Spirit Cloth

Hunker Down and Regenerate

Wind.

The Wind robe. Also from the Contemporary Boro class. Started out as Summer Breeze. This one made using the bird robe as a guide.  I have it hanging on the porch today. It's freezing again. Snow expected!

I made the photo into a kind of sketch using an photo editing app. I've been doing that lately. Because I am looking back and the look of it makes it seem more like a fairytale or something.  My Story.

It started like this...using an old sheet. 

And I was saying something like this:

So I am beginning a new garment from scratch.  Since I have made a few before, I can simple use those as patterns, and actually jumping off points,  Experience always provides you a new place to start.  And then to mend from, since you might remember the story of the projects that went before. what you liked, what you dreamed of changing. What you needed then, what you need now.

 

link to video if you see no player above.

I would like to revisit this lesson in detail. Put the old audios (needing some reformatting) here and focus a bit more on the process that followed. I have more to say now that time has passed. (it feels so good to bring all of this "HOME") In this instance the fabric base becomes invisible, and mostly acts as a foundation to patch and stitch on. Which means you can use cloth you don't like much to start. Then cover it with tiny bits of something else.  I will continue with this tomorrow. 

Maybe we can just consider for a while before deciding on a method. 

This one is light, meant to be more of a whisper. To be worn in summer. But I also use it as an under layer. Under the bird robe in winter. 

There is a category for A robe called Wind. I started it when Mom fell ill. 

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A Studio Day

A warm one. Before another polar vortex. I put my winter bitch in the closet.

I will build one small fire, warm up the stove. Since the sun is out, that's enough for the day.

On a lighter note, this will be a Stoodio Day.

The lightness took over yesterday. When I patched Joy back to my center.

Stitching, anticipating February, weathering a storm before it happens, stitching, sewing snow, S(new)ing...? Snewing. Probably with out the context, we might read it Snoowing.  Oh ha.

The patches are half dipped indigo, two stitched together seemed to be a snowscape. The cloth is doublewoven, from an old baby blanket, so I did not add my normal extra layer.  Maybe you remember this Cloth Story. More of those to come. Materials are like good friends, every day you learn a little more about them.

Late August Patchwork

Acorns have been falling.

Mostly encouraged by squirrels.

I've been thinking about my folks. It always comes in between seasons. The two acorns reminded me of them. Together. Through whatever was.

Yes it's been a bit cooler. But this week will be hotter still. And humid. I always remember the late heat that often coincided with going back to school. The hot un-airconditioned classrooms. The difficulty concentrating. How Dad would be home waiting to whisk us off to the beach for a late swim. Like a little bit extra summer vacation.

 

I stitched a moon cabin. Because I am preparing for my Patchwork in Perspective. I'm looking back fondly at  my patched past. Gathering. Documenting. Reconsidering its use to give it wholeness. There's a bit of Mom's wedding dress in there. The silk velvet. Dyed blue like the old sky. She gave it to me and said make something out of it, make it useful. I could have altered it and made it into a dress. But I don't much wear dresses. I like it better like this. Holding the late August moon. For all of us. Part of the bigger basket.

 

The Originals

ThreadCrumbs.

Just sorting through the nest. Looking for a rainbow.

And celebrating the paper egg carton.

No more styrofoam please. Please. I need me some chickens.

Just Playing

Perhaps inspired by this...

I pulled out an old doodle. Actually done on a scrap of paper used to mix paint. You know those. The ones that usually end up in the trash. Not here.

And I named it.

A Brave New World. While thinking about all three of those words. Brave. New. World.

Then, aka, A New World Order. Order. Considering order as well.

 

No Scrap left behind

It is how it might go.

Form might emerge by considering second chances. In this way it becomes the shape of kindness. Patchwork was born of that. The intention to rescue and the beauty in that.

Leftovers from yesterday's divided circles. And somehow I am back to feathers. Which works for I shall reconsider wings in September. A segment from an old diary series, many thoughts never quite completed. I hope you might join me.

I've a few houses to complete before then.  And a few end of the summer chores.

These can also be leaves. Like the ones falling from the Dogwood already. Falling leave are a lot like feathers. Tree feathers. With all the rain, this will be a big tree feather year.

Today I am a Seamstress

Seamstress. What a great word.

 

video link if you see no player above

 

Things are expanding. As I build on these simple shapes.

Butterfly.

April Showers

After a lot of slow rain...

Suddenly new green.

A simple method for the dyeing. The dyeing just to use stuff up, color thread, just to go in some simple way. While my mind wanders off like it does sometimes.

Sometimes consistency teaches us a lot. This is a kind of bastardized solar method I think.

The old coffee pot. Put stuff in. Cover with water. In this case rain water. April brings a lot of water.

Heat it. Simmer a bit. 1/2 hour.

Transfer to a jar. Add a bit of alum. 1/4 tsp.

Add a bit of cloth, a bit of thread. Same cloth, same thread. Testing silk this time.

Cover.

Leave it near the sunny studio window.

 

This batch, 48 hours or so.

I never really did the alum thing in any big way. I'm doing it because I have some.  Just to see. Maybe I will compare it with what I have done before. No mordant, soymilk mordant. I don't know. I don't think it is that important to me. The science or the allegiance. I am a casual dyer. Just the way the color appears is joy enough. Probably, for me, the fastness of color is important because my embroideries depend on it. Although it might be interesting to look at it after all the color has faded or disappeared. Anyway, I might just stitch up a sampler to use as a looking cloth, to watch if the color stays or not. That might be a nice kind of living cloth.  The turmeric and black beans usually fade a bit, but this is my first test with alum.  Appearing and Disappearing is Magic to me, so all is well I guess.

Using what I have is really the most consistent thing about my process. Not necessarily trend. What I have here depends on many things, often gifts from others in addition to the rescued cloth and thread. And then there is curiosity, which forms seemingly out of thin air, but no. It's thought. Thought caught. Used.

I'm still wishing, but for nothing specific. Probably because there was not much sleep last night.

I lay awake thinking about how life goes for different folks.

One way to Cobble a Cabin

Another Moon Cabin.

Because I have some leftover circles here. And because I like them. (don't you love the weave in that one?) And because I know there will be so many ways to make them.

And just to get back in the habit, a video.  Again I am using my basic free form seamed piecing here. But following a loose pattern idea.

 

click here to watch the video if you see no player or a black box above.

 

I placed it over a few things that were hanging on the wall.  To watch it become the center of something.  I like the one block as a center idea.  Instead of repeating the block over and over in one piece. Maybe just as a way to honor it.

 

Expect the block to shrink as you work, the seams depending on how big you make them, diminish the size of what shows. Of course, like everything we do, we get to sense how it might go. And we work with that. Come to love it.

I like how the circle got cut off.  I didn't plan that, this time.

And my audio here turned into a bit of a cobble as well after a mis-speak.

My life is a patchwork.

 

 

click here to listen if no player above.

Integration

How does it come together?

From Just Scrap.

Working with scrap has a freedom all its own. I think in my head, scraps, leftovers, cloth or thread,have less preciousness. In terms of the kind of value that makes you need to KEEP something. Instead they beg to be used. To re-become. Doesn't matter how. Although I enjoy building an image, I also enjoy the rebuilding into cloth. The Oneness. I love these stray cats for that, how they are patched from scraps of self. Scraps from other selves. How they get a life rising from the pile of who cares. How they are born again in their old age.

This one is really very freely collaged. Layers. Integrated with stitch. I often lay like colored teeny pieces on a like colored larger ground to add surface interest and depth to an large are of color. Then use lots of tiny stitch to glue it down. Blend the edges. The stitch might be visible or not. But with enough work, it all blends together and seems like one cloth. I talked a bit about that n the video below. It's a kind of visual mending. I call it Integrated Applique. And I've added it to the Feel Free Index in the sidebar.

 

video link if you see no player

But really even the most oddly mismatched bits of cloth can be merged as well. It's slow and intentional, you work at it. You find commonality somewhere or you create it. Let one scrap sympathize with another. Even if it is just to become stronger.

I always seem to work a lot on eyes. Vision takes work.

You can see where I folded back the edges to narrow the cloth. Crop it in a way. I will lay a thin lining over this side to bridge the gap. Or maybe not. That Deb Lacativa cloth...I didn't mean to hide so much of it. Maybe I'll cut through a bit on the front to expose more of it.

I am aware with some issues with commenting, but that is a TypePad issue, so who knows. I'll just keep going.