...as we near my 71st birthday in February of 2022 ( geez, do you believe it?) I will begin recording creative process over at Feel Free as part of a new (teaching?, maybe just saying) segment of Patchwork in Perspective, the forever part. In preparation, the Feel Free site will be down, for a bit, so I might make some necessary changes.
What will this place be then? Home I guess. The safety net. In case I fall back inward at some point or run out of things to say. I have a sense that I might be rocking back and forth.
Snow stopped, sun's out. I love how Soul-o is more of the beast today. He just came in from the cold.
This morning when I turned on the light. Just there.
Must have blown in on the wind. Or the Man is being funny.
When we moved here, Magnolia was blocking the front door. The previous owner was crippled and came in through the garage, unable to make it up the front steps. We trimmed a large branch. She has healed beautifully.
Just a simple stacking. But yet an intricate exercise in balance. And alignment. I remember my first snowman. Back then I never questioned why it was a man.
A snow Woman she will be, with a fire inside. Sewing Small, looking forward to continuing with Small Cloth. Going to talk about that tomorrow. Which can really be the birth of Large Cloth. Scale, like form is liquid anyway.
Antibiotics done. Head clearing.
I didn't get to the new email feed thing yesterday, I will try again today.
It wasn't a plan but when he said, what if you make the living room into your studio?, it took me about 15 minutes to make the changes. The only big window. Oh yeah, feeling more like home.
Patch Play du jour.
And I forgot about the sailboats from a while back, just found a pile of them waiting for stitch. I guess I could use the tips of triangles for waves. Way back they were mountains and even tee pees. It's amazing what you might do with simple shapes. But I guess that is at the root of patchwork. And I have probably said that so many times before.
Oh gee, what if I could make a houseboat?
Moving the studio has me sorting through piles again.
I feel a loose patch party coming on. It's the silly season anyway. I need to order some wine.
There's not much wall space in this new studio spot, but the hallway could work. I need to look at all the loose dyed patches together. And the basement is cold. I will warn him, there will be no escape from my madness now...
I will calm down after the new year.
I'm late posting today, so this will probably get delivered tomorrow, what day is it anyway?
So the issue is rationed bandwidth which has no particular pattern so I never know when the upload speed will allow photos. That is not legal, but in these weird days I've grown used to these things. I will take the high road. I'm an old woman and I've seen a lot of things. I cannot really sit here all day trying to post. So we are switching providers (which require some extra installation efforts and expense) and will have better service after the 25th of January. I will use the extra pause to settle myself. My January self seems more unsettled than my December self. Some how I've become undone once again. I will open update the shop with the New Moon and open Feel Free, which has it's own issues, on February 1st.
There was snow on the Magnolia buds yesterday morn. They form, they wait, while I hope they make it. The sun came out later and all has melted away once again.
I want to call these pocket cloths now. The pocket is such a personal place. I'll do some pocket storming. Be back with that when I can. This one. I was going along and then suddenly it occurred to me. The Tendency to Bloom. We all have it. Maybe just a wish for us all to realize it. To know what kind of environment might encourage it. To understand how sneaky poison can be.
It's cool. Cool for the first time in a long time.
Evidence of cycle. I feel like this one was left for me. Right outside the porch door. Yesterday's confusion led me to a small eye sampler started a couple of years ago. Some eyes still colorless... "complete the full spectrum of vision" I said to myself.
There are Shells of Summer everywhere. They seem like eyes today. New eyes. Old eyes. A reminder that we need all eyes. To see.
The first stitching was done on a single layer. I think I used a hoop. But I cannot find my hoops, tucked a way somewhere because I don't use them much. So I added another layer. Because it is easier to stitch on more than one layer without a hoop. These stitches, today's stitches, go all the way through. I thought about through. Eyes that see through. Different eyes. Evolution. How many seasons will it take?
Then looking through New Eyes.
What I noticed here is how the running (walking) stitch outline seems like a solid line on this side. Because I can see the stitch where it disappeared as well. Appear and disappear have become one. Now that's a new kind of magic.
How a thought rises through consciousness. That's what I was thinking a day or so ago...with all that has happened, it fell back in. Anyway there was too much coffee, probably because there was too much shitty wine.
I promised a video but I am not up to it really. These big squares are 5". Once I start with a certain puzzle piece size, all the other elements fall into relationship with that. I talked about that here. Obviously, I could continue adding 5" squares until it was "big enough". But I've done that.
I made the cross and stitched it to the base instead. Like a puzzle block. Maybe to see it that way. There many ways to patch to a base. I talked about that here. As a matter of fact, what I talked about in Small Cloth can apply to large cloth, right? Just the scale is different which might require a bit of problem solving in terms of handling a larger cloth. But that is the never ending learning part.
So I made the puzzle pieces in the same way. Ironed around a template, edges glue-stitched to keep the edges in place while fiddling. Then I stitched 9 squares (made more than 9) together to form the cross. I glue-stitched the cross to the base cloth by sewing down the center in both directions, so the edges might flap open, allowing me to add the 4 more pieces to create the extended 9. A little awkward to work into the corners but it worked. Of course I could just applique them as well. Or draw the framework of the patch work and use the skatching (patching over a sketch) method. So you see, so many ways. I like to mix it up. Or go with what works with my mood or my energy in the moment. All the while noticing how each way has it's own feel. Sensing that.
This was Monday's post but I didn't post it. I felt detached. But now, ok, there it was, an idea. Not planned bit as it happened. Could I create a pieced back? One that would might show through the base cloth, like a shadow yet still a main part of the structure, and work with the existing pieced cross/extended nine patch? What if?
