Years and years ago, I made this patchwork for a pillowcase.
I gave it to my mother.
It was one of my first patchworks where I departed from commercial fabrics. In fact the yellow squares at the border are cut from my high school gym-suit. I clearly remember high school gym. Probably because I was always embarrassed by the teacher because I was not athletic.
I got it back to repair. But time passed and so did Mom. It's not a pillowcase anymore. It's a story fragment. I cut part of it off to use in something else. I don't remember when or what. But it's probably buried in this blog somewhere. The indigo is new. I can say I patch with dye. And of course, there is a lot more to say about dyed patchwork when I pull it together. I hung this on the wall to remind myself to do that. I've not time for a lot of things right now.
It's raining. Way more rain than we need really. It just keeps raining. Yesterday, after waiting so long for a dry day, I had some wood dumped. I covered it with a tarp, not having time to stack. And expecting a shower. It's been raining all night and still raining. Like a monsoon. At sunrise, no tarp and a big pile of drenched wood.
I used to use element more, but component is so related to compose. And then compound.
In any case as it relates to traditional patchwork quilting, my beginnings with cloth, building blocks.
But really, ultimately I end up with Puzzle Pieces.
Because in a puzzle, the solver is expected to put pieces together in a logical way. Puzzles are often created to be a form of entertainment but they can also arise from serious consideration. And evolve into something more useful. Each component is for me the visualization of a thought, the fundamental element, and part of the language system I use to communicate. Share what moves through me.
The Butterfly has simply evolved into my symbol for becoming. Becoming more or less. Transformation, change, and the beauty in that. And the wing... reach. Not new. But the form it takes has encouraged a bigger appreciation of process as art.
Since each symbol is often a result of building and layers, They might be broken down into components themselves. It's an infinite process really. Like the basic square...thoughts,scraps, stitch, the names of things, all puzzle pieces that ultimately tell the story, clues to the thought process itself.
In this last year I have come to concentrate on dyed components more. I use indigo a lot. My approach to shibori is not so much to focus on the perfection of the technique but on how imperfection, witnessed through repetition, might help morph a shape and encourage the evolution aspect of over and over. Puzzle pieces with softer, more liquid edges. Like clouds, they help me imagine new form and story but still allow me to use them like quilt blocks. I hope you catch my drift.
I built the Butterfly above with 2 triangle components (my symbol for safety), folded and stitched and then embroidered the body. But way back in Diaries I started like this:
As I look back to Spirit Cloth Diaries I am thrown back to the time I was working on the the Magic Feather Cloth, a lot of these butterflies ended up on that cloth. I also just came off a class with Glennis Dolce. Although I'm moving down a less traditional path, I learned the basics of shibori there. I've put her free online class under Freely Inspire in the side bar, even though the link is also over at Feel Free. If you need the basics it is really helpful.
I'm back to adding to Feel Free. Cooler days mean more computer time.I just added a page for components under Composition and I will add a page for Butterflies under Components soon enough. There are so many ways to build a butterfly. Right? Not sure about you but wings seem a good idea at the moment as the end of days as we've known them seems to be upon us.
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