Spirit Cloth

H was for Heart

And hand.

And now maybe hope.

The Alphabet Soup Quilt. In February, a lot of just going is planned before sleep. No showing or telling, just stitching. It really is about sweet dreams.  So long ago, this one, but it feels just right in these days. But these days will surely change it.

I keep finding feathers...

I've been keeping them at the edge of the Deep Pool of Thought. A big cloth and be a catcher of things.

Some Thoughts

This is not The Magic Cloth.

The Magic Cloth is a large cloth. 

I am starting again in the middle.

Continuing could be a challenge.

Challenge is a component.

Challenge can be a base.

Typepad has changed. I/we have changed.

There are two places, here and Feel Free.

Email delivery here is failing. I need a new service.

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It took me hours to put this audio here but I did it anyway.

 

 

alternative audio link if you see no player.

 

This is the Magic Cloth today. Waiting for me to make up my mind about so many things. I am going to hang it next to the bed so I can look at it every morning for a few days, before rising.

Some folks get adverse reactions to antibiotics. I am one of those folks. I feel like shit and that is the base I am working with today.

 

Look

Look he seemed to say...

The big cold wind erased all traces of Autumn.

Everything seems to rest comfortably...

...In this cloth I call The Nest of Days. It is a basket.

With thoughts (often questions) now, of revisiting Magic Diaries , here, openly (one of my older online making series), I am somehow revisiting an older self. Wondering if I can, will it make me feel sad?  Will it make me feel a longing for simpler times? Or is it the same and only a mindset? A frame of mind. 

It is really cold outside. Really and metaphorically speaking. But some Inner Warmth remains and I am reassured.  Like leaves, some things just need to fall away. 

November continues

The last few days, difficult.

Last night the smell of beeswax.

I had a long difficult dream. One of the first I have remembered in a long time. There was a community of infinite selves.  Like a town meeting. Things were decided. I woke up in a sweat. 

And today I am back to the serpent of days. The magic cloth. Maybe I will stitch. Maybe I will read back through the Magic Diaries. Watch the videos. It's been a while.

Maybe I will make this cloth just a little bit bigger. Maybe is like What if? but less of a direct question some how. 
This morning, everything seems the same. But really everything is different. Sounds dramatic but then really, I said to myself, this is always true.It is very cold.

The email service for my posts here has become undependable. Which means a lot of you will not even get this, because a lot of you do not actually come here. You read the email. Alas, this will just be a quieter place.  Everything is so Fragile. Comments are unpredictable.  So really this becomes a record of days, it's enough. Feel Free will be available for browsing again with the New Year. If you are subscribed there, the journal posts will simply be a newsletter with links to new content here and there.

There will be no shop news here, you can follow The Threadcrumbs Shop on Instagram @threadcrmbshop or click the link in the sidebar here or at Feel Free. Updates are also announced on Facebook.  The shop will continue to be a collaboration going forward. With my brother and his partner.  Loose dyed patches, stitched works, Free Enough Online Classes, with the addition of wearables (dyed by EXOT) . And then some other stuff in the works going forward.  

This place will just be for quiet going.

I hope all is well and for those celebrating Thanksgiving... eat, drink, and be merry! But Take care.

Feel it

To Continue...from here

There was audio here. I could not get it to work. 

I give up on TypePad. Time to move on.

Try going over to Feel Free, I can't get the links to work here, click on blog/journal in the sidebar. The post should be there.

Counting the Large cloths unfinished.

#1 Nest of Days.

It's been hanging here, other side up, with lots of stuff pinned to it.  I think it is time to make it into a blanket. 

I took it down to turn it over and tacked it back up.

It is 56" square. And I will put a border on it. That can change everything. Or just size. An Edge can be many things. It depends what I have, including energy.

The photos are awful. Before Tea.

Continued here.

today's tracks

Deepening Winter.

It's cold, we've gone Polar. Looks like below freezing for a week or so. And maybe some snow. The big unstacked wood pile is frozen. An excuse to continue with other things. 

Life became really confusing this last year. Maybe actually just confusing. 

In any case, The Deep Pool of Thought... posts here and here... has become a larger cloth still, simply by giving it a different use. And it could be a blanket too if I keep going.  And I probably will, what else is there? And it's cold.

What's happening with all my internet places? Well, I'm sorting through that. 

I was going to start talking here today but the man is sleeping and the basement is cold and so tomorrow will hopefully be another day. 

Hunker Down and Create/Consider a Base

 

The Larger Base

talking about small vs large

most of my classes have been about small cloth

 

link to audio if you see no player above

Don't laugh...ok, I did, it could be this simple.

There are so many ways to build a large cloth

let me babble about that...

The Story Cloth style, as described in Spirit Cloth 101 (although I was working small) has basically evolved from the concept of "the Base"  and story layers. In perspective, we could just imagine all of those beginnings larger.  Or, if you are like me, you might also think of a lot of the smaller pieces you have accumulated as pieces for a larger puzzle. Solution unknown. Still, regardless of size, I always consider what others call a quilt top or a larger cloth, as a base for story. 

link to audio if you see no player above

So I went back to look at this base lesson. To see how my basic approach might change in the context of large cloth. And I guess  it is just important to note, that working toward larger often requires adjusting techniques simply because bigger is a little different than small. Problem solving is a big part of the form that evolves and can test your creative side in new ways...Encourage new form and process (which to me is part of the form),out of the need to hold it together. How it goes, how it might happen, is really quite a big part of the story for me. And that's what will unfold here.

It is also important to note that a larger cloth can be looked at in two distinct ways. A useful cloth, that is, one that has another function apart from being looked at. Or one that is just to be looked at, an art cloth. But then we can ask, what if ? it could be both? How might this influence approach?

 

I would just like to list my basic approaches here today, adding a few to the base mix and talk about them individually in separate posts. This will allow me to share my current thoughts in each technique in the context of a larger scale.

 

1.Piecing. When I talk about pieced large cloth, as a base, the base is really no different than a quilt block. Except maybe the number or size of pieces or the time it takes to make it. While piecing takes time, it offers a grid or system of seams that I love to use as a guide.  To build a story. Maybe because seams are lines, and I love to draw. This might lead me into some other ways to create lines to work around.

2.Cloth Weaving. The cloth woven base has built in layering. Weaving a bigger base has it's own challenges, and I have some solutions, but smaller blocks can be combined. I still love the natural grid and texture of the cloth woven surface as a base for any kind of patch or stitch.

3.Whole cloth. The instant gratification and freedom of working on a whole cloth is a nice break from the tradition of seams and the time it takes to piece a base. It offers space, perhaps less stress in terms of construction. The collage method can be a nice break from the worry of straight and neat.  With the trend toward "boro" these days, it has become very popular because of a more relaxed approach. It just takes less traditional skill. But then you put the focus on just stitching/quilting a big piece of cloth,if you have one. 

4.Pre-existing Base. And then maybe in terms of base methods, we could add the existing base, maybe an old blanket or a garment you might simply use as a ready made or recycled  base. To coat with scraps and ideas. Working on a large something that already is, can be a shortcut. Or way to renew an old cloth item. Or take something further. I will add to that this time, the pre-existing puzzle piece.

5.Free Style,Build as you Go. Because sometimes you just can't know. Maybe most often. This is so true to my actual style, ... you can simply always make something small bigger. Creating the base/large thing as you go. Mixing it up in terms of approach. Working around the smallest idea/scrap and letting it grow. For me this is one of the easiest ways to get to large cloth. Not suddenly, but simply Eventually.  And this method is also the easiest to handle. My favorite because it evolved through my own process of just going.

 

audio link if you see no player above

Final thought. What if(?) the time you spend on anything makes it, in concept, larger, bigger?

 

PS, in the spirit of more than one thing/thought at a time, yesterdays scribbling (while I set up a better way to present these)