... continued from my last post...
Yeah, so ok, good. Better. Attached but needs some stitching through. Quilting.
Posting again today because I will be needing a few days offline for a few reasons.
A few folks contacted me about Whispering White. I hope you used an active email address. I could not make contact back. Please check your spam folder.
PlaceKeeping.
A term I have used for so long. For many parts of my journey, mostly in cloth making.
P is for Place. Place is a special part of Space. Very often a kind of home. Or a destination. (as recorded in the Feel Free Glossary on April 19, 2019. Gee time has indeed passed quickly.) Then, even a reference point. Lately a place to hide.
How much this robe is like a blanket but then a robe's 3 dimensional aspect is so much more a "structure".
Here on a stick, balanced between a chair and a the half wall that separates the room with the big table and the fire room below. Before coffee.
I turned it other-side out. I made the blue side first, then coated the other-side with what I had here. It wasn't too hard because it is based on rectangles. When I first made this I was in another frame of mind. I wasn't much thinking about "through". I was trying hard to make sure that what was on one side would be independent of the other. The invisible stitch was a big part of that. But over time, I relaxed. And began to take a different approach. A few things began to come through. I haven't worn it much other-side out. I never liked how the sleeves looked. I am going to coat them with another layer. I don't need to but I want to. Some thin plant dyed silk gifted to me by an old friend. To recolor them, which will make them warmer but not much heavier. Ultimately also useful.
I found some basting still in this from like 20 years ago. I have been using it for so long I almost forgot how unfinished it could remain and still be useful. Most definitely it will never fall apart with all the layers. In my lifetime. It's robe weather. I have a few robes. What a luxury. Probably I only need one.
I have decided it might serve me well to create some project pages over at Feel Free to keep things together. Typepad continues to have issues and well, maybe. I will catch some thoughts about that today. While wearing my renamed robe other-side out. While I look for that silk.
And while I am rambling, the PlaceKeeper link up top on this blog has become so outdated, a lot of the links are not working, I will be rethinking that as well. Maybe while I line those sleeves.
That's what the going is for.
The shift has taken hold, this is probably the last summer like day here. Typepad is tired, as grace said to me, and so am I. Sometimes you just have to move on. I will consider how to do that, but today I am just talking.
audio link if you see no player.
(note, comments are off because I cannot see them, and I cannot comment back, and that is true with any other Typepad blogs I visit. I will continue to post pics at Instagram for now.) Found a temporary solution. Actually that's life.
Just let the cloth breath the new cooler air.
Yes, that pile of wood is still there. It's fall here. The shift. I can smell it. Feel it. Hear it. Can't really see it yet. No chimney fix, no wood burning stove yet, wood is not the issue.
Spirals on the earth edge. I like drawing them, they become scribbles. Doodles. The border which is still only 2 layers, unlike the center that is already a sandwich, will be stitched with spirals. Split Back Stitch. 2 stands of floss. Slow work. I will add the third layer to the edge, indigo dyed I think, after that stitching is done. I will then quilt using the spirals as a guide, in white, bringing the pattern to the other side, like swirling constellations. At least that is what I imagine. These spirals, I think they will take 2 weeks to complete. Early mornings and evenings. I usually do not measure the time. I did. Just to see if I understand my slowness. Of course, it doesn't matter how long it takes.
The edge of a quilt is often a binding, a frame, a way to finish. Even an after thought. For me the border is often a focus. Maybe on what's next. A ring of vision.
Yesterday. continued from here
I did finally get the full video to post on Instagram. It will probably be that way now. Words and audio and more photos here, video there. Things are what they are and we go. Now that I know better how, it will simply be easier to continue and I thank you for understanding. The process, a patchwork in itself.
The seed ended up in the corner. The cloth is a bit white and I considered a tea stain but then I began to love the purity of it. So thin, the earth showed through and that was good too.
In words, if you did not see or were unable to see the video... I use a red pen to draw the rays, ink being see though, the lines appear brownish but I will redden them up with stitch. Just a running stitch in red to bring the lines to the other side. For now guides. And of course quilting at the same time. Strength. Stability. This is an old pueblo symbol and I have used it many times as a sun, but it is as I learned though my research, a sacred symbol and I will only use it as a guide now, to something else. A teacher.
For a two sided cloth, some stitched go through and some don't. Moving between the layers appearing and disappearing is the magic connection.
Good Morning.
It's cool. Cool for the first time in a long time.
Evidence of cycle. I feel like this one was left for me. Right outside the porch door. Yesterday's confusion led me to a small eye sampler started a couple of years ago. Some eyes still colorless... "complete the full spectrum of vision" I said to myself.
There are Shells of Summer everywhere. They seem like eyes today. New eyes. Old eyes. A reminder that we need all eyes. To see.
The first stitching was done on a single layer. I think I used a hoop. But I cannot find my hoops, tucked a way somewhere because I don't use them much. So I added another layer. Because it is easier to stitch on more than one layer without a hoop. These stitches, today's stitches, go all the way through. I thought about through. Eyes that see through. Different eyes. Evolution. How many seasons will it take?
Then looking through New Eyes.
What I noticed here is how the running (walking) stitch outline seems like a solid line on this side. Because I can see the stitch where it disappeared as well. Appear and disappear have become one. Now that's a new kind of magic.
They also look like some new life form.
continued from here...
A new space to put down new roots.
Because healing is really a kind of growth, regrowth. I was thinking that.
This is comforting. I think it has transformed into a safer place.
I suppose also, my hands, reaching, then thinking about putting my hands in the earth. That is where the thought grew.
Link to video if you see no player below.
Sun's out but it's a bit cooler today.
What a relief.
A little quilting, just simple, around the edge quilting. Seems to add a simple logic of building to the new day side.
And then around the sun. Hardly visible from the other side if you don't look closely. But it is there, the new day has come through. There are many choices for thread and stitch. Stitching does not have to scream, it can simply whisper. There is satisfaction in the way this is going. It takes me back to a simpler time when no one was watching. It is nice to know I am still that person. That I have held fast to what I love. I like the place it takes me to. No, wait, I AM that place.
There is a huge hibiscus tree at the edge of the wood that I had not noticed until it bloomed. This morning it was all-a-buzz. You hopefully know that sound. I saw this pollen drenched bee and thought... keep at it, find a way, do the hard work, gather, take what you need and spread the goodness.
Let's hear it. With me? bzzzzzzzzz
A quilt is a layered cloth.
(link to audio if you see no player)
Big Baste.
With no knots.
Then glue stitch around the applique. To anchor the center through both layers. I will eventually do more glue stitching on the empty space, but for now, sympathetic to the central motif.
(link to audio if you see no player)
link to video if you see no player above
You remember this maybe, from when I started... (can't even find that post)( oops here it is) with the fragile center piece removed this will be layer 3, the back, the other side.
reminder: if audio cuts off try another browser
Simple then. A simpler time, a simpler way.
So this can be considered one way to make a quilt from a whole cloth base. I want to talk about that now as I go forward with this one. One piece of cloth as the beginning, as opposed to lots of small patches stitched together. Of course you can only begin that way if you have a bigger piece of cloth. We often do though, could be an old sheet or table cloth or curtain or just a piece of inexpensive muslin. Or something that is not big enough really, for a blanket but can be made bigger later by adding a border. A quilt like this can move very quickly.
This one just simple then. Focusing on this one. Renamed. Heal. To recap, it is 44" square, the size of the cloth I began with. Square-ish. In this case, I filled the empty space by attaching a patchwork cross as an applique. Normally I would cut away the back of the applique, but I did not need to. The cloth used for the pieced applique was so thin. And the slight thickness in the center is pleasing, yet it still seems weightless. I have laid it on a similar size piece of very light weight muslin, which will act as batting. It is ready to baste. I leave it there for now. And will talk, yes, talk, tomorrow.
If the path before you is clear,
you are probably on
someone else's.
-Carl Jung