Spirit Cloth

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.

 

a softening

 

Good Morning.

I softened the photos today. Because I can. Because I need softened.

I wonder if the yellow walls make the light inside look so warm?

Or is it just the nature of the light inside itself?

On the edge of Holding Pattern, a soft star.  I looked at the wishing star differently just now. I saw the box. And the arms of the wish as point of departure. Change. And then the wish itself as a soft promise for change. A simple reaching out.

It is raining softly now and he is just watching. 

Things have become a bit crazy here in New York. Not so far from here. We are well supplied and just hanging here mostly because we can.  Imagining what it might become.

Slow ClothWork

At Eye level... I was thinking. 

So many cloths to be hung, I said to myself, not considered finished. Not including the Sanity Series which needs to remain rolled for the moment. That's a private collection.  My purpose was to look, touch, maybe stitch, and then let go.  Making space for big cloth. Big cloth going forward. 

But now I want to look at all of them. Feel the volume of them. Feel the scope of them. Feel them. Gather their stories. And most importantly, see them as Patches. Puzzle Pieces. I will not have enough space I say. But then there is the basement. And the clothes lines. The ceiling?  Oh ha! Let it all unroll then. The big, the small. All.

It has begun in some organized way, but it will soon fall away into some sort of dervish.

Feels so Good.

I think I will put some music on.

How it is

When things fall apart ...

...it helps to notice the ones that still hold together.

It's hard for me to sit in a chair all day.

The ankle swelling has subsided but what an ugly foot.

Sure is hot.

Love and Season

And home.

Those 3 things. Three things aligned can create direction. Path. Story.

The Holding Pattern quilt is holding other patterns at the moment. The center is stitched. I love letting my eyes stand at the edge where stitched meets unstitched. It waits for my next move. I never know what that will be until it happens. But it is usually connected to looking. Sometimes even looking away.  When I pinned these little long cloths up for gazing (they came together as I decluttered a winter studio) I noticed how another pattern might form. I remembered back  to notes I made about pattern. I found a lot of old notes. Since they tend to be loose, I find them every where. How they come back together is key to my process. It's a patchwork.

Some-where in the middle of the night, a few nights ago I decided, or became aware of a desire, to host one final interactive online workshop. I cannot piece together the details yet because the pieces are scattered everywhere. But I sense I still have the energy to pull them together.

The Feel Free Open classroom site seems bug free. It will open soon like an open field on the edge of spring. Bring seeds. 

first stage quilting

 

No Sun Day

Quilting.

By lamplight. It's raining.

 

video link if you see no player

 

Dentist tomorrow.

The Idea

It's just tacked to the wall for the moment.

To reinforce the idea of a more invisible holding.

Quilted yes, some of it, but looking head on, without shadow, not apparent. Because I am using a sympathetic coloring book quilting technique.  Using light thread on light areas, dark on dark. As not to interrupt the pattern.

I have circled the interruption in that. Which will be the underlying theme in Holding Pattern. I would like to talk more this. But my audio recorder is not charged. Later then.

How a day moved through

Wood stacked. There was even sweeping!

And I managed to expand the silk lining. Now I can begin "walking" around the center.

The stitch in the center is settling in. As it does. Eventually the ripple ripens. As the layers touch and get to know each other, the bond deepens.

Although the center panel is now 3 layers deep, the choice of cloth has not taken away the lightness.

The weather has warmed so needle walking will be replaced with real walking today. To the sea. To the sea.