Spirit Cloth

It's hard to know the big picture...

...probably because we never really get to see it.

Still we try to hold the sense of it. It doesn't make me feel small like it used to. I can just be part of it. Like a patch. It is easier to hold on to that these days. The Bigger Cloth.

I was simply exhausted yesterday. I slept early and I slept deep. Soul-o seemed to know, he stayed close.  This morning, after 4 tries, photos! 

The piece above, an unfinished small journey from the class with the same name.  I added and stitched the overlapping circles after asking myself "is a circle just the mother of all shift?" And I named it It's Just Time while working on it. Because that's it, not the thing, or the blog or the book or the anything. It's just time, the story. And all this shit is just part of it.  Be in it and share it or not.  What is it going to be?

I posted at Instagram this morning, trying to feel like it was the blog.  Very uneasy feeling, even though I post there a lot, it is not the same as I feel here. So I can share yes, I will continue to do that there, in case I cannot here. But I will struggle.  What else is there? 

I am tweaking Feel Free to become a back up blog. That will take a while.  I know TypePad is fading as they are now directing new sign ups to a WordPress server. They are struggling too. Maybe I will just choose to appreciate that. I fear less about losing anything here, I think the functionality will slip a bit but I can always reference the content and leave it here. Comments might be an issue, but I will just go and leave crumbs where you can find me if I lose you.  My heart IS in it. It was just a few hard days. For many more reasons than just this. We are all in the same big boat.

Filling a Space with a Field of Stitch

Stars are continuing.

Because I need a million and I am counting the ways.

The field of stitch is a nice less dense way, to create shapes, focus, and texture without covering the background. I discussed this a while back in Small Journeys, here, naming it at times in the past as Coloring Book Quilting and the Snow Globe effect.

It works well here, because I often use thread beads as stars, points of light I guess. And now the star is made up of stars. Stardust. This is an easy way to transform one shape into another. I can imagine other ways too, can you? There is a sort of vibrating outward going on. This resist dyed square is a bit bigger. 2" Still shibori dyed, and the center is a field of stacked running stitch (which is really a form of Kantha worked very close together). I've used fields of stitch so much, it has really become part of my stitching style.

I need to dye more of these larger squares. It's warm outside. I'll go check the vat.

Here is another star with a field of running stitch. The fields of stitch can be design and the quilting stitch at the same time. I love when design is useful.

Simple really, but so cool.

It just so happens that this piece will become the center of the Endless Wishing Cloth. A celebration in Old Sky.

Ha! How things eventually come together...

A wishing cloth is a great project. Make a wish, stitch it up, sew it on. It'll grow faster than you think. And it might be shelter from a storm.

A little talking, despite the construction going on in the background, towards the end. Somebody is building a house way too big for my liking. But hey, Feel Free I say.

 

click here if you see no player or a black box

 

The Wishing Diaries then...

As We move Toward September

There was a bit of a stomach thing. Yesterday. I rested a lot.

I've walked through the garden. That's all.

It is turning. The beginnings of that.

Cooler nights first. And yesterday it did not reach 80.

I didn't do anything in the garden. I just passed through slowly.

These. New.

Just there. Just like that. On one of the Butterfly Milkweed pods. It took two years but it is well established now. So I researched red bugs on Milkweed pods. And that is them. Milkweed Bugs.  They were still right there this morning. They must like it there. They say it's ok. They just show up for  short while. They reduce the number of seeds for next year. Some folks spray. Some folks consider it population control. For MilkWEED. In any case I stopped at considering it a touch of Red. For now. We'll see.

A touch of Red is always nice with green.

I just uncovered this. Nine for Growth. Part of the Nine Forever Series. Which was something more formal but now it isn't.  From the post here, which was from Small Journeys (one of the free classes in the sidebar)  here, and then here.

This another example of "weaving into".

There are so many ways to do that. Cloth through cloth. Try it.

I think I might put a few Milkweed Bugs on this one and call it done enough. Nine for Growth. Or Staring Growth in the Face and Seeing it Look Back. Sometimes things keep growing without you. It might do that. It contains that. The going. Despite a few bugs.

Later.

And there they are. 9 of them.

Dark Light Day

The Corner. This is where I use the computer now. Mostly when the sun is gone. It just so happens, so far, there is no sun today.

So the corner. I softened it to make it look more romantic.

I'll hang some cloth there.

Today is a dark day. The sun seems blue. I picked up this old fling fragment while looking for something else. This was created using a technique I call Cut Away Applique(I've added that to the Feel Free Index). Which really turns applique into patchwork. A great way to get a curved piecing effect. Somewhere, sometime, I dipped it into a fading indigo vat. which gave it a nice tonal effect. It is pinned to the perpetual grid cloth which has become my design wall. I am going to stitch on this one over the weekend. Cut Away Applique, it rhymes like a small song poem.

Yesterday I came across a piece of my work posted on someone's Facebook page. As if it wasn't mine. Why would you do that? (I probably know the answer to that) I guess that is why folks don't post their work on Facebook. Or around much. Well I'll be damned if selfish folks will ruin my heart. Here I stand, Feeling Free. Undeterred. So there. Fooey on You-ey. I am not like you.

Outside my window I swear I hear a small bird singing... Bernie... Ber-nie.

It's not politics, just an impression.

I'm thinking more about blogging lately. It should be a document of who you are. Not a marketing scheme. A website can be that. This is not that.

 

Out of the Ashes

So it's OK.

Thank you for all you kind concerns...

The fire was mostly on the floor and mostly away from the roof and walls.  It's now a gross pile of gunk and we are not even sure  what we lost.  Some old cloth, some paper. Lots of ash. The day warmed past the freezing mark so we had the garage door open.  We shoveled ash. Part of the smoke stink is contained on one side of the house now. The room with all the current cloth work was also open to the air today as well at intervals.  Lots of clean up to do. But I think it is not that bad. More shocked than anything else. Maybe a little of that is good once in a while. 

 

There was a gap in the second ring on the Nest of Days cloth.  Today I filled it. Not with what was pinned there the other day, but with a loose page from the little cloth book I was working on during Small Journeys, while considering Free Pages.  From Scrap Book one.

Another ring is complete. I flipped the cloth to look at it many ways. It seems to work well like this. I like the shift right above the eye. That happened way back here and I fit it into the grid by adjusting the cloth around it.

This ring seems to be about the expected and the unexpected.  I am trying to put that into words. It's like the checkerboard built with dark and light and 9s. I planned it in a way. It took awhile but I sort of knew what was coming next as I went along. So much so that I even grew impatient to see it like that. And then. A gap. A gap that stayed for a few days. And now this, the moons, an unexpected filler but really moons are also part of the expected. Especially as a symbol. And now it is all mixed up. In my mind. This ring of days. So that is just a few words about that. Maybe I am considering order vs natural order. 

Anyway. It's OK.

When the Rain Comes

Rain can be contagious.

It rained for days here. One hour caught it from the one before.

Sometimes when it rains. It can get into your heart.

When it gets into you heart, it is a different kind of rain.

And you carry it around.

It is easy to spread what you carry around.

Things spread quite quickly from heart to heart.

This is an old fragment. Started  after considering weather as a component in Small Journeys. Especially Rain.  Some practice on the "raining stitch". All day I sat with the rain. Outside. Inside.

I sat and thought to myself, as sometimes I do. I'm tired of people. I held the little cloth up to the light.  The light that was on all day because it was so dark. And poof. The figure was gone.  The rain and the heart remained. And it was beautiful. 
Maybe the whining was gone. Was that it? 

 

audio link if you see no viewer

 

I will be adding Whispering Hearts to Feel Free as my next gift. I think with the new year.

Gathering Stray Selves

Things pile up here.

Things pile up.

I laugh thinking how thick self becomes sometimes.

They are on the wall, the strays, the ones I unrolled today.  I am gathering these layers and laying them out flat. To sit in the company of strays. Scraps of self.  The one in the upper left, still undone.  As most of them are.  Fragments.  Since I intend to work on them a bit while company is here, while being company... I am revisiting old posts, stories, moments. Sitting here, still holding center and vibrating outward. With all my heart.

Note to self: I am too thick with self.

I want to share videos and some talking from Small Journeys last year, where this one started.  I have added a stray cat page over at Feel Free as well.  So you might find it later.  But really, I asked myself today, why not just put everything here?  Still mulling over the right format, but for the moment it is what it is.

Vibrating is a funny thing. It sometimes it shakes you so softly, you don't even notice. The big slow shake maybe. I think with each wave, let go.

A whole lot of shakin' going on here. Shedding skins.

When you click the link below for Straying Together 2, there will be a Small icon in the post that you might use to access the Small Journeys post that was related.  In the sidebar there at SJ, you will see a list of ALL the posts made during that series.  Feel Free to roam around.

 

Straying together #2.

 

Yes, Small Journeys is now open. I have not listed it at Feel Free yet. I am going to put the links to free classes here instead. 

 

A quick note, to those of you subscribed by email.

The service I use is free but not the best.

Delivery is inconsistent and incomplete. And the numbers have grown beyond the capacity of a free service.  I will not be continuing with it after this year.  I hope to find a replacement but it may require subscribing again. We'll see.

 

 

 

 

Seeking Balance

 

Good-bye July.

 

It rained like no tomorrow late yesterday. But here it is.

 

I plan to be away for August.

 

I need the time. And space. To rearrange. Shift. Center.

 

Balance is a matter of practice I think. One must be ready at any moment for everything to change. Even if it is just the wind. One must practice change more than anything. Manage the unexpected. Dance with it. Not repeat the same old same old in hopes to get it right.

I will be checking my email now and then. Posting a photo or two when it happens. The only surfing I will be doing is the kind that happens when you catch a wave.

The Small Journeys Series has closed. The links to content will remain open.

Any updates worth mentioning will be posted in my newsletter. (Up top)

Light and Open

And still holding.

What forms between appearing and disappearing is Magical.

Leave space in your heart. It's a window.

Summer Stray at Home

 For now.