"we do not live an equal life,

but one of contrasts and patchwork;

now a little joy, then a sorrow,

now a sin, then a generous

or brave action."

-ralph waldo emerson

contrasts and patchwork. a fitting description for my life of late. and so i continue to stitch to distract my mind. digging deep into the stash of vintage fragments. the smaller ones especially. all i needed is an inch of each.  a thousand tiny stitches while the treadle rocks rhythmically beneath my foot. needle chanting in its own right. not as simple as when working completely by hand, but meditative just the same. 

now a dive into my stash of neutrals and whites to fine a border and a back. some more needle chanting, a little tying, and then a leisurely dunk in tea dye pot and a romp in the dryer.

hindsight being what it is, i'm wondering if i should have embroidered vines and flowers on the border. perhaps even a scattering of blossoms across the tiny 1/2 inch squares...  that could be an entertainment for another day.  i hear we are expecting 4 1/2 inches of snow on tuesday...

namaste'

she said "rusty" like it was a bad thing!

after having breakfast yesterday at a trucker dive just outside of town, a dear friend and i decided to poke around a nearby antique shop for battered, vintage cigar boxes and the like. joyously waltzing up to the register with an arm full of boxy treasures, we got to chatting with the 150+ (or so it seemed) year old british lady behind the counter and listening to her time-worn war stories back in jolly old england of yesteryear. it was a fascinating trip down her memory lane! somehow, the conversation about the bombing of england and hunkering down in the dark recesses of bomb shelters found its way around to an old bedspring sitting out along side the barn. i don't know how we got onto it, but i expressed interest in it and the clerk raised an eyebrow in surprise, and perhaps a little disdain, and wondered what on earth i would want an old rusty bedspring for? always having a bit of stitchery tucked away somewhere on my person, i pulled out a rusted sunburst cloth that i had been stitching on and told what wonderful patterns i thought i might be able to coax out of the bedsprings, what with the repeated circles and x's that i could immediately see across the top and so forth. with curiosity in her eyes, she informed me that she couldn't take less than $5 for it. she said it hesitantly, as if she thought i might abandon my cigar box treasures and flee the shop without a making any purchases at all! of course, i couldn't leave my new found treasures behind and was only to happy to cough up $5 for the bedsprings...my mind awhirl with ideas of visions of the cloth that i might be able to create!

the next few days are supposed to be quite warm, dotted with thunderstorms. wondrous weather for earth dyeing!  i can hardly wait to fling some vinegar drenched fabric across these springs, blanket the whole affair with plastic sheeting and see what emerges over the next few days!

namaste'

you can't pick up raindrops

"i always like

walking in the rain,

so no one can

see me crying."

-charlie chaplin

the weather here has been as changeable as my mood. perhaps one is responsible for the other? though i'm not certain at times which is which... each day this week has held beautiful sunshine, turned to looming, expressive storm clouds, turned to downpouring rains.

sometimes, looking up, i feel very small and just want to run and hide somewhere warm and dry!

but then the rain begins to fall, washing away the dust from the neighboring fields and taking the fears along with it.

the first carrots were offered up by the soil this morning, between the raindrops. these i can pick up. and eat.

i've been looking back through my many cloths and have decided to pick up mind flowers once again. it feels good to get in some thread chanting while the rains crash about outside and the fire crackles in the fireplace.

the latest cigar box guitar creation is complete! re-purposed from a vintage kildow's old stock cigar box, butternut neck with 100+ year old barnwood fret board, and three vintage flatware stems re-imagined into string holders strung up with the three lower strings from an old guitar set, this wondrous little gem has a great, booming sound that is perfect for throaty delta rhythms! the perfect counterpoint to the rolling thunder outside these walls...

time for some snuggling with the saint...she's looking somewhat lonely over on the davenport.

namaste'

my lovely bones

"these were the lovely bones

that had grown around my absence..."

- alice sebold

so much of my time has been wrapped up in music of late. exploring this new (to me) world of cigar box guitars and their link to depression era delta blues. so much so that it felt almost foreign to my fingers to pick up a needle and thread and begin chanting upon cloth once again. almost. but memories have a way of ebbing back into place once we are receptive to them again...

oh so long ago (there's a blog entry somewhere about it, but i haven't taken the time to hunt it down) i mentioned having this enormous collection of vintage linens. pillow cases. dresser scarves. chair leaves. candle mats. kitchen linens. i had been contemplating using them somehow in a new interpretation of a crazy quilt. perhaps there is a predominantly white crazy quilt or two out there somewhere. i'm quite certain that a quick google search would probably spit back an endless flow of images (google seems to be good at that). but i don't want to contaminate my idea with someone else's so i will resist the urge to investigate further. instead, i simply acknowledge the old axiom that there are no new ideas is most likely true and forge on ahead nonetheless.

this is the beginning of my first block for what will become a large shelter cloth. it will span generations of expression in that it will be comprised of the daily toil of countless stitchers from unknown generations, cobbled together by my own vision. i'm calling it (for the moment at least) my lovely bones and will be infusing it with tangent images and design. as many of you know, bones have long been one of my own personal symbols of great meaning and endless whispering... i will be dispensing with "traditional" crazy quilting techniques (with the exception of embellished seams) and utilizing contemporary boro, or slow cloth, techniques. building layers of cloth fragments one upon another until the shelter cloth is of the size and weight desired. allowing the layers of time to provide its own density and warmth.

for now, however, i must get my head back under the steam cloth for i can not breathe (how dare this cold strike me down in the hour of my inspiration!).

namaste'

silent sunday - 02/24/13

a day of shopping

 with the heat finally abating for a few days, it seemed the perfect day to hop on the old kawasaki and get in a little exploratory shopping... there is nothing quite like a partially cloudy day in the mid 70's for a spontaneous bike trip into town.

at my first stop, the montana rescue mission thrift shop, i found some wonderful men's shirts that were just begging to be de-constructed and re-imagined!

also hiding in a little corner was a box of old thread spools filled with wonderfully neutral colored threads! a quick burn test revealed them to be cotton so they will be perfect for over-dyeing...

stopping next at st. vincent de paul's yielded a large bag of wine corks. several years ago, a friend of mine and i embarked upon a carving odyssey for stamping in art journals. i don't know whatever happened to all those wonderful stamps....but i'm thinking these will be perfect for carving new ones to experiment with mark making on cloth!

the a quick trip out to the red barn antique shop on the outskirts of laurel brought me to this little treasure. at first i was excited to find such a wonderful little tin box (given my passion for collecting boxes of all sorts). imagine my joy to find a full set of round tin cookie cutters! of course, these will never cut cookie dough in my house since they are destined for the rust pots for making moons and suns on cloth.

a small tin box (!) full of rusty little tools were also to be had...including an old working padlock and key. these will be happily joining the cookie cutters in the rust pots.

then a quick jaunt into laurel proper to the good shepherd antique and thrift shop brought me to this marvelous stack of old 78's.  i had such a difficult time deciding which to buy for my victrola. there were big bands, blues, classical, and even a few crazy old doris day cuts!  of course, the blues won out and i now have 12 new blues albums to listen to... i'm thinking, however, that i may have to make another trip out there for some of those big bands albums!

most intriguing, however, was this large crate of rusted old door knobs. my soul ached when i decided to pass on them...mostly because i was still on the kawasaki and could only purchase what my old leather back pack could hold and it was already at capacity (if not slightly beyond). i would love to have had the entire box...but may have to settle for picking up a knob or two when i go back out there for more of the 78's.

meanwhile, it's time to settle in and get some needle chanting done tonight. i've pulled out a couple of my "mindless" projects to keep my hands busy while my elders sleep.

namaste'

silent sunday - 8/19/12

an amazing gift

my parents presented me with this most wonderful gift today! it was a custom, hand-built fly tying cabinet that my dad had bought some years ago from an elderly fisherman in washington on one of our trips. i believe he had the thought of using it for pursuing fly tying of his own. or perhaps to house his extensive vintage fishing lure collection. mom and i both fell in love with it. she thought to use it for organizing her art supplies on top of her table, but found it to be much too large for her use. as you can see, i am only too pleased to see it next offered to me!

as you can see, i've wasted no time whatsoever in putting it to use! of course, i only have a small amount of my stitching supplies along with me...but they've all found a drawer, ledge or nook to tuck themselves into and have left plenty of room for their cousins to come join in the fun when i get back home next week.

this is going to be awesome on my design table in the studio and will be extremely useful on trips and treks where my cloth-making projects tag along...

namaste'

frenzied feline and a new project

synchronicity is a strange thing, you know. i came across this little frenzied feline while trying to figure out how to describe this past week. he demonstrates exactly how my week has been... chasing about, trying to fit unexpected work shifts into my schedule. trying to stay ahead of everything so i don't get run over. all the while, uncertain how my little paws are actually reaching the pedals!

needless to say, i haven't done a lick of stitching this week. though i have been gathering raw materials for another project. remember that i started remodelling my studio a while back? i came across a little idea that i like so much, i'm thinking of including elements of it throughout my house!

pallets? is that seriously a stack of old pallets? yes. yes it is! i've been gathering pallets like a mad man (and i'm quite certain my neighbors have all decided that i've taken leave of my senses as they've watched me haul these buggers in by the truck load). now, before you begin nodding your noggins and agreeing with my mislead, but well-meaning neighbors, you have to see this:

the wall in this picture is constructed entirely of pallets! keeping in mind that i have been slowly but surely turning my home into a rustic getaway with barn wood, vintage artifacts, plank flooring, and the like... i think this wall treatment will be absolutely perfect to finish off the effect!  of course, it's going to take a lot of time and a lot of work...dismembering pallets, sorting slats, mixing colors, installing and so on. but i'm going to simply approach it as though i'm salvaging fabric and creating a story cloth. though, perhaps, of a much larger nature, and in this case, one slat at a time! so, if you see project updates interspersed between the cloth whispering, you'll understand...and hopefully not send those nice young men in their clean white coats to take me away in a butterfly net!

namaste'

it's a hungry morning

as all y'all can see, i've not been idle while my fingers heal. i've been rusting up a storm...and this is only a tiny fraction of the suns, moons, and background rust-dyed fabrics i've been working on! many of them will begin filtering their way into the shop soon (i'll post when they are ready). others have been whispering their stories into my ears and are waiting to begin their metamorphoses on my design table. i've got some stars, fences, grids, trees and moose rusting at the moment and look forward to playing with them as well...

all this eco-dyeing has me thinking in so many directions of late. of experimenting with overdyeing once again. of cross-platforming some of the techniques and seeing what happens. of playing with new colors and textures... so many ideas and speculations! i keep scribbling away in my art journal and digging through my cloth to set things into motion...

it's crisp and cold out...and there's a rumbly in my tumbly...

meanwhile, i've been inspired while browsing here and here.

namaste'

persevering gently...

"go on working

freely and furiously

and you will

make progress."

-paul gauguin

last week i slashed three of my finger tips with a sharp knife at work. it is amazing how many nerve endings reside in such small spaces! it also boggles the mind how much we use these small spaces in nearly everything we do...

i'm only just today getting back to thread chanting and cloth making. the first to make her whispers heard was this odd little plumed owl-creature, llorona. a secret keeper. like some, my secrets haunt me. so i whisper them to llorona to ease my burden. many whisper their secrets upon the winds for llorona to hear. to keep. her wings are burdened with so many secrets. so many sorrows. she can no longer fly from the weight of them. but she continues to listen. to keep. to dream...

there is still much work to be done on llorona, but she wanted to put in an appearance to help me not think about the snow that is falling outside...

namaste'

magic diary cloth update

it would seem that attempting to ply a rigid schedule to my organic living style is not working. no big surprise there. it was an experiment that harvested expected results. in light of this, i will continue posting magic diary cloth updates, except i will allow them to unfold and reveal themselves in a more natural order. that is to say, as they present themselves to me.

this has begun as a very interesting exercise in discovery. of the nature of this particular cloth. and of my artistic working style. . .which may appear to the outside viewer as chaotic. random. perhaps this may be, as well. . .but whatever the format, it is how i work. create. experience.

i am only just getting started on the first letter of my magic diary cloth. there are hours of needle chanting to perform before its whispers will quiet down enough to allow the patient b to speak up and begin its story-speaking. this particular letter is formed by couching twisted blue scraps with hand-dyed red cotton threads. i have only just begun to explore other surface embellishments...

behind all of this is another chant, quietly whispering in the background of mind. more about which will be the topic of another posting. . .

namaste'

magic diary monday... on tuesday

it is easy to get sidetracked. sometimes even without realizing it. work. life. new interests. friends. all conspire to pull us from our intended path on a daily basis. for me, it is usually stepping up and helping co-workers out by covering shifts for them even when it means i'll be working 42 hours in 3 days... hence, my somewhat tardy magic diary monday!

the snow has returned quite unexpectedly today and has been falling gently on the trees outside my studio windows. and so i am quietly working. listening. to my magic diary cloth again today...

this oblique cloth has proven more of a challenge than originally expected. of course, this should have been no grand surprise since starting from nothing, you have infused every stitch, every fiber choice, with intention. stepping in sideways with a foundation cloth created by some unknown, long perished clothmaker draws one down avenues you may never have taken. colors. prints. pairings that would have never found their ways into your own cloth are now front and center, crying for attention. but i am persisting. digging deeper into my fabric and salvage collection. auditioning unexpected fabrics. looking through new eyes. finding new directions....

namaste'

unexpected finds

digging through boxes of rusty metal dyeing resources that i recently acquired offered this little gem. i'm not sure what it is from, but it seems to make a rather nice frame, don't you think? now to find and interesting old wood box...or piece of barn wood...or other rustic bit to tack it to. oh...and the perfect picture to put in it, too, of course!

as you can see in this close up, it has a lovely patina. i had originally purchased it to rust dye some fabric, but hate to destroy this beautiful job that age has already done with it...

perhaps an old photo of my great great uncle and attach it to his steam trunk? or a wedding photo of my folks and attach it to...something else?

whatever i decide, i'm certain it will become a treasure to enjoy for many years to come...

today, i am inspired by this. not only by the beautiful image, but also by the words...

namaste'

a new obsession

imagine my unexpected joy at finding such a treasure at the local thrift shop on my way home from work this morning...and for only $25 no less! except for the small broken bit on the back rest, the wood is in amazingly perfect shape, right down to the wood wheels. the cushion springs are also in incredible condition.  obviously, the upholstery needs a total redo, though there is a wondrous, faded vintage floral on the bottom that i believe i shall salvage for my clothwork (i know...pics, please!...i will get to them later...for the moment, the batteries in my camera have died). whomever owned this lovely before it found its unfortunate way to the thrift shop obviously loved and cherished it for many years!

this will be one of my favorite new obsessions, of course! some years ago, my folks bought me a luxurious scroll saw for xmas (that i simply *had* to have or i was gonna *die*!) that still hasn't been out of the box. i do believe, however, that i now have an unprecedented reason to get it out and set up! that little panel on the back should be a breeze to duplicate with the scroll saw and a little hand carving.

then i'll want to tighten up the support bands under the springs, check to make sure none of them need to be re-wrapped, and then decide on the cushion materials. of course, at the moment, i'm thinking kantha stitched vintage sari scraps! or perhaps she'll want something a little more stately and subdued? japanese boro stitched fabrics maybe? i've have a delightful stash of vintage silk kimono bits that would be absolutely exotic and lovely on this chair!

oh, the possibilities!!! but where to start?!? wood? cloth? well, either way will have to wait until tomorrow in any case as i'm working a night shift again tonight for someone who couldn't get out of their driveway through the snow...

namaste'