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'

magic diary monday

not moving forward. not moving backward. just jumping in sideways. . .

it's all too easy to get yourself bogged down in the minutia of everyday concerns. like a crow lost in the euphoria of finding so many sparklies that he just can't figure out which one to grab first, knowing full well the limitations of his beak!

several months ago, i embarked on jude hill's most amazing whispering series yet, the magic diaries cloth whispering series. last month began part 2 of the series. part 2????  wait! i haven't even begun needle chanting my way through part 1 yet!!! sure, i've been reading along, listening to the sound bytes, watching the vid clips, entertaining ideas, daydreaming about fantastical magic diary cloths... but i've had to limit my participation to...well..none! which is entirely strange for me. i'm an immensely social being and to not interact is...is...as odd as weird exercising poodles (and this is absolutely surreal!).  

so, in an effort to get back on track, yet not be so ferociously behind, i've decided to jump in sideways. i have this idea of taking a vintage quilt...one in which i can find little to admire...and use it as the backdrop for my own spin on the magic diary cloth. i've seen so many amazing things manifesting in the workshop already! so many ideas. directions. but being one who tends to listen to drummers that others rarely hear, i had to come up with something different...yet attempt to maintain the essence of the magic diary cloth. i don't know if i will succeed. or if i can even find myself liking anything that manifests from this hideous old quilt! but i'm willing to try...

first, some ground rules (which, for those of you who know me, will probably be broken soon enough):

1. utilize this unfortunate twin sized thrifted quilt as the foundation and stage for my magic diary cloth.

2. maintain, as best as possible, the integrity of jude's shared ideas, techniques and visions for the magic diary cloth, yet stay true to my own, oft times warped, artistic view.

3. allow the deformed creature that is the salvaged quilt a certain amount of presence in the finished cloth (how much, you may well ask? i have no idea...but my idea is to have at least some of the quilt's personality radiate through the transformation).

4. utilize, as much as possible, salvaged materials to express my ideas through this cloth building experience.

5. participate in the amazing community that jude has founded through the whispering series itself and its forum.

6. document the transformation here with weekly updates each monday. monday. moon day. a touchstone that bespeaks of jude to me and therefore relevant in my thinking on this cloth experience.

that's it for the moment. i am quite certain new ground rules will introduce themselves as i delve deeper. i am also quite certain that there will be pieces that will need to be picked up along the way....

and now, i'm headed into the studio to hack that obnoxious machine stitched binding from the edge of the elephant cloth! it will do little more than the torn burlap sack did for the elephant man....but it will be a start.

namaste'

a little rust break

taking a little break from the batik large cloth to dig around in my rusted treasures pile and collect a few new sun shapes to play with. these ought to create interesting suns!  i've also found a stash of interesting rusty shapes that i hope to play with soon, too. more on them later...wouldn't want to ruin the suspense now, would i?

meanwhile, i've also been doing a lot of thinking about my magic diaries quilt. you know? that wonderful whispering series by jude hill that i've been following for months on end now but hiding from like a hermit crab? it's not that i've not wanted to participate... but rather, that i've simply had to limit my time. but i'm beginning to get cave fever and need to crawl out into the cloudy light of winter and play!

so, i'll be starting "magic diary monday" here at manhandled threads to chronicle some of my progress, as well as participating in the series group.  i'll be approaching it in a somewhat unorthodox manner (what's that? you say! joe! unorthodox? never!) i'm going to be jumping in sidewise with this one...but you will have to wait until the first magic diary monday next week to find out what i mean by that, so stay tuned!

(was that just too mean of me or what?)

namaste'