windthread

and now.   back to Magic Diaries cloth.    having been away for a little while has given me new view and a lot of energy to begin again

am beginning here 

and as i began this morning, i realized that things have changed with that last cloth for Wendy.  i don't know What, as in able to formulate a thought,  but my energy has changed.  the way i approach the cloth, thread the needle, start with just invisible baste down the side of the "lightning"……

maybe there is just kind of a new empty space in me.     ?      like no preconception.   just beginning someplace.   i really really like the feeling. 

am getting an urge to dump all the scraps in a big pile in the center.  i wonder if i will. 

 

wrapped, tied with Wind, ready to go

 

went into town to take Alz B to get our weekly hot dog from the hot dog guy on the plaza.  stopped at Thrift Shop.  and here we have

this.  it's wool.  it's            soft.        it has        drape.         and, it's 15ft long and 29 inches wide.

WHAT was someone thinking?  someone made this.  someone went on and on and on.  15ft of on. 

There is nothing i can think to DO with it.   even if it were in pieces. 

Does anyone want this???????   i would be happy to send.

 
 

here is the Other side

two reasons for not backing.  the first was wanting it to remain so thin. 

the second,  Look at the disorder of the stitching…how there was no Plan, how it just all went as it would…some backtracking.   i like this side as much as the Other.  two parts of the same whole. 

to photograph the Continuing cloth, i needed to take down the Diaries cloth.  here it is.  on the Morning  Chair.

drape…do you see            drape?  hmmm.

it's just all the Mexican Elderberry dye with all manner of stuff.  all the stuff of my effort so far with Jude's Teaching.  now it will go back up             on the wall.           this is good.

 

 

there. 

i found the tassels yesterday at Thrift Shop.  debated.  but i think they tie things together.   this one is       strong.  when i made the other two window hangers, i had no clue that they would be taken down and used on the floor as they have.  it's amazing to me that they still are in one piece.  so, this one is ready for any thing the children imagine.    i didn't photograph it on it's stick.  the only way i could figure out how to hold the stick to the wall caused  a separation in the middle.  when the stick is hand held that doesn't happen.

and a great thing here.   i wanted the birds to be as abstract, as simple as i possible could.  they are just 3 snips of cloth,  body and two wings.   then just random stitches to hold them as forms.  this was important because i would like them to appear frequently in cloths from now on.  and butterflies of same basic form.   this was new for me.  in the past i would have spent forever trying to figure out how to represent the bird and in the end,  all that would have done would be to change the energy of the Whole.  i am very happy about this.    and the black and white bird.  well, the black and white bird is a form of the most basic black and white nine patch,  which i love.  Why?do i love it so much?  i don't know.  maybe it is to me some kind of most basic manifestation of a kind of naturally occuring order?  like, i can imagine dna being a series of black and white nine patches.  something like that.    so, this is a very happy thing too.

i love this cloth.  it suggested itself at every stitch along the way.  i had no real  idea ever of what it might look like.  many of the scraps were a real surprise but they all wanted to be there.  and the last to be put was the piece of Wind.  again,  from gauze i dyed in that first online class from Glennis.  a small shred of the larger torn strips that were used in the first Window Hanger with Jude's Feathers.  a black/white/nine patch rule:  always, there must be Wind.  yes.

and again, as it seems things are going now…that oh so elegant piece at the top, which to me is  Spirit… from the hand of Deb Lacativa.  Thank You,  Deb…. so much arises from your cloth(s).

so.  it's good now.  it has continued to rain.  Friday is supposed to be sunny.  if so, i'll take this cloth to the Canyon and let Wind and elements cleanse it.   then, into the mail.   the best is yet to come.  i am so in anticipation of what the kids will think.  what will they SEE?  what will they know to DO with it?  things i can't possibly imagine.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

it all began, for me and Wendy's kids with one of the older girls looking at Spirit Cloth blog.  interestingly enough,  September of last year….~?~ give or take.  she saw the Wind Cloth that i had posted on windthread.   and here we are,   interesting again,  given the recent conversations

when Wendy contacted me about this curtain i had made for myself,  WITH JUDE'S FEATHERS, wondering if i might make one similar as a curtain for the children's work studio,  i mailed Jude and asked her what she thought.  could i just send my own?  she said yes.  but here we have a mixed situation, forever.   a cloth i made,  but with Jude's "mark".

and then, since there were two windows,  ……..  another Window Hanger, as the kids call them.

and then,  these two were chosen…again by the children.

 do you see first, the "other Jude"?

so…looking at these.  and i want to talk about this some, but just for now,  looking back…..a lot learned.  in a way, it's ok because i became woven into Wendy's world through Spirit Cloth.  there is, i think MUCH of Jude in that room with the children.  and it was Circumstance that took my cloths there.  but still.   

 

 

 

 

a work day.  but i wanted to see it first so i can let it float in my minds eye till i return.

 

so today i went to Water Canyon with two friends to search for walnuts.   it was to be a nearby foray before heading out on a much longer trip to Nogal.   what we found was

BEAUTY

but no nuts.  no walnuts, no acorns, no pinion.  and at the end of the time, lucked out by the guy from the Forestry driving through who verified this.  no nuts in New Mex.  he was confident there would be none in Nogal either.  the severe winter temps and then the hard long spring and early summer…actually till just last week's rains;  hard on the trees.               OK.   maybe next year.

but  what there Was, was sheer stunning beauty.  the rains of these last few day causing the arroyos to run, causing so many small elegant streams with surprising little pools of water.  causing mosses and lichen, just SO many native grasses.   lizards,  yearling horntoads.  and

birds

i thought about why it is i don't go up there more often and could not find an answer.  it's about a half hour away, up the mountain toward Magdalena.  and although Mike and Thelma are great,  there is conversation.  there is compromise movement.  i am better at slow going, at sitting long times, watching, listening.  so…here is what i saw today.  i will go again, in just a few days, take the dog and see more.  but today has fed me.  fed my heart and spirit.  i want more.

 

 
 

 
 
 

 

 

 

 

this acre is pretty much divided in two by the house in the middle.  the sides are identified by me as the front and the back.  most everyone who passes by, inhabitants of the hood, think of it as opposite.  early, i went out in the front and brought down the majority of the kochia,  the very strong, but very opportunistic weed that will take over.   some of the stalks were as big as my wrist.  most a broom handle width.    then, surveying it all,  thinking about how this year has gone so far, thinking about sometime soon leaving August behind,  the BirthandDeath month,  about entering into a new winter,  i evaluated what i'd done, in 2011. 

instead of insisting on certain things, aside from planting the vegetables in the raised beds,   i just  left it alone.  i wanted, "once and for all",  to understand something about this acre that has taken me a long time to even define as an intelligent question.   for a long time, i have not been able to understand what, at least to me, the difference is between sustainable and self~sustaining.    Wendy will catch this as something i was interested in on her blog, now Grace and Mending and Deb G will recognize this too.   the abnormal winter and then spring and now summer have helped make this experiment possible as the "usual" wouldn't work anyway. 

so…self~sustaining.   IF i were no longer here,  what would continue without me?  what, of the many trees, bushes, vines, etc.  that i have planted on the original flat sand only empty acre would Continue?  everything i have planted has been considered "native".   but what i have come to understand over the years is that native needs to be native to a particular environment.  yes,  all DO grow in New Mexico, but some, actually, most, only in very specific small ecosystems.  rocky soil, sandy soil, disturbed soil, clay, coliche,  arroyos, bosque and on.     all the variables have not come into play, but a wide array have, this year.  extreme cold/extreme wind/delayed seasons/extreme heat.  so i know a little more and have more "to go on" now.

and out under the Vitex, the Chaste Tree, that had seemed dead in the spring but then has sent up new shoots, something caught my peripheral vision.  just a slight movement.  i really had to look all over.  but here she was nestled deep within the unwanted weeds:

a very healthy strong first year clump of       Side Oat Grama

i could not believe my luck!  once growing,  she will  Continue.  she will over time fling off her seeds and sooner or later, one or some will find the perfect crack in the sand and live.  Side Oat Grama are self~sustaining.  totally.   and i thought about the native grasses.   there is a wonderful book on them by the  Agricultural Experimental Station at New Mexico State.  to me, it reads like poetry.  almost like Rumi:

Inflorescence a panicle of spike like branches                                                                                                     disarticulating below the glumes                                                                                                                                          or                                                                                                                                                                                                        one flowered on very delicate sinuous stalk.                                                                                                                 floretes with a line of hairs on each nerve,  pedicelled spiklets,                                                                             well developed                                                                                                                                                                            about as large and broad as the sessile ones.                                                                                                                 nodes, short and hairy, copius and somewhat obscuring tall bluish glaucous,                                               oppressed hairs less than 3cm.

broad, not rhizomateous; anthers purple, tufted                                                                                                          extending beyond the point of attachment of the                                                                                                         terminal spikelet.                                                                                                                                                                   stems appearing more-or-less in linear progression, close together                                                                    with basal sheaths mostly flattened, ribbon like or                                                                                                   somewhat keeled.

and her companion,  self planted.  self sustained.