There were just quiet stitches yesterday, the snow globe effect always surfaces in winter. And there is drawing now as I reconsider line on cloth. I can go there now by breaking my own preconceptions about what clothwork is.
Now that posts here are not being delivered by email in any timely manner and I expect, soon, not at all, I tend to post more slowly, saving and adding over more time, like a diary, letting my thought drift through time. Feels freer actually. The no hurry to finish a post.
I am winding down for the year. I suppose I will hibernate for a bit soon. Although it will be back up into the 60s by tomorrow. Time to redefine season I think.
I will try to talk about this small cloth tomorrow.
There are berries on the dogwood. The birds will be happy about that.
There are pears despite tree fungus. All the leaves turned black and fell off. But there are pears. Smaller but sweet. I will learn more about pears. These grow along the road in. Trees need to be trimmed along the wood's edge, too much shade. Next year, more fruit trees and some learning.
There is a circle here on Everything is So Fragile. Even though it is too big to see. More than one actually. Suddenly it has occurred to me that there is no other kind of direction. In perspective.
It was around this time almost 2 years ago that we knew we were probably going to move here. My sense of time is so strange now. But a circle always helps me realize it doesn't matter.
Moving some firewood today.
And I renamed this many times but today I will call it just that.
...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.
8:58 AM I felt the need to strengthen the circle aspect of this cloth I called Heal, but now I am leaning toward Regeneration.
The magic version of the double running stitch seemed appropriate. Two needles threaded, black, white, using the stitched circle that came through from the other side as a guide. Only stitching, this time, through the top layer.
Was going to try a little video and talk about a few things, but that is obviously not going to happen for now.
It is cool, it is raining softly, and we are all in renewal mode.
10:51 AM OK, I am on my way... just another digital version of a previous sketch, not sure whether to bring the red through, I think so. I think so.
2:14 PM I just posted a video on Instagram related to this post. Never mind, deleted it. was too long for the post and cannot seem to load it to IGTV. For today, I give up.
A little quilting, just simple, around the edge quilting. Seems to add a simple logic of building to the new day side.
And then around the sun. Hardly visible from the other side if you don't look closely. But it is there, the new day has come through. There are many choices for thread and stitch. Stitching does not have to scream, it can simply whisper. There is satisfaction in the way this is going. It takes me back to a simpler time when no one was watching. It is nice to know I am still that person. That I have held fast to what I love. I like the place it takes me to. No, wait, I AM that place.
There is a huge hibiscus tree at the edge of the wood that I had not noticed until it bloomed. This morning it was all-a-buzz. You hopefully know that sound. I saw this pollen drenched bee and thought... keep at it, find a way, do the hard work, gather, take what you need and spread the goodness.
It's summer and it is unbearably humid and hot at the moment.
Yesterday, Nest of Days, circle side toward me. Toward the rising sun.
This morning, the other side. I had commented that I might want to bring the circle through somehow.
Poof.
Today I am thinking about Oneness and both sides of the cloth as a Pairing. I am inspired to work the circle into the other-side so it is apparent without the lighting. I also love how the porch seems to become a tent with cloth hanging. If you ask me about process, I would have to say that although I am slow in getting to it, and some of you have fallen away with impatience, this is a big part of the process, how I get to where I am going. Lesson for today. Slow down. Let it unfold or just hang in the air...like summer dampness.
We are going out this morning. He's waiting.
So signing off for a few days. Trying to set up studio in the basement, do some bathroom repairs, get my car inspected, split some wood...address some chimney issues... a big list has formed. Need to get through it.
Another circle of green, then OK, a Pool of Green.
A Pool of Green for no reason.
So. Just because. Just because I had a lot of green silk.
How things really go, let's count the ways today.
The video is cut off at the beginning, I said I'm sorry about the shadow, but actually not really sorry. I just thought I should say that. It dragged on a bit, way too much, and I was a bit out of the ring of vision. But too lazy to edit. The washer was running. The man began asking me questions as he was trying to fix the hinge on my computer, which, we know at this point cannot be fixed. The house is small and it's hard to get away from each other. The sound carries. It was raining and so that was that. A pool of green seemed a way to escape. AND So again, the goal here, has to become not to present a soft edged fairy-tale in slo-mo with a soundtrack as if everything is perfectly aligned (which I, like all other creatives might consider convincing and valuable, some more than others),but to show and tell how it goes. I am not sure we learn that much from the "hollywood" effect anyway. I guess we are entertained and can rest there. But we are more likely to aspire to what cannot be. Or just isn't. Which makes us into followers. Which seems the goal of the century. And all that might come with that.
I am not being negative. Someone asked a question this week. What are you learning about yourself through all this? I think I feel a bit confused about the effects. The changes. Except the part about me that is becoming increasingly impatient with bullshit. Especially my own. I think more deeply and then make a note to myself... getting older makes bullshit less and less useful. Probably because there's not enough time for it.
And then after watching this again, another note to self...another self perhaps. From another perspective...we all have enough of reality anyway so why not seek out the fairy-tale? Who needs to watch this? I could have just said I drew a circle and scrunched some silk into it and now it looks like a pool of green. I like it. And that's enough. Then I might take a picture of myself running through the forest wearing this as a cape. I might enjoy that I suppose and and you too.
Life is hilariously confusing.
The rain stopped and the squirrels dug up all the seedlings in the raised beds on the porch. I'll not worry too much about gardening to eat this year. Whatever grows grows. I doubt the fencing will go up this season. Money will be spent on chimney repair first, which looks like a big job. And there are certainly enough wild greens to eat. I will perhaps concentrate on composting and caring for and pruning what's here. Especially that pear tree. Maybe plant a few small fruit trees. Sow some wildflowers. Buy from and support local food growers.
Just now the resident red fox hopped over the stone wall and ran under the porch and down into the woods below. I see her every morning. She reminds me of Just Going.
Field. Many definitions, but for me a space defined, chosen, within all other spaces that might act as a guide for focus. As in field of vision I suppose. And then and course, a place for wild open growth and play. An open field. Like Feeling Free. I play with the circle a lot, but not always. As I look at the quilts I have made, these shaped overlays, fields of focus, are fairly constant. Sometimes they happen at the beginning. As a base. Sometimes they are a tool to bring things together at a later stage. They are a layer of thought. Sometimes there are so many I forget. But they can often be used to explain how one thing might become another.
Still with the circle this morning, I tried more than one. And the overlap (another kind of alignment) seemed an eye opener.
This piece that was hanging on the porch back here. Working with that, what-iffing, not on Wednesday, but hey. Again stitched over pen lines. Inspiring radical change on this cloth and also a larger application for a big cloth in the back of my mind.
Digital musings for cloth and maybe paper. And imaginings, not yet recorded from the well of memory unspoken.
And then, as I turn to press publish on this post, I see this. On the top of the patch basket.
From Glennis. And I think of overlap as form of Kindness. Friendship, Sharing. Sharing will bring new form. Maybe the simple beauty in this drove deep into my heart a while back and although I forgot, I actually remembered. Time is magic.
I am grateful, in these difficult times, that we still might find time and ways to share and be kind. Let's focus on that. If we all do it, we will all be OK.
