windthread

this is the way the day began.

watching the fire.  staring.  at some point, looking down and seeing a small scrap.  they are here and there, around the house on the floor.  picked it up and looking at it, noticed the cuff of the beloved hoodie that i was going to Boro mend for the workshop but then got lost in the Daughter cloth.

glanced over and there was a small bit of thread on a needle.  not the right color.  not the right scrap.  but i stitched it on in a messy unlovely way.  there.  and when i DO get around to Boro mending the cuff in a proper way, i will leave this scrap with wrong thread under neath the more beauty Full mend.  i will remember, always that moment.  remember that it is under the rest.

and then i spent pretty much the rest of the day doing split back stitch around the Sun Rays.  there are 2 and one third rays left to do.  in the morning.  then, i will wash the central piece, hang it on the clothes line to dry and finger press all the edges, those decorative things, then take the Whole Thing down from the doorway and stitch them together…or, begin to.  Everything takes longer than i think it will.

and then, i thought about Cindy's Grandma Rosie's Soft Sheet just now.  this reminding me of a woman named Catherine Florida who taught me how to meditate for the first time.  she was also psychic and did readings.  i went to her because of my crazyness with my own daughter who was at the time 15 years old.  this daughter being the same one with the goats now, who i have been known to say "walks on water".   then, she did not and neither did i.  but Catherine, after taking a bit of my hair and placing it in her prayer book, went deeply into her self and looked.  without my having said anything at all about why i'd come, she said  " it's a bonfire.  very very hot.  it will not ever burn out of control.  let it burn.  someday, it will become beautiful embers."

 

 

 

 
 
 

the first of this springs babies.  the doe mama is Onday.  the dark one is a buck.  the marked one a little doeling.  over the course of the next weeks, 3 more does will kid.  the one peeking through into the kidding pen is Amelia. 

on the same day that the kids were born,  my mother died.  she was going to be 96 this year.  my brother is holding me to my word to write the obituary.  i thought about it all day.  and am thinking about it now still.  i think we should be required to write out own obituaries, up dating them as time goes along, maybe every 5 years or so??? 

 

 

 

 

 
 
 
 

 

this last week of the Contemporary Woven Boro class was all consuming.  there were hopes of getting so much more completed.  but now, it's quiet.

i brought a heavy piece of plywood in to create a larger table top for work on this cloth.  as i stitch, i think about all i learned in this class.  where i stand now that it's over, that all "formal" classes might be over.  Whispering being an individual experience.

some things come easily to mind:

i don't need an array of fabrics, many colors, many designs.   than very satisfying cloths can be created by using what i have, using mending to design.   attending to the subtleties of placement of the smallest fragments, of stitches.

that  these techniques of cloth weaving will work on any scale imaginable.  i COULD weave a shelter.  i am sure of this now.  but working with small blocks, components, that can be held on my lap is the most  appealing.  this Daughter cloth may be the only cloth of that size i ever make.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 

the entire right lower part is    off. 

i think i will leave that pinned.  worked at basting both sides down as far as the bottom of  the center piece.   fooled around more with the little goat cloth.  it is just pinned.

but the BIG news is that i cut the slits for the Sun rays  as in Jude's Design Mending Tapestry Style.  am not at all sure how i feel about this but it is a done deal.  there will be three rays in each  quadrant.  

it is interesting how everything seems so ify until the stitching happens that makes the pieces all One and then it is all changed.  have been watching the videos closely and can even see that there.   i watch the pieces cut, placed and think…"how on earth will that work" and then ……  it Does.  so i am counting on that occuring here too. 

Wind has been intense and constant…up to 50 /60mph .  it begins to wear you down. 

 

 

 

 

feeling something.  i wake up.  look at these things on the wood stove.  light the Nag Champa.

a day flits by.

at the end, i have accomplished this much.

the BIG thing is not at all the weaving of such a large cloth.  the Big thing is fitting pieces/colors/shapes in to the small dancing goat cloth.  this is still the challenge.  Why? why is it so hard?

tomorrow it is going to be cold.  so went out to split and bring in more wood.

 

 

i
 

this took forever to find and then to get on the blog.    

i posted this before, on the other blog.  it's four years ago, so all of us are a little worse for wear and tear.  also,  i'm not really this small and soft looking.  maybe it's because i wanted to dress up for the occasion and so,   wearing a dress.   or, it could be that they just make me feel soft.

i also think i look very much like George Burns in this pic….maybe it's the eyelids.  or, more likely the cigarette.  well…probably both.   anyway…this is the three of us.  Alyssia on the left, me and Jenny.  since i probably will be writing more about them in this next year, it will be easier to use their names.  and it's good to have a face for them too.

 

 

 

can you see it?  it's down at the end of the room, on the right…attached to that curtain.

the cloth theater.  right now it has Jude's small weaving she sent.  this pic was taken from where i sit in the morning by the wood stove.  i watch it from here every day.  sometimes jude's weaving is there, sometimes next to me on the wall, sometimes other places. 

 

 

jude said a pic of me on the ladder…well, i have short arms and this is the best i could do.

and then, here we are so far.  it's the odd lighting that makes the drama here, but i am so excited about this cloth…..