Tag Archives: orange

Orange equals overwhelm

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Today, I should say. Today, orange equals overwhelm.

A little background. My tech skills need updated. I need to learn how to transfer photos to my new laptop so that I can then delete 1,000’s (and I mean 1,000’s) of pix from my phone. Talk about too much!

Then, I need to figure out why blogger won’t let me leave comments (and there, I speak of too little. Too little interaction with some beloved blogs because *#%*£#).

Finally and most immediately, I need to update my blog-reading app. I thought I was keeping up with a chakra exploration led by Acey and come to find out, I’m way behind. Way behind.

Which is actually a terrific place to begin: with that ancient and enduring sense that I am not enough. Perhaps this sense dwells in the lower midsection. A second chakra phenomenon.

Is looking backward an indulgence? Is it at some times and not others, for some people and not others?

Wondering about that.

I scanned Acey’s posts and took a few pix before and during the morning’s dog walk and then pulled out my SoulCollage cards (so much orange!) and went down to my studio (so much MORE orange!)

There was no prayer, music, or movement involved. Just a burning punk and curiosity. I will let most of the photos sit while I let an approach appear.

But to start: a corner of orange fabric sticking out of a desk that once belonged to my mother caught my eye this morning.

It’s a piece of high-end linen given to me by a local upholsterer with a scavenged piece of paper stitched on top. I don’t remember when I made it, but it’s years ago. The design looks map-like and therefore holds excitement, but the grubby aspect makes it also seem forlorn and wrecked. As I go through the chakra exercise, I will add to this little wrecked, forlorn, exciting map-like shape and see what comes.

I was already thinking about yellow and how key it is to orange, when on our walk (our very COLD walk), I came across a plastic gate in a neighbor’s yard.

Look! In that space between panels, is where orange vibrates.

If I was to pick an emotion that would be moderately difficult to explore right now, it would be MISSING. Missing, as in tender longing, not as in regret or obstruction. I suspect I spend a fair amount of time avoiding how much I miss certain aspects of earlier phases of my life, including (MOSTLY) but not limited to my sons.

More soon after more reading, exploring!

Check it out: Acey’s chakra exercises.

Bird Woman: Power in Completion

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In these quiet weeks, I am finding it hard to come back to the screen.  This screen, specifically.  Is it because the space where my knees sit is freezing cold?  (My hands are freezing right now, too) Or, because a pause midwinter makes sense from 1,000 perspectives? Or, maybe I have nothing to say (when has that stopped me before, you ask?!!).

An unexpected benefit to my neglect here, has been getting into a rhythm of finishing work.  Ironically, I had signed up to do a spring show and was DREADING the prospect of spending a season ONLY finishing things, but the moment I decided (for a host of reasons) NOT to participate, the finishing seemed to want to happen.   I have to ask myself:  WHY am I capitalizing words as if I am writing an article about the THRILL of orgasm for COSMO?!!  No.  Seriously, what is my deal about finishing?

Once Upon a Time, Bird Woman was born.  She emerged from scraps of embellished linen and pieces of a hideous 1970’s jacket, and some sequins that my cousin sent me at the time.  I put a small island of Victorian sequined black silk below her feet (that came from a friend for my birthday one year).  I made her wingtips look like flames, to make her a powerful bird.  I blanket stitched a full moon over one wing and she got even more powerful.  For her general environment, this creature was lucky enough to get one of the many woven cloths that I made during a Jude Hill class (it might be two combined, actually).  Then she went into hiding again.  I wondered where she was for awhile but I didn’t look for her.  She resurfaced, got some more stitching, then disappeared again.  I found her about two weeks ago, and now, apparently she is ready to be given a little more starry sky above her head, and some edges.

bird-woman-batting-cut

bird-woman-frayed-silk The blue silk  frayed like mad.  The NEXT time I used silk for a background, by the way, I ran a line of machine stitching along the side prone to giving off its threads.  The lost cloth here created a bit of a challenge – but not too bad.  Mostly, I was sorry to see so much of that Noxzema blue go.  After trimming the batting off, I auditioned backgrounds, with the idea that I would put the whole thing onto another cloth.
bird-four-backsI looked at these selections starting with upper left and going clockwise.  The purple velvet was nice, but I liked the burnt orange of my slippers (just visible on the frame’s edges) better.  The green and whites both fell completely flat.  But, orange?  Why, yes.  It makes the Bird Woman sing!  How can a single infusion of color do that?!!  But it does.  Orange makes Bird Woman sing!bird-woman-star-edgeHere you can see how I applied some tiny seed stitches and “X’s” to approximate stars.  bird-woman-stars-LThe upper edge slanted precipitously downward, and since I was loathe to lose anymore of that rich, blue silk, I tucked a kind of corny cotton printed with a night sky.  I will tuck something else on the left side to complete that edge.

This will be carefully stretched a bit before mounting onto its backing (which of course I had to piece because the orange swatch was not wide enough).   Stay tuned for the finished piece!!

What is your style of finishing a piece?  Do you run to it, with eager anticipation for the satisfaction of a job well-done? Or, do you resist? If you resist, how do you work with your resistance?

attending to the edges

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I’ll admit that a big part of my goal with this quilt is to re-examine my construction methods and to keep asking – does this make sense?  Does that make sense?  And, does it make sense relative to the time that it’s taking?

Over the weekend, checking in with myself during a quiet post-bath rest (one of the most civilized practices that I can recommend), I got that if I attended to the edges of this quilt, it would facilitate the rest.

So, yesterday, in spite of three appointments, necessary emails, and then the usual Monday stuff, I managed to build the lower edge by patchworking a series of (nearly) matching 5×5 inch squares (roughly).

And, thank you St. Francis!!! – I found my two seam rippers, so I can fix an overly emphasized horizontal line in the body of the quilt (only two appointments today).

The bottom edge will also be ripped at one seam because I don’t want to switch two of the blocks.  Instead, I will line them up, all oriented the same way.

puzzle quilting

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Scorpios are notoriously jealous, of others and others’ things and so the suggestion to ‘Open’ sits there like a playground mother intoning, “Share”.  I plucked what was handy (calendar page, old scraps of cut-up quilts, wool bits, a page from a book on trusts, retrieved from a huge bin of recycling while working at the law firm last year) – initially to experiment for this week’s class, and then to puzzle this little piece together.

Nautical map is a phototransfer on linen.

Back reveals some of the wool inclusions and some of the stitching.

This little scrap is now about the size of a large Tarot card. I hate to pillage quilts that have been bound and sleeved, but I just hated this one, so pillage I did. Some of it landed in the Scorpio sketch. I have a few more pieces to use elsewhere.  Given my recent sighting of a screech owl around the corner and my sister’s current near-obsession with the bird, I will keep this little piece intact… perhaps to hang with a satin ribbon somewhere.

When butting edges of quilt scraps together and zig-zagging, lo and behold, the pieces do not have to form lines – in fact, little promontories can be stitched readily.  Because piecing otherwise requires making lines (or curves) as one goes, this felt more like putting a puzzle together than like quilting.

Back to Scorpio, and jealousy – I’ll admit to feeling a little envious of all the articulate, thoughtful, resolved, clear, energized statements and dedications many others are making about stepping into 2012.  Maybe it’s because I had a cold all last week, and the new year came in on a headache, but I think I’ll wait til my birthday in February to reflect back on last year and pause to consider the coming year.