Spirit Cloth

weary on wednesday

I had one of those sleepless nights last night. and so I am not planning to do much today. I will call my son, spend some time looking at how cloth transforms when in the company of other cloth... and thinking about that. And maybe i might take a nap. But not too long a nap. So I might sleep tonight.

the gift of inspiration

...i received a wonderful gift from julian who runs exot with my brother nemo. wow!...  (shown here with some fabulous wallpaper fragments i received from brother jeff , a while back...) i am always impressed with gift giving when it is right on.
this book documents wallpaper design from three pattern books in the department of prints and drawings at the victoria and albert museum. 900 designs dated from 1837-1852. just packed with inspiration.

...i have always loved old wallpaper. i just love that it is often layered,yes!, and  its faded quality is often used to generate my color palettes. the patterns themselves are really quite adaptable to fabric, many originally created as textile designs in repeat and motif.  and then, i especially love those unusual papers that look like stone or wash effects. beautiful surface ideas. a while back, when i worked on the listen to the river quilt, i did a bit of work with some old wallpaper fragments. i have done a lot of computer printing experiments on fabric with these which i want to go back and dig out of the archives so i can document my results here on the blog. i'll be doing that today. then i can inspire you.

wallpaper related links: 1  2  3

wallpaper related posts: 1  2  3 

dreamstorming

....as i ripped the velvet from mom's wedding dress into strips, it sprinkled everything  with a dreamy fairy like dust. and i dreamed of warm snow instead of vacuuming.
...with the intention of skatching a border for the pathways and bridges, i drifted with the snow idea and the harshness of the piece is now softened by a blanket of white and light, sculpted by stitches to retain the character of how velvet snow might come to rest. and now it is resting for a while.
...i worked a bit more on alphabet soup. just to stitch. because i was inspired by the childlike enthusiasm during the inauguration. and because all of a sudden D was for Dreaming, L was for Love multiplying and J was for Jude Juggling many thoughts at once. .

sometimes i just let myself float. day dreaming. letting the thoughts flow without struggling to focus. and i have been dreaming furiously at night. i don't jump up and jot things down  anymore. i try to become more conscious of the thoughts without waking so i don't destroy the melting process, the soft slow drift.  i think slowing down is what causes ideas to form. slow thinking is dreaming. i really feel sad when a child is given the impression that day dreaming is a waste of time.
today i woke with memories of uncurling and giant holes floating in liquid squares and the shape of trying and transparency and snoring as a language and cropped circles and huge ninepatches and velvet and silk shibori and lullabys. i can feel the shape of coma forming. without intention. 
today WAS is practicing yoga.

doodle wednesday- something global

.....with all this one world stuff floating around, i thought i would revive an old unfinished project that WE were working on years ago when my husband (lets call him metsky) was still working at the UN. it was a chart we were making of the sounds animals make and how they are expressed as written words in different languages. i think this would make a great folk quilt combined with images of the animals themselves. i need your help. i need any written animal sounds from any country and also any pictures of stylized folk art animals that you (or your friends or family) can pair with the sounds. and any stories that might go with them of course....thanks.

coma diaries

coma diaries

 i will be attempting a real time journal for coma. undoing schedules for posting etc.
there might be many posts a day. or none for extended periods of time.
i just don't know. you might become very confused about what i am doing. you can ask me but i might not be able to clearly express myself. that's the way it goes.
---the top image was found while researching the number 9

fireside chat

this blog is way bigger than ever imagined.  i want to ask some questions and i would really appreciate feedback.  there is a lot of advice out there on how to make your blog more useful, interesting, less annoying... figured i would just ask. if you are so inclined (even if you are only a lurker) , i would love to get your feedback. thank you for coming here. time is precious. thank you for you extra time in advance.

1. i have 3 blogs. did you know that? or do you just come here?

spirit cloth....(you are already here) the journal of my cloth making.
what if.... my experiments in technique
threadcrumbs...my textile collection (link on what if) , still in process, hopefully to be quite a library someday.

should i combine them? i could just separate the concepts with categories i suppose. would that be easier? or is what i am doing making sense?

2. my links are out of hand. i am planning on organizing them  a bit. i would like to review them one by one as i do this. if you  come here often and i have not linked you, and if you want to be linked..., can you let me know and also give me a little idea about how you would like to be presented.

3. i post almost every day. is it too much?

4. i respond sporadically to comments on and off of the blog. would you like me to respond? do you prefer email? do you like to read the comments on the blog as a dialog? should i do both? should i just shut up?

5. do you use flickr as a way here? just wondering.

that's it. feel free to complain about something while u r here.

thanks.

doodle wednesday 2

i tend to doodle everywhere. so i gathered some stray stuff together. i have a lot of stray stuff. i will be gathering it together for a while i think.

doodle wednesday

just loading in some notebook pages. sketches , doodles and notes. mostly taken from other ancient textiles. motifs. ideas. carpets are good sources for patchwork design. because they are knotted on a grid base and are geometric. for me textiles have always been related. one inspires another.

i am reserving my wednesdays  to  sketch and doodle and journal  and  keep my notes and journal posts up to date. i will also be posting these in the appropriate photo albums in the sidebar to the right.

quilt inspiration

i am taking an online quilt class from Tonya over at Lazy Gal Quilting and i will be attempting to piece by machine. promise not to laugh! Tonya is a great teacher with a free style and i may just surprise you all and love this new adventure.
most recently, she has asked us  to collect some inspiration for pieced quilts to get our juices flowing .  i love this quilt , for starters, which i found on this site. In case you have not noticed the new link on my sidebar,  The Quilt Index is a great resource and a has a great search engine.