Now that the ewer full of catalpa branches is gone, the mirror is speaking to me. Pin boards are wonderful ways to look at work from a distance. Mirrors let you look in reverse.
This assembly makes me want to include white in the composition and to have more than one horizon line. I’ll keep looking.
Hanging this quilt in the window makes uneven layering obvious. An excess of layers often results when you add already quilted sections to other cloth.
From Jude at Spirit Cloth, I learned the (now seemingly obvious) technique of cutting some of the thickness away — what she calls ‘managing layers’.
Some stitching was sacrificed in the process and I will have to fix that later, but for now, I like how it lets the light through.
Sea Island Indigo’s workshop is allowing us THREE bags of fabric for the dye pot. By that, I assume they mean the standard grocery bags.
Well, I am flying. I am NOT going to check two bags. So this morning I am balancing my squirrel-like packing skills (of which I am rather proud) with the greed to bring more (and more) fabric. To my surprise, it was a great relief to put half of the cloth away… to name the feeling, ‘greed’, and put that away, too. Setting aside greed allowed love to come in.
You see, I had collected a bunch of needle-resistant cloth for the rag quilting workshop. Made sense…. it looks like sewing will be limited with this method. But an awful lot of the tough fabrics I own are a tad gross in feel. I find myself protesting, “NO! NO! I’m only bringing fabric I love”.
Selecting fabrics you love is not at all the same, of course, as fending off greed. Instead, it is governed by pleasure, aesthetic discernment, cultivated tastes, sensory delight… by all those irrational preferences for some colors over others, and in my case, by a slight mania for a good jumble of patterns. When you’ve gathered a pile of fabric you love, sometimes looking at the stack is enough!
Raise your hand if you know what I’m talking about.
I will save my greedy impulses for food. There’s gonna be some AMAZING food on this trip!
But before I go off to my LIST and my PAGES and the CLEANING I like to do on Mondays, I wanted to assemble a collection of pictures from the summer class I took — ‘Considering Weave’ with Jude Hill over at Spirit Cloth. Just as a place to see what I did. How much I learned. These kinds of visual bookmarks make a difference down the road… it is so easy to underestimate or lose track of the volume of threads/cloth that went through the process with me… this will help me remember!
And, by the way, the act of doing this — its value both now and later — is just one of the many, many things learned from Jude.
in-process butterfly received a needle woven body — idea to embroider words inspired by Cindy over at handstories
some actual weave; some figurative
one of my indigo cloths with woven opening — made so many mistakes!
a woven patch — lumpy, loveable, functional
the “Triscuit” crater — backing from my indigo vat
buckling caused by size of opening could not be fixed even with machine stitching to a heavy weight backing
woven ‘islands’ extending patterning over edge — one of my favorites from the class
woven islands partnered with Middle Passage piecing
visual weave with vertical and horizontal running stitches
the crow got a woven base and flew off to Wendy Golden-Levitt
seeing warp and weft all around
continuing on a piece in context of weaving — many sections begun in another of Jude’s classes
more strip weaving because it’s hard to stop; travels well
speckled vintage linen from Deb Lacativa’s dye pot
blue sky — arashi technique with commercial dye — by moi!
sampler: Corn Guy
as I started ‘sewing’ more, back neatened up (worked top down)
copy of Jude’s waves. Woven on primitive box loom (which was a rectangular basket in my case)
Planning to order a bead loom so that I can continue without some of the frustrating tension issues caused by wrapping warp around a basket and taping it to the back.
I didn’t get a chance to make any fringe and look forward to trying. Would like to edge some of my Star Maps with it. And, I can’t wait to try some of the more experimental techniques offered this month. Any more meaningful reflections on the class will have to wait. It was a terrifically provocative journey (as usual)… and if other classes I have taken are any indication, the fruits of the learning will keep coming over the next months and seasons.
Bye for now!
First, a rectangle. Then, a turtle born from its center. A long idle period ensued.
The center opened up (thanks for the idea, Jude). And I got to work.
“The Paradise” entertained me (BBC period drama). It is what “Selfridge’s” might have been had it been any good. My husband figured out that we could keep the air on downstairs without risking a flow of water through the mudroom’s light fixture. This was a great relief.
I could live with the ‘having to take two warps at a time’ mistake (seen above). In part, because it reminded me of spider parables cautioning against arrogance and the middle eastern rug-making practice of purposely allowing imperfection so as not to offend the gods.
But, when I took the piece out of the hoop, a faulty tension revealed itself: oh such major lumps!! This is imperfection of a different order. The spoiling kind. I couldn’t find my spray bottle (it’s been missing so long now I have to assume the leprechauns took it), so damp-stretching was not an immediate option. The attempt to stabilize with machine stitch was quickly abandoned.
Since some of us are headed to the Rocky Mountains today, it will have to wait.
Laundry got done in town. This beast gobbled up 23 quarters!!! K. has disassembled our machine, watched YouTube repair videos, and ordered parts. Probably will save us $900.
Last night, the studio received its ‘flood preparation pick up’. All items on floor are housed in plastic bins — no paper, no baskets, no leather or wood. Rugs up. Foot pedal up. I hope this will have been an unnecessary precaution.
Spotty check ins for a bit. My password for WP is not working on my phone this morning for some completely opaque reason, so we shall see.