The thing is, we are in it, wherever we are. Whatever form we take.
Suddenly I have so much to say.
But I will wait. I stitch. The feel of it is what I need. The feel of going. That little mirror helped a lot.
Yes, there are comment issues here. No, I am not going to change anything, especially anything I have to pay for. Maybe at one point, just unthreaded comments, like simpler times. Maybe we will just have less to say. So for now, switching browsers to Microsoft Edge is working for me. Might work for you. I can see comments and reply to comments. Here, and on other Typepad Blogs. I will continue here, with the story and link to Feel Free when necessary, or just switch to blogging there if I need to. I did a test post over there last night and it seems those already subscribed received the post as an email, so I know it will work when it needs to. So I am around. Here, There and Elsewhere. Just going. If you can't find me, just imagine NoWhere being just as good a place as any. Imagine something Peaceful.
2012, wow, I wonder if I would actually remember how it happened with out this record of days? I find this blogging such a great tool, well, digital recording, and sharing, in general, helps me learn from experience. Because I do not prepare ahead of time, the truth of how things happen is more present. Real. And what can be more powerful than truth. Marketing has a different kind of power which scares me really. The power over others. Instead of... well, getting off subject here.
This is my audio from 2012. And me in an old sheet. Silly me, not knowing what I am doing. Trusting in something.
I always say this...this isn't brain surgery or anything. If you cut something away and don't like it, you can always put it back. We are design mending here. Right? The sewing on a simple rectangle based garment, well it's simple seams, change can be easy. Even the add and take away. Sometimes even in the middle of the making, things might be deconstructed and reconstructed. And worn at any stage. Get to know it.
At this point I decided to call this Wind. It was even making it's own wind when I moved.
Next is cut and maybe shape, then some basic stitch to create the base garment, then look again.
It's just great if you can get someone to take pictures of you in it. Even a video of you moving in it. Great fun. And you can learn by looking. If you are posting pics anywhere other than Instagram (use #ragmates 2020) let me (us) know in the comments. It would be great to see ourselves draped in cloth! If need be, you can send me a photo, I can post some pics here or there if you are not shy. (If you are subscribed by email, there is a link to #ragmates2020 in the top menu bar of the actual blog, you do not have to be an Instagram member to view)
After cutting/sewing and deciding on a shape that suits and feels ok, well then you might think about the front/ neck edging and another layer or layers.
As you can see, I did go with the simple curved cut to make the sleeves. It didn't make too much difference but it bunches differently under the arm and softens the overall shape. I often sew totally by hand, but because of my aching thumb way back then, I used the machine for the long side seams. I don't have a sewing machine anymore. Long sticks are a great way to hang these garments when you are designing, so you can see the whole surface. I remember that the next day after this pic was taken, I went to take care of mom for a few days. Those were tough days, like these. I miss her when I remember this class. A big cloth can hold days.
And it feels funny to see the old house again. My studio.
Next, I will review how I attached a second layer to give this substance.
And there was a bit of Robe Storming last night...
Note to self: I'm amazed I still sound pretty much the same after all these years. Still the same person but so much not as well.
I have had this piece of silk. Not new at all when I came across it, tossed in the trash, seems to have been ripped out of some sample book at one point. Not uncommon to find such things while working as a designer in the textile world. Fashion folks are so wasteful. It's special. Warp printed and jacquard woven with one color in the weft. And now I have cut it. Not sure what it had been intended for but at least I am using it.
In the same boat, In the same world. The velvet is indigo dyed over a bit of Mom's Wedding dress. That dress sure gets around. Some gaps to fill here and then some over stitching imagined. Inspired by that jacquard. This one has carried me. Us. From one place to another.
Probably just pics this coming week. And comments off.
Big Stuff sucking Time.
But I'm working on this one.
I've posted about liquid applique before. Here, again, silk shibori by Glennis. I've many cloth stories to share about silk.
But a new thought caught this morning.
The process could be considered a form of kindness, not cutting a cloth to fit and leaving too tiny a scrap to be used. Keeping the cloth together and useful.
I'm creating a mailing list for Patchwork in Perspective Part 1 and I'll be testing that over the coming weeks. Thank you all for your warm response. I am setting up a PO Box so I can publish a mailing address for those who prefer to pay by check. That information will be in the next Feel Free Newsletter.
A warm one. Before another polar vortex. I put my winter bitch in the closet.
I will build one small fire, warm up the stove. Since the sun is out, that's enough for the day.
On a lighter note, this will be a Stoodio Day.
The lightness took over yesterday. When I patched Joy back to my center.
Stitching, anticipating February, weathering a storm before it happens, stitching, sewing snow, S(new)ing...? Snewing. Probably with out the context, we might read it Snoowing. Oh ha.
The patches are half dipped indigo, two stitched together seemed to be a snowscape. The cloth is doublewoven, from an old baby blanket, so I did not add my normal extra layer. Maybe you remember this Cloth Story. More of those to come. Materials are like good friends, every day you learn a little more about them.
This is the studio table now, not in the studio, but useful for spreading out, etc., as the temperatures remain below freezing for the 3rd day in a row. The table top was rocking a bit. A scrap of silk was just enough to change that.
All the cloth around here is used. As I age I relate more and more.
I'm not feeling right today. The chill is in me. I think I'll take it easy and do some extra napping.
The cold has also become useful. Helping us begin considering moving to someplace warmer than previously considered.
Looking back we see everything has been, is, will be...useful.
She has a few more stitches. Fringe. She continues.
Dad, who passed away in January, now years ago, his painting is in the background.
I'm just sitting with this one. Wanting to do a video but it's just too cold in the studio. And not good at the phone video thing yet. Because we thought we wouldn't be here we didn't cut our own wood this year. Wood here is expensive and even more so this season, a story about that later. So not heating the studio.
I cut away the cloth around the figure because i was intending to make a pillow and then I thought... I don't need a pillow. So now it's a long cloth, a pathwork. I added this piece to the bottom, because it was there, like a puzzle piece. It just fit there.
This piece of cloth is old. You can see how it has faded. It was a pillow cover for a while. Sun washed. I got this cloth long ago on a trip to Paris. When I was working in the textile industry. Shopping for ideas to present to fashionable folks. And ideas for my mill to develop cloth from. Another cloth story to be told in detail soon. For now, it fits fine here. And I left the bottom edge open so I might slide some fringe in there. Like I do. To say "continuing".
And yes I did weave the cloth beneath. Right around 1974.
I plan (ha) to send out another issue of the Feel Free Newsletter early next week. Please, if you subscribe to this Newsletter, use an active email address. I have decided to begin this year's Sharing Series in February. I think I will start on my birthday. Details will go out in the Newsletter. This series is not Free. But Free Enough, which changes in the context of my ability to live on thread alone.
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.
Woven dots and other designs that use supplementary thread to make designs during the weaving process are often referred to as On Loom Embroidery. Probably I mentioned that before.
Here is a beauty I found in the scrap basket yesterday. And old cotton sheer with a soft red thread running across, caught at intervals, skipping across spaces, the float being clipped later, called a clip spot. On one side it appears as a dot, on the other side you can see how it is caught in the thin white weave. Looking through the cloth you can see the red thread and the dot elongates showing the structure.
I dipped this one to test the developing indigo yesterday. And I will send it to Hazel. She is already having funwith this idea since my last post about it.
I have so many cloth stories to tell. Probably because I have so many cloth friends.
And I did the first dip on the edge. Early this morning.
