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.