Spirit Cloth

Soup

Sometimes, just living can rescue you.

Every scrap from the garden and leftover food prep has been frozen since this pandemic has emerged. I guess I was in a panic early on. I did not let anything go to waste. Fearing not being able to go to the market. The freezer is filled with bags of scraps ( ha, patchwork again...) and broth made from them. I have also been ordering fresh frozen fish from Alaska, that and eggs being the only animal protein in this house. We have relaxed the Vegan thing, now evaluated as not really healthy, and more of a fashion. Trend is a difficult battle isn't it? Time to learn. It's a privilege to live long enough to make your own decisions based on experience.  And then to simply live it without trying to convince anyone else. And so ramen style soup is on the menu once a day.

And less sugar is the new goal.

And then Soup as a concept is on my mind. Soup as in compositional concept and the One-Ness it embodies. Which ingredient (component) will bring it together?  Give it identity. 

And with that in mind, I'm cooking up a few ideas. How funny it is to be considering adding "soup" to my Spirit Cloth Language of words. A Quilt is like soup. And Soup is a story.

It's also time to cut my fingernails. What day is it anyway?

I opened the Spirit Cloth shop with the intention of offering some old work for sale. In the season of Gifting. But I feel and hear the holiday season will just stress the mail to its limits and so it might be better to wait for the change of year. 

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.

Managing Edges

I suppose I have composed one of my selves.

Made the base cloth a bit longer because I felt the need for more space.

An old print overdyed with indigo. Ripped to size.

I cut along the side of the print so I might slide the patchwork into the base cloth. Integrate the two. For Oneness. Of course, I could have slit the base cloth and woven her right in... like I did here. (...how long I have been at this One-Ness thing)

To stabilize the cut and place, I added a strip of very light cloth to the other side. A little longer at the top end so I could fold it over and hug the top edge. Probably I will add fringe to the bottom. For continuing. Now for some glue-stitching.

A Path-Work, long cloth. Needed.

Are all paths the same? Who knows?

The Drama of Facing Through

The Cut:

The cut is hard sometimes, but I have come to love it. It is a wound, a hole, an opening, a separation, a new edge, a space, a way through, an undoing and a challenge. A letting go.

The Patch:

The patch is, well, quite simply a way to solve a problem. So it might be anything and everything we might use to do that. We could whittle it down to simply, an idea. 

The evidence of path:

Story. How did it happen? 

Most often, I cut through to make things smaller, to look through, or to weave through. Cutting away , as in erasing, that falls into another category. Much less drama, unless it annoys you to change your mind. The cut through is exhilarating. I think it shows a confidence related to understanding your materials. Or simply a curiosity that needs to be exercised. And it won't kill you. When I weave into, everything becomes quite stabilized, despite the cut. There is often a layer (of thought) you cannot see. And a new dimension is realized. Something moving through.

I may be indirectly addressing the idea of loss. Which seem to me arises from the fear of having to let go. But I think I am focusing on the IT. Letting IT go. Letting go is something quite beautiful if we stop holding on to IT. The thing-ness.  The thing needs to evolve. That is the natural order of how it becomes. Transformation, after all,  moves all the way through us. It's not like...a new haircut.

I have not figured out the audio yet, but hey ho.

If you follow me on Instagram, there is a video of the cut.