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The Shirt I call Nine
So this audio format seems the most reliable. More work but not too much in the scheme of things. It did delay my post a bit later though. I can adjust. Someone asked about podcasting. I could check that out but it probably costs something.
It's raining again.
Later: like this morning, Friday, Ha, Grace!
The laundry.
(And a few sniffles.)
A joy that never ends. I love to hang laundry outside. We never had a dryer growing up. So glad to have laundry line memories. Maybe I love cloth more because of that.
The shirt I call Nine (you might remember from Contemporary Boro). On the line. I've done more stitching on it over the years. I am going to shorten it today. And mend it a bit.
I was considered dyeing it a while back, but I didn't.
I didn't plant these. They sprouted voluntarily in the path between the raised beds after I moved the compost for the fence building. I considered yanking them out, it was so late, but I didn't. And they made it though Ida. In such a short while, full grown, good shit, this compost. Looks like all the rain and a warm enough autumn will allow full ripening. I am delighted with my late garden. Farmer jude is back at it.
Weaver jude is on her way.
... 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.
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.
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...
I am having issues with the internet again so I cannot upload video today. I am not going to dwell on it really.
On the heels of yesterday then...pinned to Sanity. A Wom(b)man's Cloth.
Womb Woman's Apron. I added the red fringe (continuing) and some old garden ties (holding) from my old garden back there, I think to stake the sunflowers before a big storm. I was going to weave some ties but this seemed an act of kindness to some old cloth. It can rest here for now. It has inspired new direction for a robe called Wind.
What if a field of stitch will ground this thing?
Whispering, the Man had a sleepless night and is finally resting, hope you can hear me. Too cold for the porch this morning.
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The circles are drawn.
In permanent ink.
These are new circles but really they seem like old circles unearthed.
I have more of a sense of that.
That they have always been there.
Wednesday. Robe day.
I've been enjoying the pics on Instagram and seeing where you are.
Where am I?
I ask that a lot. Sometimes as soon as I rise in the morning. But here, today, I am still at where was I. ? .
I use the term Design Mending to describe a form of real time design. It's really about continuing from where you are. Reconsidering based on what is. Not returning to check if you are on plan. Where you should be. Everything is new at each moment. From a creative standpoint I think Boro can be used as an example of moment to moment problem solving, going, as each moment changes the shape of what was, and what you need, and what you have to work with. And ultimately what you get.
So that morning, so long ago, Wind was hanging. On a stick in the home I no longer live in. I noticed how different it was from my original drawing but how my original needs had still been met. I thought about what I may have done differently to begin with, but how that didn't matter as long as I ended up with a light weight summer robe that I might throw on as I jumped naked from the bed on a hot summer morning. Maybe just to go out to watch the sunrise. Maybe to feed the goats if I had some. Probably just to put out the trash. And if it was today, just to gaze out the window and wonder where I am.
Anyway, back in June of 2012... I looked at where I was. I talked out loud to myself. (And oddly, I am talking to you now)
Link to audio if you see no player.
Then, Now What? Where I was and a way to continue:
Link to audio 2 if you see no player
Hey, large just became small again!
I think it's time to be here and now with this robe. Because so much unrecorded work has been done. And still there is so much more I could do to make this more into a finished garment. Next Wednesday I will ask myself where am I? In real time and get on with it.
Like I said yesterday...
I usually take one of 2 approaches when binding an edge. Turned or ragged, but mostly binding the front openings of simple garments is just like adding a simple seam binding to enclose and strengthen the edge. A place that gets a lot of wear. The place where outside meets inside. With a bit of imagination, it could be decorative and functional at the same time.
The basic turned casing is the strongest and most common.
Link to video 1 if you see no player below...
A simple solution.
Link to video 2 if you see no player below.
So far pinned.
A little more about edges edges from another class that was not about garments...all these techiniques cross over really, you just adapt them to your own situation.
Link to video 3 if you see no player below.
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If you want a more padded edge you can add another layer of cloth or use a thicker fabric. Once I used a strip of old quilt with the batting still in. OR you can sew one binding over another. A lot of times that happens from repeated mending. You see the result of that on a lot of old boro garments. For Wind, I wanted a thin edge. At least then. I never finished the Kimono Shirt. I was naming it East-West. And I had plans to weave into it. We'll see...
Have a good weekend. Blog issues will keep me busy. Hopefully next week Typepad will feel like cooperating and I can continue...I want to start a quilt.
Where was I?
link to video if you see no player below
link to audio if you see no player above
And some related rambling...
Can't believe how dark some of these videos were, no sun I guess.
video link if you see no player below.
Today's note to self...posting here, for now, well, it's ridiculous. But I know it's possible. Moments here, moments there, OK, it's a patchwork. Little bits at a time. Duh jude, figure out a way to hold it together. That's what you do. So less often, posts being built over a series of days. Content, in smaller pieces perhaps. In perspective, appropriate.
The thing I like about cloth is that it seems kind.
You can make friends with it, it will cooperate if you give it's nature some consideration. Like working with anything,(anyone), it is basically an exercise in problem solving (not always JUST going), based on what you have to work with. I often say ingenuity springs from a relationship based on patience and flexibility. Love, I guess. Yes, I just love cloth.
Cloth is like clay. I will be like Clay.
I had been slowly adding strips of that patchwork curtain to the front of the robe. I added one of the other pieced strips as well. but I moved the strip slightly, off it's original course, because cloth lets you do that...to fit the one side of the neckline. I like the gentle curve of the seams. How it flows. Seems to adapt to the situation. Seems to soften. Like gentle wind.
link to video if you see no player below.
I was already wearing Wind at this point. Getting know it. Walking, Sitting, even Sleeping with it. Oh Ha!
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I have been posting content from an old class, just wanting to finish up the basic approach to robe making as it applies to a large cloth base you might choose to work on. I will get through the basics of that soon and with May, move on to other forms of large cloth. But know that all these techniques might be applied to a quilt type project as well. My goal is never actually to lead you through something step by step but to inspire you to find your own comfort with problem solving. Offering my perspective.
As I look back, at any point, I might have taken another direction. Watching all of you doing your own thing reminds me how that might happen.
Thank you for your patience as always...
If the path before you is clear,
you are probably on
someone else's.
-Carl Jung