Spirit Cloth

Above Us Only Sky

So the patch party is continuing in the background here, lightening heavier thoughts. And really to use up some scrap here.  Today's self is just that, a basket of scrap, amazed at how big it has become. Amazed at how small the pieces are. Trying to rebuild something useful. 

I like how the old sky can be a roof over our heads, and the thought of neighbors sharing sky. I think about what we do or don't believe divides us but really we all know there is sky. We could start there. Still looking for a larger scrap of that cloud cloth, maybe that's it. Not really liking the roof shape either, maybe just clouds. But I don't know. I guess I'll know when I feel it. Or not.

Before I look back, I am looking now. I lose track of where I am.

The other side of Magic. Which is somehow a big relief.

Not much will be going on here in December. Probably some yearly mending. I will begin Reconsidering Magic with the New Year. Maybe just take some time out for Silly as well.

And There I Was...

June 2011 Magic Diaries.

When I began by saying:

This series was set up to follow what I call larger cloth. By this I do not always necessarily mean bigger, but just slower and longer term.  Deeper maybe. I wanted a format where I could talk about that a little more. In more detail than I do on my public blog.  A place to share more personal thoughts about cloth making. A place more like home that would be more continuous and less planned.

(This photo just a still clip from the opening video) 

I have closed the door to the original series now, because no one has really visited in a long time and I need to fiddle to extract content and put it here. So there I am 10 years ago, as I recall, already thinking I was getting old. 

And here I am today. In another place and time. Feeling like I am getting older.  Maybe that is a trigger for another kind of truth. 

After moving the porch table down stairs in front of the big window where it became my studio table, the glass table that was there was moved to the porch where it became like a pond, in the morning light.

And that is just a lovely thought caught to start the day.

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. 

Suddenly Older

Not Really.

Older takes a long time. Sometimes the noticing seems sudden.

So much time has even passed since I was working on this. So much time is passing it is even hard for me to go back and reference some of the things I would like to find.  Of course if I wait long enough I won't remember at all and everything will be new!

Somehow line is a really good tool for expressing old. The wrinkle thing. I am playing with expanding that to include breaking up large areas with line style stitch. The visual changes, like a cracking but also the feel of the cloth is grand. I will work a bit on this and talk about it later.

I realize there are commenting issues here. Sorry. Tis what it is.

Feel Free, my Wordpress site is in maintenance mode for October. Trying to downgrade and simplify with the intention of leaving it for reference and personal organization for content still unpublished. 

There is an incomplete list of Ragmates in the sidebar but I will probably go back to Placekeeper for links, a separate page. October is clean up month.

To Fall into it

It's Fall.

And then thinking about Fall. Leaves Fall. But leaves are let go to make room for new leaves.

Our sweet Michelle gave me this little hoop. I played with this photo. I highlighted what might be held by this small gift. And I added a garden layer, the season. Fading.

I say to myself, the layering in photos, as well as digital drawing, can be a tool, for helping form evolve in my story cloth.  But then too, tools need to be an extension of those who use them. That is the complexity in the relationship.

Some stitching then, continued from here, yesterday, but more realizing again, how the nature of cloth, it's flexibility, how cloth is like clay, like breath, like extension of self.

I'm in a mood.

Moods are useful.

Expecting days of rain here. Again.

 

Just Looking

Found the old mama loom (I still have the 3)at the bottom of the closet. For a long time I have been weaving on looms I make myself. And Considering Weave in the context of sewing.  I want to warp up all my looms. That is not something I would teach or show here. Just the cloth forming part. And the importance of weave to my story. I do imagine building a tapestry loom. Or maybe one outside and one inside. 

I am surrounded by old weaver me.

But now I am really Old Weaver Me. A New Weaver Me perhaps compared to years past.

Today I will just be scratching.

Meet the Day

Meet the Day, that my friends is my only plan. From here on in.

This cloth, below,  hangs where I can see it as I go to make coffee.  It was a cloth that helped me be here in my new, but not really new anymore place.  I still need it as a reminder to be just present.  And how big that can become.

And then this. The cloth-woven leaf. Some of you may remember Small Journeys. An older class(?) Series. I feel that way.

That this blog will just be that. Let me try...

I like this shaped weaving and I am happy to bring it into the day for considering.

alternative video link if you see no player which can happen for those who receive this post by email.

And the season emerged more clearly this morning. It rained in the very early morning. The resident Barred Owl sang...And coolness came. 

My Real New Year

There is a lot of considering in the air.

At one point, after a lot of practice, one just might be able to 

Consider All Things

To be continued...

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?