subway tunnel. Not JUST going.

All of a sudden I stopped. Stood there for a moment and turned around. They oozed around me. Kept going.  I walked the other way and got on a train and went home. I never went back. Which is not my intention here. But it was not my intention then either. It's just the way it happened. And it amazed me really. It was just time. To change directions. That is how I came to be here!!! It's quite amazing isn't it? How it might go? Or not. Just thinking.

 

Just Puzzle Pieces

Probably because they are just always there.

Little pieces.

I walk by,

and can't help myself. Might I be satisfied with this sort of thing? Fleeting Patchwork? A moment later, just a pile. The biggest thought I came a way with yesterday. Create a sense of space. Understand scale as a sense of space. Not a new thought. Just a reminder. It's almost May. May will be the month of the Endless Wishing Cloth. April is awash with rain and loose patches.

Thank you Liz:

 

The Need for Space

 

I wish I could explain this better. I am always in conflict about connection and being alone. There has never been anyway to resolve it. I just rock back and forth and rest when comfort comes.  I have reached a place where everything might change. What I need has changed and therefore, naturally, what I want is sympathetically evolving. I think I need more space in my work, to reflect this. Will I have enough time to finish larger works? Why am I even thinking like that? I'm not that old. I feel good.

Perhaps selling my work has influenced my output. I have always made small pieces as studies for larger ones.  Some how they have taken over as pieces in themselves. I still have a lot of big cloth here. And I got tangled up in something else this past year. I'm rambling because I am very confused at the moment. A good part of it is Spring Fever. The other part is self reflection, maybe because in organizing all my notes and symbols and techniques for Feel Free I have found myself at a crossroads.

?

..a.way..

Away again soon.

A few small cloths and a bit of thread in my pockets.

These two, originally, simply, Cut from the Same Cloth.

 

I saw them begin to branch out. Become more separate. But then, they suddenly became more connected than ever. Through nature. And I'm swept up with the crossover, the nature of being human, how cloth embodies human nature in such a simple basic way. Ways, I could never count them all. The nature of cloth and human story. That is the Spirit part of it. The Spirit of Connection then. This one.

I'm trying to format columns here. It's a bit of a learning curve, to reformat. To practice shaping things to come. Do you see two columns here? Or does it look wacky? I like columns. It is easier to make rambling on seem smaller. I've more to say here. But away for a bit and then back. If this looks funny, I'm sorry, I am new with this html thing. Later. PS - Are both of these me?

April Showers

After a lot of slow rain...

Suddenly new green.

A simple method for the dyeing. The dyeing just to use stuff up, color thread, just to go in some simple way. While my mind wanders off like it does sometimes.

Sometimes consistency teaches us a lot. This is a kind of bastardized solar method I think.

The old coffee pot. Put stuff in. Cover with water. In this case rain water. April brings a lot of water.

Heat it. Simmer a bit. 1/2 hour.

Transfer to a jar. Add a bit of alum. 1/4 tsp.

Add a bit of cloth, a bit of thread. Same cloth, same thread. Testing silk this time.

Cover.

Leave it near the sunny studio window.

 

This batch, 48 hours or so.

I never really did the alum thing in any big way. I'm doing it because I have some.  Just to see. Maybe I will compare it with what I have done before. No mordant, soymilk mordant. I don't know. I don't think it is that important to me. The science or the allegiance. I am a casual dyer. Just the way the color appears is joy enough. Probably, for me, the fastness of color is important because my embroideries depend on it. Although it might be interesting to look at it after all the color has faded or disappeared. Anyway, I might just stitch up a sampler to use as a looking cloth, to watch if the color stays or not. That might be a nice kind of living cloth.  The turmeric and black beans usually fade a bit, but this is my first test with alum.  Appearing and Disappearing is Magic to me, so all is well I guess.

Using what I have is really the most consistent thing about my process. Not necessarily trend. What I have here depends on many things, often gifts from others in addition to the rescued cloth and thread. And then there is curiosity, which forms seemingly out of thin air, but no. It's thought. Thought caught. Used.

I'm still wishing, but for nothing specific. Probably because there was not much sleep last night.

I lay awake thinking about how life goes for different folks.