Spirit Cloth

Another Kind of Thread

Strings.

The Man spent some time untangling this puppet that made the journey here in a box with a lot of stray stuff. It was a time consuming effort. But now in working order.

It was so appropriate for these times really. As I ended up making a note to myself:

I've worked myself to the edge of the pieced area on one side of Holding Pattern. Working slow and steady, an hour in the morning with coffee, and hour in the evening before sunset. Up to here there are seam lines, blocks of space to help me not only keep track of progress but also provide a frame of reference. I am thinking I will have to continue soon, not knowing where I am.

all one thing

Looking.

I altered these photos with a filter to make them look worn. I put a few pieces together on the wall. The ones within reach. When I do this, it is an exercise in probability. They will probably fit together. That is my Seeing theory... if I remain true to my vision. And then, you know, even if they are "new" they always seem like something ancient when they are put together as one. The filter was used to emphasize that.  They are just pinned over the cloth I call A DEEP Pool of Thought.

Last night I unfolded Holding Pattern. I am holding and will be holding this one now. It is a gift for My Son and The Woman, and I want to finish it before the end of the year.  I have been working on it for so long, it is an old cloth.

So now, just quilting, while I wait for a new computer.

The time it takes.

This week was like Fog

There is big heat coming this weekend. 

Humidity is already building.

Every night I fold the Holding Cloth. Puzzle side out.  To rest.  Every morning now, I spread it out to continue coating of the other side around the already quilted center

My basket of thread ends and pins has become a knot of stuff. I will sit and address that when it gets too hot to move.

This table is 72" across and this cloth is much bigger. I am not going to measure it. I know it is big enough.

I was rather disappointed that I did not have enough indigo dyed silk scrap to do the border. Not a problem really.  I have rummaged through to find bluish greenish thin cloth and I am making do. Not silk but thin and fluid. Using up a lot of cloth on this one and that's fine with me.  I just want to get everything in place so I can quilt this one once the weather begins to cool. Maybe fireside if we can get the chimney fixed. Finish it before year's end. 

I sent my son a text. He is working so hard and seemed way overwhelmed when I talked to him last.  I asked, u ok? u seem overwhelmed. I got no answer for a day. Felt worried. Then, suddenly early this morning... I am both OK and overwhelmed.  That was just heartwarming. 

The Big Round Table

A dining table, was the idea. Dining table. We don't need to dine there. No visitors. Won't be. And then in the back of my mind, a place to gather, a workshop. Not gonna happen either.  But it's big, and flat and easy to get around with a seemingly never ending edge. So it is the cloth table. In this year of Big Cloth. And this, this is the other side of Holding Pattern. From a while back. I was talking about it a lot then. And then, like most things, poof. (older posts about this cloth)

It has become bigger. It's for the Boy, an old promise. I did stitch those border pieces by hand. No machine here. 

It's real hard to show or tell you what I am doing, because Typepad is not letting me post media at the moment.

It has actually become a chore to try to post, one problem after another. But like big cloth, you keep at it.

I am simply coating the other side with very thin cloth basted in place (I call this a catch layer, I need to talk to explain that, maybe tomorrow?) and then adding a layer of plant dyed silk, patch my patch, Boro style, no pattern except the one that emerges from how it happens in the holding together. The center has already been quilted through from the front. But I am not getting too far with the edge, because clown cat here has become increasingly playful, spending more and more time at my side since his encounter with The Fox. 

I can say this once a week posting is not working for me. It is putting distance between me and you and diminishing my ability and then even the desire to explain. I have been thinking a lot about habit and process. And how it is that things remain the same. Part of my new thinking path has me stepping back to look at myself and my going, trying to see it in perspective, what and why it is like it is.. Noticing how my needs have changed. Not just cloth but Just Living. Knowing more clearly that this place is not the other place and laughing at my early attempts to make it so. In this last week I have undone all I did in terms of arranging, simplified and even gave stuff away.  I carried too much stuff here and I don't need it. Or even want it. Perhaps it made me feel secure during the process. I have only just "arrived" here it seems. I see it as just new space with a Big Round Table. And blankets. And beasts.