Spirit Cloth

What is a life?

I so relate to a basket of scraps.

There is a mirror across from the bed, on the closet door. This is a pic of the reflection. I was trying to get a pic of soul-o, but the pic was snapped before I was ready. So here we are. Me almost 71 and he is getting older too. Sleeping in again. 

We are about to remove that mirror. And the closet wall it hangs on.  Maybe ourselves. With a hammer. It'll be a mess. But we don't care. This house is just too "house", if you can get that.  Who needs closets?  Not me. I prefer baskets. Or just less stuff. We need light moving through.  The walls without heating vents, we think they need to go. At least that is the thought caught today.

Meanwhile, looks like a bigger snow coming at the end of the week... so off to the market we go. I made a note to self, to grow and freeze or preserve more veggies next season. Get organized in that regard. 

I needed some sun. I will talk about this one eventually. Maybe I said that already when I started it

10 years

or so

ago.

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.

like most mornings lately...

Uncovering small journeys past.

This one came together during Patchwork in Perspective, while considering curves. It's been pinned to things and used to catch thought. But I always return here, it is still a fragment.  And I am just looking. At the cloth, and the loose thoughts caught there and thinking they are the same. And then the difference between word and image.

I considered continuing with Patchwork in Perspective. But I don't think I can. Not in any formal way. Things have a much softer edge these days, one thing runs into another. Ambition melts away. I even laugh about it. my momentary lapses in reality. 

The man made me a ring from his own hair. And believe me it's long enough. 

 

Tea and Patches

A Free Form Friday.

No place to go. 

And the hickory has turned, while the oaks are just beginning. I made these photos look a bit old, simply because it seems like I have been here before.  I like that thought and felt like sharing the feeling.

The little loose drawn patches, from a while ago have begun to catch my interest for several reasons. But as a crossover to my paper work most of all. Been mostly reconsidering paper in the background. Weaving is still what drives my dreams.  There has been less time to do but plenty of time for tea. And to imagine. 

 

Late Yesterday, before the rain...

 

Rosemary came inside.

She is in a pot because she will not winter well here. She will like the dry warmth generated by wood burning , I promised to mist her often. And set her on a tray with water and pebbles.

This is the big scarf I wove in the 70s. It is 8 feet long plus fringe. While wearing it I used to go up to people and say,

...you call that a scarf?

I had this thought last night, or maybe it was a question... what if some of my old weaving could be a base for new work?

I woke up feeling like I was living in a tapestry.

Weave is my new filter. I wove. I considered weave. I am reconsidering weave. Perhaps in my mind for now. A new year is near... Almost 2 years here. And the 3rd winter.  Almost woven in.

No Sun This Morning

You might have to click this to read it. I shrunk myself down this morning. To change the scale of self. That's all I got today.

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. 

Oneness

After some technical advisement, the short version of the story,I did, indeed,lose the files on my hard drive. And the computer is non functional. So "things" fell apart. But I didn't. And I have kept my needles threaded. Just needing some time to gather some appropriate patches. Seems the older I get, the more pieces there are to work with. And ways to hold them together.

One on One

Pairing. Pairings , as I call them, just simple connections, have often been my starting point for patchwork. Two, loose scraps, often mismatched, touching, then becoming more. Here, obviously more deliberate, but still, with a bigger cloth in mind, such a simple and effortless and gratifying way to begin. One plus one. These are 2.5" squares, because I was dividing space, and I started with 5".  I hung them on a string on the porch, like flags. Clothespins were too heavy so I used pins.

Black and white. The magic seen through new eyes.

Then black-ish and white-ish, because nothing is that simple, black and white.

Prayer flags I thought, though I don't like the word prayer because of its link to religion. I am yes, God-Less. But I thought just redefine it in your own terms. With how you feel. Prayer-ings then today. In the context of the moment. Because a prayer might just be a way for saying Please help me,I can't do this by myself. We might simply ask each other for help. Sometime yesterday, I decided to stop talking about what I really don't know. To sound like I do. Maybe focus on what I can do. Here in this local community. Connect. While still Hunkering Down which seems to gone to hell in a handbasket.

I will talk through cloth here. I know how to do that. That is simply how I find words.

First there were prayer-ings, then paired to become magic 4 patches, my symbol for the time it takes, night and day. Season. And I have the green cross cloth pinned other-side up, using the shadow as a guide to build. A reference point.

What if I use yellow ? Energy. As a center? I think this cloth , the base will come together quite quickly now, Because I am driven. I will embellish with stitch from both sides. Which I think might emphasize and even celebrate a layered connection. I look forward to the day.

It was close to 90 here yesterday in the Valley. It has become summer without me noticing. And we have been here almost 6 months already. Suddenly the forest is becoming carpeted in ferns. 
I have never lived with frogs and dragon flies before. The are glorious. 

How and Why. What. Continued...

It was a long noisy process but it went well. The large white oak was tall and had split into multiple trunks, maybe 5 or 6.  They came with a bucket truck and wove in and out of the power lines, slowly snipping the branches, dropping them carefully until the danger was past. The tree had been most likely damaged by gypsy moths, I have been though that before.  But the wood was mostly good, so maybe not that long ago. We might had left it standing had it not been so close to the wires and the house.  They also cut a lot of the fallen trees here outside the kitchen window.  More good wood and now clearing the way to the layered stone rimmed ridges that go back to the stone walls.  There is real wild garden potential here. That cedar which was hardly visible before will be much happier. There is more air and light and open paths to walk. 

I was talking about the lion quilt yesterday. Remembering how it came together. And then not so much why I made it but why it seems important and what it became and then what it has become.

I got interrupted yesterday, which has me on a side trip this morning. After Henrietta asked if I had the drawings of the lions. So I will just talk for a moment.

Link to audio if you see no player below.

And just now, rewriting history I guess, a new loose page, overwritten, to make it useful in the moment. Now motivated to tear up the past and use it to patch the present, make way for the future. Regenerate.

I will start with noting A Field of Color. As a start. As a Base. Considering A full Spectrum of them. I can use them to explain. And they can be used as blankets for little people. Ok. Which color should I begin with. Green?