Spirit Cloth

an almost February morning

Letting the light in. 

It helps reveal my process.

Where I cut is not for the looking though.

It's about feel, I work with cloth because of the feel. The living breathing quality. Layers can stiffen. I want it to be more like skin. Or something that might shape shift. In the wind.

That's a Japanese Andromeda right outside the front window, which is low to the ground, easy to look out of. Tiny birds have built a nest in it. I think I can trim it without disturbing them.

The face has emerged in sympathy with that batik scrap. Seems like roots.  This stray self will evolve with many roots. Evolution is a slow transformation. We will not live long enough. But we might speed it up with a little imagination.

My 69th birthday is coming up in February. Last year I decided to close this blog on that very day. Then, somewhere mid year I decided to start a new blog on that very day. Today I am simply considering so many things and most of them are not about blogging or me at all.  

Lighten up

Problem: Can't see out the window without standing up.

Solution: Stand up.

The days are sunny. Not really warm but the sun hits this side of the house with mighty force and there is a kind of passive solar effect.  I realize that might have been a plan, how the house was oriented and built with such small windows. I realize maybe, also, maybe not. But it is as it is. Warmer.

There was a small sunny spot to sit for a while, in this room filled with scraps of self. It was enough to busy myself with a stray self. Just being aware how good it feels. To sew in the sunlight.  In managing the layers, I cut from the back of my new "self", to make myself lighter and ended up with a smaller leftover self I hadn't even considered as being there. It was cut from the background cloth and I simply used it to correct or accentuate the lean of the new self. Used it as a patch. You might not even notice. But I know it's there.

Then whispered to myself, nothing has been wasted. There were more scraps from earlier trimming so I went ahead yes, and added those as well. We change but we don't disappear. We rearrange.

There are a lot of ants here. I am working on a way to divert their attention. 

Change, like a river

Uprooted. The word has been tossed around here and I kept it in my mind.

There must have been a big wind here not so long ago.  Big tree toppled, still here, never cleared or moved. Close to the house but they all fell "away".  It's how the wind moves through here. You can see the pattern in how the trees grow.  How beautiful to just see this. Uprooted. How it just seems part of the going. Not an interruption. I am not sure I want to interfere. I am in it. Here. Now witness to new teaching by trees. I want to go sit. Right there.

Came across this batik, loving it in sympathy with thoughts of uprooted. Just looking, but inspired to act. 

 

The Joy in

Determination...

I just unrolled this one.

It's the giveaway for Patchwork in Perspective, Part 1/ Thought Catching.  Of course the class has been on hold now for some time.  The move interrupted my thought stream.  I can honestly say I forgot what I was thinking.  But I am still thinking.  So no harm done. I stopped longing for any thought in particular and instead have settled for thinking itself.  I will take a few more stitches here. And pick a name. Eventually I will put together that Feel Free Newsletter and get on with it. Please excuse the fact that I have not updated a lot of the info on the site in a while...

There is so much to do here, it fills my day. I made a lot of plans, but you know what they say...

What's left of the snow.

 

One Month in

There was a fairy tale. (isn't there always?) Some other house, some other place. Not this house.

This house. Nothing special really. A house. A nice spot. In good shape on the inside, as houses go. Except the appliances were not working and there was no heat.) More practical for older folks except there are so many stairs. But as a house, mostly boring. My biggest complaint, especially in this small room, I have to stand up to look out the window. I think we need to make some holes for some new windows. The question is, will we?  When I moved into my other house, I was barely 30. I ripped it apart. Now, well now I come to be more comfortable with just imagining. After all I have certainly exercised that muscle over the years. And we certainly have all we need. You have to be grateful for that. This town is much lower income, more mixed ethnically. It's good to move away from white privilege. The culture that springs from it. I'm sick of it. Sometimes I sicken myself.

I've unpacked most everything and stuffed it into this room. (I cannot call it a studio yet) Except the looms and the weaving/dyeing stuff which remains in the basement. A basement, never had one of those before. The basement, though, is pretty much above ground, so it is dry and has potential. Imagining again. All the cloth is here, but, except for a few small cloths, work is not unrolled. Yet.

I keep doing this. One thing over another. Looking at one thing in the context of another. Perhaps resting in what might have been and trying to be comfortable with that without longing for it. Letting them coexist. I think it is a good exercise, especially as I age.  Just sensing the beauty in that. It's a different kind of form.

So here they are, still afloat, gloriously drifting through what might have been but not longing for it, acknowledging the beauty in it all. And the imagining. Later settling for how it might happen. Looking forward to it, actually. As Joy returns.

HOME beCOMING cloth

A little long cloth in the shop today.

Honoring the standing, in the face of change.

And the simple tradition of new beginnings.

Simple even though it's not.

4" x 9.5" plus fringe and the magic thread it hangs by. Hand stitched, cobbled that is, collage style with a few seams, how I like it. The moon to align to, constancy. The nine patch to celebrate the natural order of the magic of appearing and disappearing, like night and day. Riding in the wind, change. The triangle, protection, here a roof, sometimes, when flipped, a womb. A nine pane window for the light within. The box. The one we put ourselves in. The flower, a garden with 9 magic seeds for growth and renewal. Fringe, continuing and roots. Many scraps of self, indigo dyed for endurance. The story that indigo prolongs the life of  cloth.

Then Useful. A little long cloth, like a path. A way. A reminder. The stick, the first twig from here. Removable if a book mat is needed. Or maybe for kindling? Then a leftover strand of Magic Thread to stitch with.

You might like it even if I hadn't bothered to say all of that I suppose.

 

Building with nothing

 

The word Poof.

For the magic of appearing and disappearing. Though, I think, basically a kind of sudden unexplained change in what and where without a lot of why. And perhaps, a bit later, wondering how.  More commonly though, linked to the disappearing part. As is nowhere, nothing. Gone.

I stitched a little patch of Poof back here. And I was gone for a while. But was I?

I worked around the patch "log cabin" style (which is like building a basket). I guess, because, for me, poof is a place. Maybe it's an in between place where I need not explain.

Anyway, a larger cloth. I had the 5" puzzle pieces prepared to be a frame of mind. And built the 3" poof to fit in the middle of a blank 9. A safe no place. 

Comfort Zone. Sanity Series #?, I lost count.

It's hard to read. It was difficult to make the word appear. Like a new language. 

January is passing.  I hope to get a new Feel Free Newsletter out by February. Many things have changed. I heard the coyotes here last night, wow.

Smaller

The deer.

Among clotheslines. Closer than before. A group of young ones wandered through. Or maybe they are just smaller here? They are more grey, less brown from the other place I no longer call home. Very hard to see against the oak bark. I think they have been more present, just not noticed because not so much in the clearing near the house. This is right outside the window where I put my drawing/drink tea table that sits closer to the ground. 

The tiny iron tea pot.  And not for drinking tea. I bought it from Crazy Richard in Japan, while considering small cloth. Asked if it could linger there before the move. It just arrived. It's actually my new tiny dyepot, maybe big enough for one walnut. And then, I accidentally left my big old walnut pot behind. I did remember my big copper pot though.  But smaller was,is on my mind. Dyeing one scrap at a time.

Scraps of self grow smaller each year.

Cloth is again like a world

Poof.

Probably 20 years.

I have had this piece of silk. Not new at all when I came across it, tossed in the trash, seems to have been ripped out of some sample book at one point. Not uncommon to find such things while working as a designer in the textile world. Fashion folks are so wasteful.  It's special. Warp printed and jacquard woven with one color in the weft. And now I have cut it. Not sure what it had been intended for but at least I am using it. 

In the same boat, In the same world.  The velvet is indigo dyed over a bit of Mom's Wedding dress. That dress sure gets around. Some gaps to fill here and then some over stitching imagined. Inspired by that jacquard. This one has carried me. Us. From one place to another.

Across moons.

Just a Blanket of snow.

I need to step back once again. Poof.

Actually having some issues with Typepad again. 

Pics are appearing and disappearing.

Just enjoy the magic.