Spirit Cloth

Getting Back

 

So here I am we are, today...

So many thoughts went through my mind as I stitched.

Yet, I was not prepared to catch them. I long to really get through it, making a cloth with a true sense of how it happened, openly shared. Even if for my own curiosity, because it's as much of a mystery to me. It is quite a challenge to remember to let it flow. How interruptions are just as much a part of it. The forming.

I am calling this The Uphill Climb. There is no figure yet. I am not sure it is needed.

I (the man has been a little bit low energy lately) began the clear marking of paths that will span this hill.  Only the birds will see the spiraled plan.  I am using some of the wood, split before we came here and left under the non protected part of the porch. I was clearing under there, too damp and moldy, and the wood too rotted or full of bugs, but ok to line the paths, to define them and later we will lay wood chips to keep the undergrowth at bay. And that redbud, nice in spring, but doesn't really get enough sun. It might have to go, for a longer view.

18 degrees. Feels like 3.  Never sure what they mean by that. If it feels like 3, it's 3.

Good Morning

Bear with me, I am in some sort of personal internet lockdown. And words are not coming easily. The only kind of fire I want to build right now is the kind that keeps us warm in winter. Or supports the making of Soup.

Hanging

Hanging here, these small loose favorite things, I used to dress up this ugly chandelier when I moved here...(do you believe we are almost a year in?) they have come to be quite handy in these stay at home times.

The thing about hanging...

...is that a thread is often involved, at least here, hanging by a thread.

Thread is good. It's the part of the equation that we can use for change. 

This is an old piece. I just named it Coming Back to Life. Normally I might go back and check what I called it way back when. Catch that thread. But I am wondering how useful that is. The story is already in me and maybe the current thread is what I should go with. To continue. Today is a loose patch.

It is still warm here but that will change soon enough. I have collected a lot of plant material here and cooked up an Earth Yellow brew. I often over-dye but rarely over print. I am thinking about that today. That thought is hanging in my mind. By a thread.

Things will be a bit piecemeal here for the rest of 2020. I think I will pull it all together with the turn of the year. Still stitching on Holding Pattern. It's a gift to be given by year's end.

Ps. I feel Good.

Loss

Before sleep, I updated the computer. Which never completed. A forced shutdown with coffee and now it will not boot. So here I am, with my phone, which is no fun at all. Letting you know. Fearing I have lost all my book files and softwear and photos not backed up. Asking myself what loss is.    ?

And loving the stitched wave border with dots, another storybook detail.

And thinking about in between. which is where I'll be for a while Longer than Expected.

Lightening a Story

 

As in shedding light on, not making light of...

Illumination.

audio link if you see no player above

You might need to click twice to see.

Or just imagine.

As mentioned I've been also darkening some cloth.

...the link to a class post about that.

Lightening and Darkening, again considering the magic in that.

Karma

And so, I hold on to sanity,

At it's core, in cloth, the 1" square. I start here each day.

And then 9. A way to frame it. Today it is a kind of natural darkness. Arranged to seem woven, almost as a square basket.

I will continue. Make a nine patch. Nine-dujour I call them. If you haven't got the mind for large cloth, try making a nine patch a day. React to the day. Before it's over. Catch it so you might share it. Or remember it. That is story. Sew them all together maybe, at one point. 

No, I do not celebrate the  illness of the president. I hope he will simply learn something and that he recovers.  Quite simply because I will not disregard the humanity of others.

I will hold my sanity. 

Agency.

Later..

yup, this is good.

 

If you experiencing troubles viewing or leaving comments, it is a TypePad problem. Try switching browsers away from Chrome for now. I suggest Microsoft Edge.

Name it

Just let it out. 

Something.

Call it something. What comes to mind?

 

Just Wake Up

The Beauty of Another Day

Become a Sun

Not Exactly a Phoenix but Rising All the Same

Wake the Beast

She Needs New Wings

Rest in the chaos and Rise with the Sun

The Spirit

September's Bitch

Naming things is a tool I use to mark the moment. Again and again.  It helps me hold the change of mind. Story is that. One mind and then another. Reacting to a chain of events. How it seems to happen. I could build 9 stories from what came to mind from one. I didn't try to have 9 names. It has become an instinct. 

So. What comes to mind?

Images are now slow to upload here at TypePad. So I have just begun to make them smaller. Smaller files. Comments only show in Microsoft Edge.  But I need Chrome to use the audio player. So that's the way it can work for me for now. More work but ok. Pretty much the images will be here and on Instagram, and mostly the words and will be here. video might have to be over there, but then maybe I will just link to Feel Free when I finish fiddling. I'm weaving a way in my mind. Autumn Bitch is determined. But mellowed.

when there is no internet...

You might settle in with a good book.

A quilt can be like a book.Posted from my phone. No repairs happening now. Have a good weekend.

Hunker Down and Appreciate the Ordinary

 

Just a few moments to reflect. 

I did not plan to focus on the Robe thing in such detail here in "Large Cloth".

But how it goes is simply how it is. And I let you lead me my friends. Lead me and accompany me at the same time.

You might recognize this robe "Without End" from one of the videos I published from the Contemporary Boro class in the last few days.  It's the one made from grandma's linen curtain.  With the binding made from scraps of my son's baby quilt. It was patched and dyed and mended and worn. My first attempt at ROBE. Dates back to 1975 or so. And then the cloth began to weaken. To honor it I undid the seams and attached it to a foundation cloth for support. To take the strain of tension away. It is now a wall cloth. And I renamed it Temple. It is not a religious statement. It is symbolic of a dwelling place for an aging deep seated feeling of honor.  I have only begun to put this together, it has been hanging on walls for a while and needs more stitch. 

I put this here today simply to emphasize how one thing might become another. And still be useful.  It could have become a blanket. Maybe it is now an art cloth.  One I wanted to create , wanted it to make an impact. Maybe just a Ceremony. Because I needed it as a reminder of how I feel about cloth. In a new way it is still a robe. It wraps me in peace. And tells, to me, my own story.

How strange,it has grown larger now, Larger than Life.