Spirit Cloth

Trying to Tell it

It's not the thing, it's the spirit of the thing.

How a thought rises through consciousness. That's what I was thinking a day or so ago...with all that has happened, it fell back in. Anyway there was too much coffee, probably because there was too much shitty wine.

I promised a video but I am not up to it really.  These big squares are 5". Once I start with a certain puzzle piece size, all the other elements fall into relationship with that. I talked about that here. Obviously, I could continue adding 5" squares until it was "big enough". But I've done that. 

I made the cross and stitched it to the base instead. Like a puzzle block. Maybe to see it that way.  There many ways to patch to a base. I talked about that here. As a matter of fact, what I talked about in Small Cloth can apply to large cloth, right? Just the scale is different which might require a bit of problem solving in terms of handling a larger cloth. But that is the never ending learning part.

So I made the puzzle pieces in the same way. Ironed around a template, edges glue-stitched to keep the edges in place while fiddling.  Then I stitched 9 squares (made more than 9) together to form the cross.  I glue-stitched the cross to the base cloth by sewing down the center in both directions, so the edges might flap open, allowing me to add the 4 more pieces to create the extended 9. A little awkward to work into the corners but it worked. Of course I could just applique them as well. Or draw the framework of the patch work and use the skatching (patching over a sketch) method. So you see, so many ways. I like to mix it up. Or go with what works with my mood or my energy in the moment. All the while noticing how each way has it's own feel. Sensing that.

There was some journaling.

link to audio if you see no player above

This was Monday's post but I didn't post it. I felt detached. But now, ok, there it was, an idea. Not planned bit as it happened.  Could I create a pieced back? One that would might show through the base cloth, like a shadow yet still a main part of the structure, and work with the existing pieced cross/extended nine patch? What if?

 

 

A Patchwork, in perspective...

Yesterday was not a good day. I was feeling that.

Today I woke up and asked why? Because there was discomfort? Shame?

I can't and won't get into the thick of it. It involves my own  shit, and so much shit from others. And in the end, the question of Why am I here?  I called my son, we haven't talked in a while. I knew it was important to talk about stuff. It was good. I love him. 

I stitched a bit, not to escape but to think. Stitching helps me think.

And then my nephew, my youngest brother's oldest son, he lives in Montana, I don't see him much but I do follow him on social media.  I caught that he posted this. And I am putting it here because of it's honesty. And how it is just the best he could say. To break the silence.

I have been trying to put into words something, anything for days now. Watching the state of the world I have rarely felt less like I have anything worth saying. I am a white male in my early thirties that has lived the last decade of his life in a community in America that is over 90 percent white. I know less than nothing about the experiences of most African Americans across this country.
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I have quietly cried a lot listening to the news lately. I keep listening because it seems like one of the least things I can do. I haven’t watched the videos of George Floyd dying (I get my news in audio or text form, radio, podcasts, and newspaper websites) but I have seen the pictures and heard the audio of that man being murdered. I listened, four years ago, to the audio of Philando Castile being shot in front of his girlfriend and her 4 year old child after doing everything he could have possibly done to get through that traffic stop as a model citizen. I thought about what that poor kid went through a lot after that.
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These suck in my mind from listening to them, and these are two to many, and yet there are so many more. Trayvon Martin, and Akai Gurley, and Eric Garner, and Terence Crutcher, and Tamir Rice, and Mike Brown, and Freddie Gray, and Breonna Taylor, and, and, and...
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We as a country are failing on so many levels right now, law enforcement is only one of them, but we have been failing at it for a long time. And I believe law enforcement is necessary for a functional society but it must be there to protect and serve everyone and if you can’t see that there are places and people in this county for whom that is not true you are being willfully ignorant. And if you can listen to that man being slowly killed and not understand why there are a lot of people who feel the need to stand in the street and scream and maybe even break things you have no empathy.
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I can vote, I can protest (I hope safely because I am also scared shitless for all of my higher risk family right now, thanks COVID), I can donate what little I have to spare, and I can listen, and it will never feel like it will ever be enough. But maybe if enough other people can too, it will be.

I spent the day considering so many changes. Looking and wondering. How to be more useful. I caught a few thoughts, made a few calls, found a few paths.

Drank a glass of really shitty wine.

And the sun has returned today.

So life goes on, how will we make it right? Time will tell.

almost June color

I went with the extended nine format on the Green Cross cloth.

It needed a warm hug.  Been missing hugs. How strange to hear that hugs are not a good idea anymore.  I had left the edges unattached here so I should be able to stitch the 4 new patches to the main cross without removing it. Just continue the patchwork while it is on the base. An interesting idea in general maybe. The ground is not white, it is a creamy yarn-dyed cotton with a very subtle check. As it turns out it gives me a pale grid for reference. Sometimes I cut away from the back of a patchwork applique, leaving only the seam part. To keep an evenness. But the fabrics are quite light and thin, so no need this time. Yet.

Use the time you have to know yourself

I say things over and over again.

Usually as I am going.  Probably because they work more than once. And that is reassuring. I am on a side trip here for the weekend. Continuing with new eyes. But I do this with Big Cloth too. Manage thickness as I go.  Managing is that, problem solving in the moment. Tending to need. While holding on to the bigger picture.

 

Link to video if you see no player.

It took hours. In the scheme of all things, not long really.  I enjoyed it a lot more with the extra layer. I could hold it more easily, the stitch rested in the bed of cloth with more ease.  I noticed how many ways I can fold this cloth and birth new eyes.

Maybe we can manage anger with a bit of thin cloth. 

Then this morning I just pinned to look. At a thought I had.

I note to myself how I so often create blankets with a center which radiates outward.  But then this is interesting suddenly. A path that runs through it.  I stacked a few small pieces I had here. Just to see and think about that. And then of course other thoughts surfaced.

audio link if you see no player

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