Spirit Cloth

undoing darkness

...the eyes on the coma cloth are wide open and have taken the form of the sun in imagery. as the season progresses i can't help relating to the edges of the day being pushed outward, creating some sort of expanded vision.
...the first bed test reveals the relative size of the cloth. it remains long and narrow, some sort of bed runner. i like how the little point of the orange plane (where one of the eyes shines) is extending beyond the expected edge of the quilt. some sort of keeper. keeper of elsewhere perhaps? 

.....have you noticed too?.........at least on this warm corner, the similarity to fever, some cracks in the darkness are letting the light through and igniting a fire once again. i used the same flaming silk, thank you shula. again.

.....and while coma is getting used to its final home, i thought i might show you where fever lives. don't you love those pillow cases? and nemo's purple merlot floor? such a hot room. good thing because his landlord doesn't believe in heat.

hey! thank you all for all your support and comments on yesterday's post. i want to mention also that i am still in the process of sorting through links and redesigning the look of this blog. so if you have noticed that you have disappeared, it is temporary and you will be back.

undoing a palette

.....i am starting slowly. last year's fever was about frenzy. momentum. screaming a cloth into existence with a sharp awareness of intent.  this year's coma is about reversing that.  i have realized that i need to create a more empty space in my head to work... so i thought i would shake up my normal system of working. create some temporary confusion. make myself dizzy so i would have to stop to start again. i am over-dyeing most everything i have starting with thread. and since i have everything organized by color i am going to undo that. i hope to end up with a palette that has colors i have no names for and a stash that is just randomly aglow... something more instinctive without obvious order. my own order. with out the anguish of finding things.
i dip dyed over some cheap chinese variagated embroidery floss. little sections of the skeins a bit at a time in many different colors. its a rainbow like no other i've seen before. this has been a comfortable starting ceremony.

studio sunday and a lifetime guarantee

.....6 AM
.....12 PM
.....2PM
.....a bit later.

quilting and taking it easy

.....we had quite a bit of snow last night. it is still snowing today. it cold and windy and icy.
.......a good day to think. a good day to finish a quilt.
.....we have been using the winter indoor days to do a bit of painting and fixing and i have moved a bit of my stuff to another room for better light and to get some stuff out of the mr. fix-it path.
.....as i started quilting the last edge of fever.. i remembered why i had left it till last. when a quilt gets big and you want to do some detailed quilting following shapes and things, it is hard to keep turning the quilt around and around so you can stitch in the right direction. spirals are the worst. so. i thought to myself, this is way too stressful and my wrists are hurting (getting old) so why not (or should i say what if?) just turn the stitch instead of quilt. well. it works just fine and there is added stitch interest as well. i am just putting the needle in where i comfortably can and taking it out the same way. and the quilting stitch goes this way and that . a new kind of meandering free motion hand quilting style which i am liking very much. it is quicker too. i am giving this away monday and i want some time to sew a label. slow cloth can only be so slow.

yesterday

 .....yesterday was a day that i thought about how things come together. yesterday i renamed her 'walks among shadows'. WAS. because that has a story built right in.
....yesterday that lion from the past  established some territory on the back of fever. like home but plenty of space to roam. still a solitary traveler, but also a friend.
.....and yesterday was also my parents anniversary and even though he isn't here, mom and i had a little party anyway.

the sun came just came up . i wonder what will happen today.

stitching an open wound

.....such a tumultuous few days since that big moon.....i thought it appropriate to tend to the reverse side of fever and close up some of the scars of the process. patching together all the old and new quilt sections left gaping holes and even though a lot of the quilting is complete, the insides are still exposed along the edges.
 ....i've simply started by covering the gashes with some volcanic hand dyed strips of muslin from dijanne. i love working with this fabric it is lightweight and easy to stitch layer on layer. and the color is so intense. i am hoping for some bleed off of color after washing, to document the evidence of slow healing. there are some messier spots to tend to now so i will be back later.

quilt as a slow journal

.....the colored layers of the winter sunrise makes me remember how dad used to lay colored wash over  wet paper to begin his watercolor paintings.
 fever has come to document a strange year. a year filled with layered change and blurry edges. there is still the sadness of my father's absence, a dark hole i fall into now and then. but there is my mom who fills emptiness with amazing grace.  and there are new friends... and fabrics and more stitches than ever. 

and there are always jeff's (aka walter)  pictures when i have no words.
.....one of my favorite edges on this quilt is where the pieces of the old and new didn't match up and the mended path of the edge has become a zig-zag pathway. it holds together just the same and has become  a bit more interesting in fact.

i have decided to make an effort to wrap this up soon so i can go down to the union square market and wrap it around  my brother nemo (don't miss this post) before he freezes his ass off trying to make a buck.

quilt years

.....so it has been almost a year and the countdown for the end of fever continues. unexpected commotion on the edge has me seeing dots spots.

now i am wondering, just how long can this fever last?

quilting a new twist

reeling a bit and back to spinning.....i have started to experiment with a layer of that magic thread. very freely stitched over marker lines. all the embroidered embellishment now is going all the way through. so this is an added twist that spins the layers together and gives these machine pieced blocks more of a hand feel. it has occurred to me that the log cabin block, and the way it is constructed is actually a spinning motif. i am really running round and round here. dizzy with fever, and life in general. many levels of centering in counter-balance.

the significance of detail

.....so as i move across the surface of fever i continue to slow down. i am taking an even closer look, yes and noticing all the meeting points and remembering all the good times putting the pieces together. this of course rekindles a flame in my heart and i get drawn back into the story and i stay there a while. sometimes longer than expected.

....i am noticing my style has changed this year and i am finding myself skitching and skatching elements to define blocks and edges, and stitching in a more relaxed way. i am caught in the detailing so much that i have forgotten about time. (whew! what a relief...)
....i think detailing is a process i lose myself in. it is where the making transforms...where the getting ends and the giving really begins. there can be no practical payback. it is where the edge between myself and my work gets lost and it stops being about me. it is where i try to thank the cloth for its patience. it is where i care so much that my thoughts melt right into the needle and are carried with the thread to a level of expression that is selfless. it is just why i am here. it is my gift. in this season of giving i feel sad that this important aspect of making things has to be cut short. that the need to sell stuff must invite tricks to cut cost and time out of the process. that potential is choked by the stress of schedule. that the real spirit of giving gets lost in the shuffle. and then i am happy to have survived another year without having to go there. and to have friends and family (and fabric) that understand there is no deadline for giving. thank you.