...just a loose stitched patch.
Fuzzy pic, sweaty day. Just to be here, to be hopeful, wishful. And ok.
Some needed air duct repair scheduled for tomorrow and guys will be IN the house. Masks ready, every little thing is such a production.
This old wicker shade was here. Porch light. Fixed it.
A small cloth is a bigger cloth if it holds a big thought.
"There's something happening here
What it is ain't exactly clear..."
Pear. Pears. A Pair of Pears. At woods edge.
A Pair is a positive thing. In my mind. In any form. Because it represents the birth of a pattern. And pattern is a form of natural order. And natural order takes a while to play out.
I keep making these. Pairs. Pair-ings.
Pare. Trim. Pared down, putting patchwork into the simplest perspective. 2 pieces. Connection. The beginning of bigger. But this simple balanced component, that moved away from the ones, then threes I usually work with, takes me away from 9.
Why am I saying this? Because I notice it. Perhaps as an evolution on form and the sense of a change in center. A new balance.
And then. Just one pair a day. How hard is that? One small connection. Maybe not just black and white, just dark and light. Like night and day. Maybe just a record. A way to document, use what is here. 12 days:Surely it might be a blanket by winter. Or next winter. A nest of days.
So piecing. It just goes like that. Small Cloth+ Just Going. I don't work Fast. Just Steady. Even if it can be 10 minutes a day. I don't do it to prove anything. It is simply reassuring. Piece-making. I know it will grow. I will name it for how many days I keep at it. And enjoy using it.
The other one, on the basement wall. I am going to dye it before continuing. Reduce its harshness.
but I'm here.
Actually I am always here but you can't always find me.
It's Today. On the ironing board. Just there.
Note to self: Stop making excuses. Find the Joy. Joy can be a common thread.
Learn to Grow Stuff.
It's time.
Just to show the process, on what I now call a Balancing Act.
The patchwork component, which is now like a large puzzle piece has been inserted into the Equality base, using the applique and cutaway method.
Just to show the thin-ness.
I realized that the black is looking green because the cloth is so thin, the forest is showing through. How good is that? I also note the shadows of the beams. Noting that.
The basement space. Which, despite the low ceiling and small windows, is quite a large space. Painting, caulking, scrubbing, repairing, and there is space. Clean space, although we still might paint the floor.
Just to show The Wall space !
Welcome to the woman cave. It's cool down here without AC, and warm enough in winter with a warm forced air vent. Dry because mostly above ground. So ok. Someday maybe a door to outside, a bigger window. But it's ok. The guy here put up some good lights.
I'll talk a bit more about this process when I get time, right now I am off to drop my car for inspection. Hope that goes well. Next, wood splitting. I have switched to Summer Hours through August. Look for me on Wednesdays.
Just happens.
He ran between my legs when I opened the door from the porch to check on the raised bed seedlings. He leaped through the railing and ran beneath the porch and rolled in the dry dirt. I tried to catch him. He ran up the hill to the stone wall, disappeared and then reappeared from the forest. He ran around front just as the FedEx guy pulled up to deliver a much needed part to fix the shower. He got frightened and disappeared. I was in despair. I called and called. I walked back up the stairs to the porch thinking oh gosh, what will happen if he doesn't find his way back? If the fox comes? What if...? I opened the door to go in and he ran right between my legs, back to safety. This morning he has made it clear he wants to do it again.
The Man broke the axe trying to split some black locust wood. Gosh it is dense. We are getting old. I think we will need to invest in a splitter. To be prepared for winter. Or maybe, in these strange days, just pay someone. Everyone is looking for work here.
ClothWork just happens also.
You remember these from the other day? The explaining puzzles. The loose puzzles. That changed my path.
The green one, well you saw that one hanging on the porch yesterday. The other, just stitched to the center of the window puzzle, applique style, patchwork as applique.
Back trimmed away to keep it thin...
Yes that is a bit of Deb's cloth, wouldn't want to waste it anyway.
I also added a couple of rows of magic squares to the sides. So now it is square.
What a difference a day makes.
What I love here is how it has more depth, the center seems to be far away. I can look through and deep into.
I can leave this here now and stare through and into it for a while. Maybe name it.
It got chilly. 43 this morning. Mid June? Maybe time to do some robe work.
The time in between is the time so telling.
The breaks from what needs to be done. Calls to be done. When you come up for air.
Why do I call this my work?
Suddenly it is quite the opposite.
I have stitched quite deliberately, but without drama. In rows, and then sections. I tacked the sections to the deck rail. To get to know this deck. Forgetting the order of the design. Sensing the beauty in that. I fall back into the simpler time before art and judgement. And I am refreshed. Spaced out like this, the pieced sections have become, again, loose patches. Or even long cloths. Path-works.
The clothesline is temporarily out of reach due to some forest management. With the advisement of a new friend.
Splitting needs to come soon.
When we first moved in, I dumped my kitchen scraps on one corner of the existing raised bed because it was the only spot I could find where the soil was soft enough to turn over.
The soil is good. What a gift, the soil is good. Even though I have decided that this will eventually be a dye garden,it looks like, for now, we have some bonus potatoes, tomatoes, onions and squash. I will space them out a bit today. Madder has been planted on the other side. That will take more time.
Yes, I feel torn apart. Don't we all?
Piece.
Pairing. Pairings , as I call them, just simple connections, have often been my starting point for patchwork. Two, loose scraps, often mismatched, touching, then becoming more. Here, obviously more deliberate, but still, with a bigger cloth in mind, such a simple and effortless and gratifying way to begin. One plus one. These are 2.5" squares, because I was dividing space, and I started with 5". I hung them on a string on the porch, like flags. Clothespins were too heavy so I used pins.
Black and white. The magic seen through new eyes.
Then black-ish and white-ish, because nothing is that simple, black and white.
Prayer flags I thought, though I don't like the word prayer because of its link to religion. I am yes, God-Less. But I thought just redefine it in your own terms. With how you feel. Prayer-ings then today. In the context of the moment. Because a prayer might just be a way for saying Please help me,I can't do this by myself. We might simply ask each other for help. Sometime yesterday, I decided to stop talking about what I really don't know. To sound like I do. Maybe focus on what I can do. Here in this local community. Connect. While still Hunkering Down which seems to gone to hell in a handbasket.
I will talk through cloth here. I know how to do that. That is simply how I find words.
First there were prayer-ings, then paired to become magic 4 patches, my symbol for the time it takes, night and day. Season. And I have the green cross cloth pinned other-side up, using the shadow as a guide to build. A reference point.
What if I use yellow ? Energy. As a center? I think this cloth , the base will come together quite quickly now, Because I am driven. I will embellish with stitch from both sides. Which I think might emphasize and even celebrate a layered connection. I look forward to the day.
It was close to 90 here yesterday in the Valley. It has become summer without me noticing. And we have been here almost 6 months already. Suddenly the forest is becoming carpeted in ferns.
I have never lived with frogs and dragon flies before. The are glorious.
I say things over and over again.
Usually as I am going. Probably because they work more than once. And that is reassuring. I am on a side trip here for the weekend. Continuing with new eyes. But I do this with Big Cloth too. Manage thickness as I go. Managing is that, problem solving in the moment. Tending to need. While holding on to the bigger picture.
Link to video if you see no player.
It took hours. In the scheme of all things, not long really. I enjoyed it a lot more with the extra layer. I could hold it more easily, the stitch rested in the bed of cloth with more ease. I noticed how many ways I can fold this cloth and birth new eyes.
Maybe we can manage anger with a bit of thin cloth.
Then this morning I just pinned to look. At a thought I had.
I note to myself how I so often create blankets with a center which radiates outward. But then this is interesting suddenly. A path that runs through it. I stacked a few small pieces I had here. Just to see and think about that. And then of course other thoughts surfaced.
audio link if you see no player
(Reminder, if you have trouble with the audio cutting off, try changing your browser. Firefox or Chrome seem the best).
When someone asks, how did you think of that?
Where did the idea come from?
(I wanted to talk today but my batteries are dead.)
Well sometimes I think I make up a story that might seem a little simpler than it is. More like something I can take credit for. Some thing I can own. Instead of telling the story as is. Because honestly, how it happens doesn't always make the kind of sense I expect. It's not a straight line or a path so easily followed. That is why process is so interesting to me. And why I tend to honor the in between more and more. Letting it be on its own. Because it is what I don't expect, or always give value to, that helps me understand how new form emerges. Eventually.
Loose thoughts. Loose patches. Loose implies free. Free to realign. Alignment implies a kind of useful harmony. Peace. Peace is a temporary state. It wears out. Must be mended. A life's work.
You can't teach creativity.
It's just there. You might simply try to make it more obvious how to find it. Demonstrate the usefulness of thought.
If it's too large to grasp, make it seem smaller. Perspective.
Today is an in between day. Letting thoughts out.
Wednesday is now Robe day.
Saturday is now quilt/Blanket day.
All the other days are like today.
That's about as clear as I will get. I have been listing Hunker Down posts in order in the sidebar under Hunker Down Diaries. Enough of that, the list might go on forever. No matter what they are telling us. If you are following, you are following. I'm tired of organizing. Day by Day it is, till it isn't.
If the path before you is clear,
you are probably on
someone else's.
-Carl Jung