wooly weaving

i hope we don't get to the point

where we have to have the cat stop

chasing the mouse to teach him

glassblowing and basket weaving.

-joseph barbera

actually, i think jude has already taught him basket weaving and glassblowing. and it is wonderful!! ha!

again, i'm having so much fun in her advanced boro workshop. she knows how to lead one down a familiar road and present you with something entirely new and different. you never think that you've already been there before. for long. any time you start to think that you can rest on your laurels, as it were, you find her tossing whatif's in your path and you learn something again.

i've been weaving for years. weaving wool yarns. weaving rag strips. tabby weaving. twining. salish weaving. knotted rya weaving. i have looms. big looms. little looms. gargantuan looms. so you'd think that there wouldn't be much for her to get me to think about when we entered this segment of the workshop. naturally, she still had a few tricks up her sleeve and needled me out of the comfortable rut i'd worn and into a new direction!

having spent much of my time weaving rugs of one sort or another, i hadn't really thought about weaving a piece of fabric from fabric strips. you'd think i would have. it's what we've been doing on a foundation. but to fashion a loom. or to re-purpose an old loom for a new technique? then use it to weave fabric strips into a new piece of whole fabric? not a rug. not a tapestry. but a piece of fabric? ha! push. push. push. get out of that box!!!

i purchased these balls of pendleton selvages on ebay many years ago with the thought to weave them into a rustic rag rug. life had other ideas at the time and they were safely stored away with many other fragments to await more halcyon days...  i came across them the other day while rummaging through one of my caches of treasures and had the idea that, using jude's technique, i could weave them into a wonderfully shaggy wool scarf instead of a stiff and trod upon rug. they were delighted with the possibility, so i quickly got to work warping the loom (one i made way back in the 80's, sans the heddles and harnesses). i warped it with only the thought of creating some form of repetition, but not any particular pattern in mind, and then set to weaving the wefts. i really love the tumbling "T" pattern that is forming and the shaggy nature of the cloth created by the wefts of the selvages.

i'm stabilizing the weave as i go with a neutral variegated quilting thread by yli, but have plans (ha! i ought to know better than to plan...we'll see what truly happens) to use wool or pearl cotton to stitch again. lending new color and texture while further stabilizing the weave. i had thought to felt it a bit...but am thinking most likely not since i really love the shaggy quality of the piece as it is.

so...this old dog is once again delighting in learning yet another new trick!!

namaste'

fortune cookie wisdom wednesday

just thought i'd share my good fortune with you all! i can't think of a nicer bunch of people i'd rather share it with. i'm sure whomever it is who grants cookie fortunes wouldn't mind!

being vulnerable

“to love at all is to be vulnerable. 

love anything, and your heart will certainly 

be wrung and possibly broken.

if you want to make sure of keeping it intact, 

you must give your heart to no one, 

not even to an animal. 

wrap it carefully round with hobbies 

and little luxuries; 

avoid all entanglements; 

lock it up safe in the casket 

or coffin of your selfishness. 

but in that casket- 

safe, dark, motionless, airless--

it will change. 

it will not be broken; 

it will become unbreakable, 

impenetrable, 

irredeemable.”

-c. s. lewis

i have been thinking on this passage from one of c. s. lewis' books while stitching on my boro heart. i can think of no better truth than this when it comes to loving. to living.  at times, i have done this, and know from whence he speaks. that casket is warm. soft. protected. but is also stifling. fosters death. one should not be found in a casket until after one has left this mortal world behind.

this boro heart reflects my own heart quite nicely. true, there are a lot of breaks and cracks. some still to be mended and re-attached. but still growing. loving. living.  beneath this shattered heart is another. whole. unbroken heart.

still vulnerable. eternally vulnerable. ready to be placed in the hands of one who would cherish and nurture it. it is only wrapped in the tattered and embroidered robes of the heart broken by others.

this heart has much farther to go before it will become the jewel it is destined to be. but for now, it will rest and infuse my home with its warmth and life. whispering quietly to my soul. filling the soft and reticent nights with its soothing tones. i would believe anything you tell me, so long as it is whispered...

namaste'

  

a bit of boro for a broken heart

a final comfort that is small, 

but not cold:

the heart is the only broken 

instrument that works.

- t.e. kalem

this little bit of boro has been pieced together to house my rendition of a movement occurring over in jude hill's advanced boro workshop. a movement of participants creating heart cloths to flutter in the wind this month in honor of valentine's day. there have been many beautiful hearts created and photographed. videoed. i have been dragging my feet. most of these hearts have been woven. or woven into. or onto. but having so many other woven cloths in progress, i wanted to forge ahead and do something a little differently. boro. boro nouvelle. boro différents.  boro moderne.

this is what i have come up with.  a bit of modern boro with a bit of embellishing embroidery.  i have a little pile of fragments that may also find their way onto this tall cloth. as well as some threads that are whispering quietly in the background. longing to play their part. but i think the next visitor to show its face will be the heart. my heart. perhaps broken one too many times, but still bearing wings.  wings that are a little ragged and timeworn. but wings nonetheless.

sometimes i wish i were still a little boy. skinned knees and broken bones are easier to mend than broken hearts.  but jude's whispers of broken glass over on spirit cloth has reminded me that sometimes relationships are better left broken than hurting yourself trying to piece them back together. i keep forgetting that this ache is old and has been let go of a thousand times. somewhere deep inside there must be a part of myself still holding on to the shards. bleeding fingers unwilling to let go of what was. what could have been.  no matter i have let go of it in mind. long ago. perhaps it is because we are much like boro ourselves. covered in patches and tattered fragments. the hole is still there. deep inside. covered. patched. renewed. masked. mended. but it is still there. a part of us. mended, yes. but still there. together it all makes us who we are at this moment.

namaste'

a little birthday cloth to lift spirits

it takes a long time

to grow young.

- pablo picasso

okay, so it's not such a "little" cloth...it's about 17" x 32".  but it started out as something much smaller! this cloth is the result-in-progress of many things.  a very dear friend is having a birthday and i wanted to do something special for her. since she has admired the crazy things i've been creating lately, i thought i'd make a cloth for her. she loves cats. the background fabric for the top half of this cloth is a piece of plain weave i did many years ago and was left over from a blackwork project. the fabrics in the woven lower half come from my old shirts and boxers, and a strip or two from old quilt projects. the kitties are cut from a couple old re-purposed fabrics (the lower kitty from napkins given as a housewarming gift in my first apartment; the upper kitty from curtains from that same apartment). i still have a lot of stitching and embroidery to do to finish the applique' and bring out the details. this one is going to be hard to gift because i can so see it in my home. but it will be even easier to gift because i know my friend will love it and it will bring such joy to her day!

beyond this, i have little to add today. it's been a strange week. colder than cold outside, even on sunny days.  more so during the dark nights with lows as low as -19F and wind chills of -30.  i have friends in town to help parents in hospitals. valentine's is at hand and brings its own heart ache. so i am trying to stay focused on stitching and working with the elders at the cottages.  wrapping my body in the warmth of cloth and my heart in the warmth of compassion.

namaste'

 

a little mindless stitching

i have been enjoying working on some new projects for jude hill's advanced boro class that will soon be at a point where they will be photographed and posted, today decided to take a break from it all and do a little mindless stitching. partly to use a little of my more traditional quilting fabric stash. partly to remind myself that there will be a spring again some day!  yesterday we were graced with yet another day of snowfall and last night an arctic front moved in, dropping our temps to -10F.  while out running errands in -4F temps today, i dropped down to the yellowstone river (less than a mile from my home) and poked around to see how she was doing...

egads! it was cold today!! and tonight, the temps are plunging even deeper...to -19F!  i try to remind myself that without winter, spring would not be so sweet. sometimes i forget.

yes...at times, it is easy to forget that it will be warm again...  so i busied myself with deconstructing some more fragments. undoing a few throw pillows and harvesting cloth for use in some re-newed cloth.

hoping the golden tones will kindle a little warmth in my bones...

meanwhile, today i found and loved this, this and this!

namaste'

musical interlude

music takes us out of the actual and whispers to us 

dim secrets that startle our wonder as to who we are, 

and for what,whence and whereto 

- ralph waldo emerson

the snows have mostly melted, leaving behind a cold that chills the bones. traveling back and forth on frosty roads between my home in the country and my work in town is enough to set your nerves on edge. even with the comfort of a large four wheel drive truck to get you there. we are far, far from spring here in montana, but the melting snow has inspired me to start a little early spring cleaning. it's truly amazing how much dust materializes in one's home when all the dirt outside is locked safely beneath a blanket of snow and ice!

once the renegade dust was relegated to its proper place in the vacuum and stuck to dust cloths, i turned my sights on cleaning out my bedroom closet. this, of course, yielded many new fragments for my cloth pile (so much for my wardrobe). but more than this, it unearthed my mountain dulcimer collection once again!  i always have my two favorite dulcimers on hand for impromptu music making, but it is also great fun to dig into my collection, tune up a forgotten or neglected instrument and re-enjoy the magic of music plucked from the strings of an old friend!

i think i shall spend the rest of my free hours relaxing in the dulcet tones of my old friend before heading to work this afternoon.  will get back to weaving fragments and clothmaking this weekend...

"music speaks what cannot be expressed, 

soothes the mind and gives it rest, 

heals the heart and makes it whole, 

flows from heaven to the soul.” 

-unknown 

namaste'

  

playing with buddha

these days i have been taking life all too seriously. a common mistake that we all do at one time or another. way too often.  i realized this during morning meditation when i opened my eyes and saw one of my many laughing buddhas nestled in the embrace of some midwinter twigs behind the sofa. i have many buddhas about the house and yard. many of them serene and calm. but also a great many of them laughing at all they see. enjoying the feast of life. without worries. even the serene and calm buddhas seem to have a quiet smile. hinting at hidden laughter.

amongst them all, a large laughing buddha out in my garden is my favorite. he laughs when the sun beats hard upon his brow.  he laughs when the rain pours thickly across his bare head.  he laughs when encased in snow and ice. he knows that all is happening as it should. true to its pure clear nature. i am quite certain he would laugh just as loud were someone to steal him away in the night or were the dog to shower him with the leavings of her water dish after having drunk deeply from its cool depths!

he doesn't attempt to control the chaos around him. rather, he listens and moves serenely within the chaos as the universe unfolds around him. he is always open to a constant flow of joyous life. he reminds us that we can't get rid of chaos. but we can be quite creative with the turmoil therein. he points out that we are the creators of how we see our world.

i was. am. humbled. the ache and dis-ease flowed from my clenched shoulders and i found a smile returning to my face.

today, i stitched for a few hours on the buddha cloth. finished the applique of the buddha himself and began embroidering the mind flowers that surround him.

there is much to do still to the buddha cloth. and the embroidering is slow. mindful. mind full. contemplative. and i am re-finding balance and serenity in so doing.

i am once again finding my stride...

namaste'

change is the only constant

my life has been full of change lately. well...i guess it has always, will always, be full of change, for change is truly the only constant in life.  but often, in the midst of it all, it's difficult to remember that.  change, even when it is welcomed or hoped for, brings with it a subtle gloom. when we undergo a change, we leave a piece of ourselves behind. we die a little to make room for new growth. with growth, comes discomfort. if even only the discomfort of not knowing fully what you have become. are becoming.

i've changed jobs. or rather, changed the direction of my job. the scope of my work. i'm undergoing change in my artistic expression (which is no great surprise...this has changed and redirected a thousand times and more over the years).  i'm changing modes of recording my work and expression.

sometimes, it seems to be moving way too fast. i live slowly. or try to. all this speed is mind boggling.

growth means change. change involves risk. treading from the known into the unknown. but without it. stagnation.

iron rusts from disuse; water loses its purity from stagnation ... 

even so does inaction sap the vigour of the mind.

- leonardo da vinci

i must keep acting. moving. creating. changing. growing. 

namaste'