Spirit Cloth

Hanging

Hanging here, these small loose favorite things, I used to dress up this ugly chandelier when I moved here...(do you believe we are almost a year in?) they have come to be quite handy in these stay at home times.

The thing about hanging...

...is that a thread is often involved, at least here, hanging by a thread.

Thread is good. It's the part of the equation that we can use for change. 

This is an old piece. I just named it Coming Back to Life. Normally I might go back and check what I called it way back when. Catch that thread. But I am wondering how useful that is. The story is already in me and maybe the current thread is what I should go with. To continue. Today is a loose patch.

It is still warm here but that will change soon enough. I have collected a lot of plant material here and cooked up an Earth Yellow brew. I often over-dye but rarely over print. I am thinking about that today. That thought is hanging in my mind. By a thread.

Things will be a bit piecemeal here for the rest of 2020. I think I will pull it all together with the turn of the year. Still stitching on Holding Pattern. It's a gift to be given by year's end.

Ps. I feel Good.

Still at It

An old cloth called (Nine for)Freedom, found in the pile of The Unfinished.

This morning I added the blue ripple. A ripple is softer, more gentle than a wave. In a way, it holds change in balance.

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.

It's hard to know the big picture...

...probably because we never really get to see it.

Still we try to hold the sense of it. It doesn't make me feel small like it used to. I can just be part of it. Like a patch. It is easier to hold on to that these days. The Bigger Cloth.

I was simply exhausted yesterday. I slept early and I slept deep. Soul-o seemed to know, he stayed close.  This morning, after 4 tries, photos! 

The piece above, an unfinished small journey from the class with the same name.  I added and stitched the overlapping circles after asking myself "is a circle just the mother of all shift?" And I named it It's Just Time while working on it. Because that's it, not the thing, or the blog or the book or the anything. It's just time, the story. And all this shit is just part of it.  Be in it and share it or not.  What is it going to be?

I posted at Instagram this morning, trying to feel like it was the blog.  Very uneasy feeling, even though I post there a lot, it is not the same as I feel here. So I can share yes, I will continue to do that there, in case I cannot here. But I will struggle.  What else is there? 

I am tweaking Feel Free to become a back up blog. That will take a while.  I know TypePad is fading as they are now directing new sign ups to a WordPress server. They are struggling too. Maybe I will just choose to appreciate that. I fear less about losing anything here, I think the functionality will slip a bit but I can always reference the content and leave it here. Comments might be an issue, but I will just go and leave crumbs where you can find me if I lose you.  My heart IS in it. It was just a few hard days. For many more reasons than just this. We are all in the same big boat.