Spirit Cloth

The Way it Might Fit Together...

So now it's way cold.

Not complaining, just saying.

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.

 

 

How Real Heart Persists

Actually, I stumbled upon these.

Looking for a stack of stars I stashed to use on the Endless Wishing Cloth, the spring/summer project.

I found these. Hiding in a basket. Resting.

Old hearts. Simply stitched to cloth-woven nines (this method, three strips each way on a foundation, lightly tacked). Some old stitching project suspended in time. The cloth weave creates such a soft bed for stitch. Especially when the cloth is old and worn. Just turned, line guided applique, (I use rough cut scraps and draw the heart, the turning line) Ragged, once just lazy, tips have become a symbol over time. No heart is perfect.

And this one has one turned edge and one ragged edge. But what I love is the fade that came from what I call seam shibori. Light and wear resist. The cloth from a garment. The darker side was inside for years, the light side faded from wear and light. Newer technologies prevent fading so we don't see this as much anymore. Maybe folks don't even keep things that long. Too bad. To know these things softens life. So anyway, my heart hearts are here, but I have to be Away for a while.

The Softening of Winter

Dried Zinnia.

Faded. Still from seeds from Mom's Garden.

I like perennials, the ones that come up by themselves. Over and over.

But there is something special about being part of the planting, and gathering and planting again process. Not just going, but going with tender loving care.

It's been cold, not that cold but the grey cold that nags on you after a while. I'm tired of it. Tired of keeping fires, tired of spending more time indoors than out. Tired of the news. Dry skin. Laundry. You name it. I'm tired of it. February. Every year. The winter bitch returns.

I've got a lot of the old unfinished ClothWoven pieces on the wall today. Because I love them. Looking. Not stitching cuz my fingers are split and chapped from the cold and hauling wood, and washing dishes and such. This one is an old wishing star.  It's the first time I have looked at it as a basket, the wishing star. Basket self in new form. The center was like heart but now I think it is more like wishing self.

Wishing is softer than bitching and it is Valentines Day so I'll be nice.