Spirit Cloth

dec 16

Look

Look he seemed to say...

The big cold wind erased all traces of Autumn.

Everything seems to rest comfortably...

...In this cloth I call The Nest of Days. It is a basket.

With thoughts (often questions) now, of revisiting Magic Diaries , here, openly (one of my older online making series), I am somehow revisiting an older self. Wondering if I can, will it make me feel sad?  Will it make me feel a longing for simpler times? Or is it the same and only a mindset? A frame of mind. 

It is really cold outside. Really and metaphorically speaking. But some Inner Warmth remains and I am reassured.  Like leaves, some things just need to fall away. 

Roots and Waves and Upheaval

New Roots.

At sunrise. Roots always seem ancient to me. But they are also a symbol of continuing. And newness then, a way to hold in the going. I was glad to see these this morning. The year has been so destabilizing. And these new roots make me feel like I am more at home.

I just kept stitching. This morning I sense a sea of stitch has formed. I am resting, floating in it.

Honestly I feel more puzzled than ever. Stitch is simple and I can understand it.

Out walking. Still learning the land.

This might be a favorite place. Old Earth is such a Timekeeper. A Story Teller. A story cloth I may well rest beneath one day... I made a new category, Old Earth. The Earth seems older here.

Design Mending

... continued from my last post...

Yeah, so ok, good. Better. Attached but needs some stitching through. Quilting.

Posting again today because I will be needing a few days offline for a few reasons.

A few folks contacted me about Whispering White. I hope you used an active email address. I could not make contact back. Please check your spam folder. 

Large Cloth as Place again

PlaceKeeping.

A term I have used for so long. For many parts of my journey, mostly in cloth making.

P is for Place. Place is a special part of Space. Very often a kind of home.  Or a destination. (as recorded in the Feel Free Glossary on April 19, 2019. Gee time has indeed passed quickly.) Then, even a reference point. Lately a place to hide.

How much this robe is like a blanket but then a robe's 3 dimensional aspect is so much more a "structure".

Here on a stick, balanced between a chair and a the half wall that separates the room with the big table and the fire room below. Before coffee.

I turned it other-side out. I made the blue side first, then coated the other-side with what I had here. It wasn't too hard because it is based on rectangles. When I first made this I was in another frame of mind. I wasn't much thinking about "through". I was trying hard to make sure that what was on one side would be independent of the other.  The invisible stitch was a big part of that. But over time, I relaxed. And began to take a different approach. A few things began to come through. I haven't worn it much other-side out. I never liked how the sleeves looked. I am going to coat them with another layer. I don't need to but I want to. Some thin plant dyed silk gifted to me by an old friend. To recolor them, which will make them warmer but not much heavier. Ultimately also useful.

I found some basting still in this from like 20 years ago. I have been using it for so long I almost forgot how unfinished it could remain and still be useful. Most definitely it will never fall apart with all the layers. In my lifetime. It's robe weather. I have a few robes. What a luxury. Probably I only need one. 

I have decided it might serve me well to create some project pages over at Feel Free to keep things together.  Typepad continues to have issues and well, maybe. I will catch some thoughts about that today. While wearing my renamed robe other-side out. While I look for that silk.

And while I am rambling, the PlaceKeeper link up top on this blog has become so outdated, a lot of the links are not working, I will be rethinking that as well. Maybe while I line those sleeves.

The Cleanse

It's what? October 5th. Had to check.

Spring Cleaning is the norm I guess but I am going to do it now. I mean really. The lessening. Not so much the things, they are on the list, but the things that are in my head. My head is too full.

I made another Karma patch. It's not perfect.

I am collecting loose thoughts now, on the Bird Robe that I decided to rename the Thought Catcher. Actually it became a place for symbols a while ago, so maybe I am just finally continuing. The slow speed of photo uploads has reached absurdity. I will try later. Just add that to the absurdity list. Are we in twilight zone? Time to go scream on the porch. No. wait, lose that, time to go walk in the woods. Stitch by the window. Stretch time. Get some perspective. Make shit seem smaller.

Ok, later, there it is...

 

 

Comforting Others, regardless

I thought a lot about what happened yesterday. How we don't know each other. How my scream's subject was not clear. How kindness might not need to know. 

I moved my old sewing chair nearer to the window.

I stitched a bit before sunset.

This morning, confirmation, the spot is just right. I have created a comfort zone with a small move. Still putting pieces of the puzzle together here, bit by bit. Building a sense of home is patchwork, in perspective. It's bigger than house. But it helps to start where the heart is. Then vibrate outward.

Connection

The internet came back yesterday.

The whole thing seems very fishy here. This internet service. I don't buy any of their explanations. Maybe they think I'm stupid.  Our guess is that they are over capacity and they are engineering some kind of rolling blackouts. Here in Nowhere'sville, we are not a priority. Whatever.

Two blankets. As one. Connected by no real thread. Just being.

So you spend all this time, making a blanket, arranging things to look just so. But really, this is the way we see it. A changing landscape. A surface.

What I love about quilts, the large cloths that really become blankets, is that they are removed from the Gallery Show and Tell scene and inserted into real life. All else melts away.  Art is cool, but a blanket is warm.  Warm and protective in the way skin is. It wears and tears and lives a life. It holds all the thoughts along the way and makes them useful. There is a bond with a blanket that defies intellectual analysis. That is what brings me back over and over again. The beauty and comfort in that connection. In perspective, the need for such a simple outcome.

link to audio if you see no player

I need this to become that.

Coma Time

Cooler nights.

Coma is the second cloth layer when the nights cool.  There have been a few. Good deep sleep.

I whispered to myself. (the Man was still sleeping)

The garden whispered. Rise and shine.

Heat is returning. Promises of a warm Fall. Maybe the deer compromised tomatoes will have time to bear more fruit.

Rise and Shine. Do what you need to do.

Today I need to do laundry. Actually, today I want to do laundry. I can do laundry and that can be enough. Cloth Work.

Just Quilting

This part, the quilting. Needle Chanting.

I am quilting a Nest Of Days.

My favorite part is the hardest for me these days.  Older with thumb joint issues. Slower than ever. But then, it is the forever part that holds me in the safest place.

The basic quilting style I began with. Just going, along the seams. Simple. With squares, reinforcing the grid. I am back there, in simpler times. Hoping to finish another blanket before winter. 

The quilting will be done using what is left in the thread nest from a year of working. No worry about color. Just thread to hold it together. Mostly I use 2 strands of floss. No hoop.  I will quilt what is here and then make the whole thing bigger by adding around the edge. A cloth can always become bigger. Even if it is already bound. I am not sure I have ever composed that thought as I have this morning.

A baby quilt might just be the gift of beginning, it could grow with you. Imagine it as a nest of days, adding a ring each year as needed, so it remained big enough to hold you.