Spirit Cloth

Honor

And here, now, a bigger picture.

It's a bit like sitting at the laundromat. The washer and dryer are in an alcove to the left. An alcove that they do not quite fit in.  We thought to move them to the basement. We don't need to, just want to. We thought, we could build the opening out a bit. Put a door, or even a curtain. But right now, gee, I'm just in grateful mode. Grateful for such a luxury, the washer, the dryer (probably tho, the clothesline will get more use).  So to honor them, I sit with them for now. Thoughts of venting the dryer heat inside makes sense. 

I have moved the table, changed its orientation, so there is a  corner to sit in with sun at my back. A sewing  chair then, for now.  The other chair, for looking out.  I think this is the winter studio really. 

Laundry is cloth right? oh ha! I do honestly love washing and ironing, maybe that's why. It's like honoring Cloth. Caring. 

This morning, with coffee, honoring two friends.  A little pairing to bring them together. A Glennis moon. Some Richard Carbin vintage blues from Japan.  I honor them. For their dedication to work and family. Their honesty. Their generosity. Their authenticity. I will cobble this together, using a scrap of my own blue to block out part of the ikat pattern on the bottom. To make it look like a landscape. Good people are like a place. To rest.

Oh and I made a little valentine. Nine for Love. 

Smaller

The deer.

Among clotheslines. Closer than before. A group of young ones wandered through. Or maybe they are just smaller here? They are more grey, less brown from the other place I no longer call home. Very hard to see against the oak bark. I think they have been more present, just not noticed because not so much in the clearing near the house. This is right outside the window where I put my drawing/drink tea table that sits closer to the ground. 

The tiny iron tea pot.  And not for drinking tea. I bought it from Crazy Richard in Japan, while considering small cloth. Asked if it could linger there before the move. It just arrived. It's actually my new tiny dyepot, maybe big enough for one walnut. And then, I accidentally left my big old walnut pot behind. I did remember my big copper pot though.  But smaller was,is on my mind. Dyeing one scrap at a time.

Scraps of self grow smaller each year.

Light and Dark in March

March. Sun and Magic. Focusing on that.

Magic Sun Evolving.

 

alternative audio link if you see no player.

(Note: Indigo Dyed over Deb's hand dyed cloth and then stitched. Deb is a trusted ♫ resource. Has a nice ring to it doesn't it?)

Good Morning

Morning through true blue.

It's nice to have examples to study. Looped over a rod in the studio window today.  Looking through helps me understand cloth.

This one from Crazy Richard. All the way from Japan.

I love the two tones of blue and the thinness of the cotton cloth.  And where you can see the the layers overlapping here at the window. In October. After a storm. As the air carries it's seasonal chill. At last.

And oops, it's Halloween. I had a little holiday cloth planned but I didn't get too far. So a beginning, tacked in place with a whisker from a not so all black cat here. For next year maybe. Or maybe it will turn into something else.

Shining Through

Heart that is.

This one is my fave, so far, dyed over Deb's color and heart cloth as I call it.

Because her heart is always in it and I love that.

Things come and go

Many arrangements were washed away with the day.

I ended up with this.

She. Still standing. Not swept away. Washed by it, that which flows through. Kantha legs are strong.

The additions are all silk. Which started with the foggy silk moon, veiled in summer leaves, a reflection of the moody day, the dot itself in sympathy with the house of time passing. The background in sympathy with blue already there. Blending.

And then the river. Nobody does flow better than Glennis. I love her shibori silk ribbon because of that, and how it is so liquid. You can make it flow around anything, if you have the mind to try.

I imagine there will still be wings. It's not time yet.

Time Lapse

A wet day. But not yesterday.

Last evening, red sky.

Late night wishing star, golden but leaning toward other colors, # 55 out of the intended 99.

The begonia. This morning. Watered by a leaking roof. Looks like more rain for days. Begonia is happy. ( ha! A is for April Showers.

This morning, A. Just a doodle to mark a beginning for the Indexing. A is a seed in a way. An Alphabet is an easy way to go. It's musical in my mind. And it's a kind of game that leads somewhere. I will create an online template for THE Index today. An index that will serve as a resource for Feel Free, Spirit Cloth Language and Loose Pages. Feel Free to join in.

 

1-2-3 Wednesday

One. One of a kind is on my mind.

Because one of a kind has always been how it is for me.

My original internet name was onebyjude.  Before spiritcloth.

It was about handmade I guess. Not factory made. But also originality. In a softer way. Maybe the celebration of what moves through me us. How special that is.

Anyway, I rarely try to duplicate anything.

Handmade kind of insures that. Variation. Imperfection. Slow evolution. But not duplication. Sometimes I go with a thought more than one time though. I sort of copy myself. But not copy, continue. To witness evolution in my own path. To remind myself not to stand still. Of the opportunity to build on what went before. To feel the flow. 

Note to self: Sharing thought, through teaching, is a way to expand it. Sympathetic evolution is not duplication. It is design mending when we feel free.

Two. Two bases. Again, but not really. The base process is simply that. Creating a foundation for thoughts and experiments. These are small but I bet I can cram a lot of small journeys into them. I suppose a lot of you have been through the Base Lesson over at Spirit Cloth 101. So I am doing the same thing really, here. Starting something. I added a bit of thin cloth. Harem cloth in this case. Because I have some here.  I have a lot of it. And I don't think I need all of it. So maybe I can share some of it over at ThreadCrumbs in small bits as a free addition to some of the component packs. Just big enough for a little something. You only need a bit. No sense in buying a whole bunch of it before you try it. I've put a link to it in the resource list anyway. Up to you. I try to get away from more stuff. Hence the stray bits approach.

This is a patchwork base. Put together rather freely. Maybe I will make a few more using other methods. See how that leads me in other directions.  I have already pinned these to the thin cloth. To begin to give the base some weightless substance. I switched to safety pins this last year, I stuck myself too many times. Besides I like the idea of safety. The holding. My next step is the glue stitch (the invisible baste).

Three.

A few things about Three. On the second base I stuck with the Three groups of Three. Across. I also used Three larger elements in the center vertically. To balance the horizontal flow I guess. But also to accentuate that in between standing thing. Which happened yesterday. I also added a new star idea. That square format that comes from patchwork. The one I like to call the wishing star. Simple. A square. I had dyed one before the vat expired. I used a couple of small square ceramic tiles, left over from redoing the bathroom, for the resist.

Again, just a simple walking stitch. It's path leaving a shaped trail. There could even be a story there. Later.

I dyed 3 more. To play with.

Couldn't stop one of them from beginning a spin.

There are many ways to make shapes on cloth. I've been dyeing. But while I wait for a new vat to ripen, I'll try a few more ways. One at a time.

Also, walnuts are dropping.

First Freeze Coming and 1-2-3.

 Third Sunday in October.

ONE.  The squirrels got into my acorn walnut dye soup while I was tidying the studio. Ok.

Start over.

TWO. Still green here with the first hard frost expected tonight. So...

Hung a flag to help things along.  Some October color. Old tie dyed silk scrap by Richard Carbin, like only Richard can do. If you need any vintage silk to dye, he's the man.... I met Richard though Glennis. So there you go. He is in Japan. She goes there often for her Silk Study Tours. On occasion you might find some old silk in her shop as well.  Some folks were asking about  a source for that. You can buy new silk of course but really I would rather support folks trying to make an honest living to support their families. And really there is nothing like old silk. To Dye for.

THREE.  I just unrolled this and named it Feel Free.  Naming things for me has a lot to do with the moment.  I named it something else before, but today it's Feel Free. I started this one during a teaching series, so I will probably be able to find some old videos and stuff.

But right now, some last minute garden rescue is in order.  The Man feels fine, I feel free and the camera issue has been resolved.

 

After Many Septembers

 

A stray cat

might dance in in it. With it.

My intention was to walk you through the process of this one a bit, but this week has been a bit hectic and I sneak away to stitch now and then. When I can.

Some Deb cloth again, atop some gloriously old and deep indigo from Crazy Richard. Right there in Japan, he is.

I'll call this one Dances with Leaves. For now. Names often change in sympathy with the day.