the day of the elder coat

so i've reimagined my elder cloth, or at least a portion of it, as an elder coat.  

it's been so easy.  which makes me feel i'm on the right track.  i had taken the old quilt top and backed it with muslin with the idea of it being the middle part of the elder cloth.  but it was a great rectangle, and it seemed perfectly formed for cutting an opening and a neck.  and then i added some elderberry-dyed patches to reinforce the shoulders, and then a binding around the neck.  and the cross-stitch i put on the inside, so that it doesn't take over the design, but still it's there for us.  

jude's boro 2 class is quite amazing for inspiration of this sort and in general.  and helping me to think through how i want to dress and why.  this coat is so very jude as someone said, but i'll take that as a big YES and figure it can be me, too.  i can feel elderberry in it so fully, and i'll treasure it regardless of whether it's altogether representative of my style.  maybe it's my emerging style, or maybe it's just a mule-coat, my heirloom.

it's not even close to done yet.  lots of patching and mending left to do with the old cloth and basic stitching to hold everything down.  but i can already wear it, which is oh so satisfying.  and the ideas are flowing.  i think next i'll bundle dye with some rusty old horseshoes, then look at embroidering some sort of a mane and maybe a tail down the back.  and her brand of course.  and lots of other symbols and bits of memories in all the patches. 

home again

i'm finally home and decompressing following something really exciting: i filmed a spindling class for craftsy.com!!! it was incredible going to their studios in denver, working with professional producers and video folks, and meeting the genuinely nice people who work there. i can't believe how well they took care of me, from fixing my hair to making me drink water.  the class should be launched in just a couple of weeks!!  i'll keep you posted.

one of the best parts was meeting knitwear designer carol feller who came all the way from ireland to film knitting classes for craftsy! i so enjoyed hanging out in the evenings with carol over local beers, milk and cookies (free at our hotel!) and comparing notes on our days of filming... we even stole a visit to the adorable LYS, fancy tiger craft, and i treated myself to some yarn to make her killybegs cardi. i cast on the last night i was there and knitted all the way home.

and speaking of home... some quickie instagrams ...

my piece "i left my home in georgia" is in the upcoming show curated by the infamous ellen "left eye" schinderman!!!  it's somewhat of a map of my old homeplace which looms large in my memory, the place we left more than three years ago. home is where the needle marks and it is opening june 9th in LA.  yes it is.

elder stitching on a rainy day

did some magic diarying this morning.  finally did some work on my elder cloth.  even with the wonderful distractions from nancy's destash - all those studio mags!!  i'm back to a version of the original design, but with the dyed woven wool blanket on each side and the small quilt that i'm thinking of as a saddle blanket in the center.  since the small quilt has been deconstructed, i think i'm saving it's precious tattered interior for another project and using the stronger part that i had originally planned for this cloth.  that meant re-backing the existing piecing it with the invisible baste on muslin.  and also adding a beautifully dyed fabric from arlee.

i've a long way to go yet with mending, connecting and embellishing, and there are lots of elements of confusion to me right now.  how to join the thick woven cloths with the cotton center and getting the weights just right.  how to back the center without backing the sides.  how to bind the whole thing.  what sort of stitch design i want.  but it feels just right, like it's the journey i'm needing and meant to take... one about family and elders and piecing together our stories somehow around and through elderberry, who i thought of with most every stitch.  funny that i still haven't taken scissors to cloth to make this quilt, unless you count cutting threads.

in the spirit of jude's boro 2 class, i give you this much-loved apron..

she needs some care and i'll give it. she tears a bit more with each wearing. i'm embracing what i use (although i would prefer to always be dressed as ms. havisham) (although perhaps using and mending could eventually produce the same result!) i've been longing to work more with clothing and recently made an alabama chanin dress that turned out wonderfully well (her patterns are brilliant)... martha beck, in her book "Finding Your Way in a Wild New World" (first spied in India's book stack), refers to those of us searching for new/old ways as "menders" or "wayfinders." i'm trying to hold this idea gently as i find it so powerful and comforting... and clothing myself in it is just the way.

Cindy:s Core

I feel so lucky to have Cindy:s Core sitting here next to me as I stitch. This piece of Cindy:s is going to be featured at the upcoming show at the Hotel Hadley Studios, see the flyer below.

I couldn:t resist photographing Core to show it off here, and for when I have to send it back.. all this heart-full and intricate art work done by our Cindy of Handstories...

home, process

funny how little figures are emerging from the cloth and the dye and my memories, from the morels to the outhouse to the old rusty tiller to the bloodsucking butterfly my ex-roomie created to patrol the property. and slowly each memory is becoming lighter, less wound-y, more happy.

**is anyone having trouble commenting? please email me, drucillapettibone@gmail.com. i've had a few people say they were, so i'm thinking of moving my blog over to my wordpress site. but i'm used to it here and wonder if i won't lose more discussion by moving than i'll gain with a better comment interface. what do you think?

flowing

the view from my new home studio window... i'm loving having all my things right there to be gotten into in the wee hours, and my sofa and kitty. i guess i needed to have a studio outside in order to meet people and feel sort of part of something in this area (since we moved here with no real connection, no work, school or church outside the home). and it also made me very aware of my own working style and patterns. and i finally know that having it right here under the same roof works so much better for me. and just as i get everything settled and start to get in a groove, i leave town..

i've just arrived at my parents' place, and am helping them liquidate an estate. it's the estate of a friend of theirs that has passed, a delightful woman, and her daughter. my mum is an antique dealer and appraiser so this is what she does. but i've rarely seen a place like this.... SO MUCH STUFF that one can't even move around. i might be able to take some instagrams if it doesn't feel disrespectful.. so there's very much work but satisfying. and how is it that my 70+ year old parents have so much more energy than i do? sigh.

good thing that late-night stitching always follows me, no matter where i am. a few small bits of my "home" piece which is materializing.

i left my home in georgia

i think the new home studio is going to be productive.
i did more work yesterday than i have in ages.

this is a hard piece for me, my old homeplace.
i could hardly bear to leave it.
i still can't think about it without hurting.
so i'm stitching it.
and the cloth takes it, and holds it and keeps it.

this is just the beginning, and with bits of cloth from cindy and nancy.

ps...i'm going to new hampshire in august to study with india!

i started

i traded for some of the most gorgeous wool yesterday.. it's from a mule sheep which is the name for particular sorts of cross-bred sheep.. in this case a bluefaced leicester and jacob cross. the wool had been processed into a luscious striped roving, and i just knew i needed to try and felt it with my tattered pieced top. the mule reference really had nothing to do with why i wanted to use this wool for my cloth, at least not consciously, but how strangely appropriate!?!

so i started by making some prefelt (i've never been much of a felter, but so easy and so much fun!) and then added a bit of my tattered pieced top to it. but i was afraid at that point to get too involved in the felting action.. it's fairly vigorous and i didn't want to damage the scrappy bits. so i started stitching the top down first. once it's all secure, i should be able to continue felting.. at some point.

i can't even describe the feel of the needle gliding through these soft old scraps and prefelt. other than bliss. i'll add another layer here or there and it will still be.

***for anyone who wants to help me figure this out, i'd so appreciate it... india has a number of projects along these lines in second skin. i was following along generally with the instructions for the tube-felted scarf on pp. 215-216, but i got stumped. the idea is to put down some muslin, then sewing scraps face down, then some wool sliver and lastly, your prefelt. (then she describes a resist-felting process which i'm skipping.) but i do want to end up with my scraps face-up, on top of and melded into my felt. i'm just not clear how this works with the muslin - it seems much easier to stitch and felt with the muslin on top, so that your scraps don't go sliding around, but then how do the scraps end up on top? it is something to do with cutting the scarf into a spiral?

she had a brand

it hit me the other day that elderberry was branded. on her right thigh. i couldn't picture what the brand looked like. memories fade so quickly.

i went looking through photos, to remember.

from welcome to my world, 4-17-10. blogs are helpful things.


from an elder cloth, posted 7-9-11. you can see it a little better in this pic. her hair was shorter, it was summer and she had shed.

can you see it there? ♀
like a sideways stick figure. a hangman without the legs.
or perhaps a sideways symbol for female, or venus.
(although there would have been no need to brand her female, that was easy enough to see.)

i wish i could look at it again, trace it with my fingers. but she didn't like being touched.

i can't imagine what this symbol must have meant meant to those who marked her. i don't want to know or imagine what that was like. but it will, it must be part of my cloth.

use vs beauty, or, the limits of what remains

excavation, part 2: removing the top pieced layer from the backing and pulling away the batting...


i've only done this corner so far, to see, and here's what's left of the pieced top...



it's so beautiful, but so very delicate.
i'm not sure that re-backing it will enhance it or make it last.
and what are these fabrics, anyway?
they look and feel gauzy, organza-ish.
no wonder she whose stitches i've removed encased it inside the other quilt.
what to do, what to do..

excavation part 1

i've been stumped all this time about what to do with my elder cloth. i didn't want to rush it, and figured the answer would come in time. i bought some scrim to stabilize the open areas, but then realized it still wouldn't work with doggy paws. then recently i saw the discussions on bee creative where deb was having a similar issue, and cindy suggested weaving into the cloth, which worked great. then cindy suggested needle weaving, which would be so time-consuming, but brilliant.

still, i couldn't get going with it. the size of my starter cloth was intimidating. i did some stitching, trying to tack things down, but it didn't feel good, and i couldn't visualize it. so i did what i should have done ages ago and put the cloth on the wall.


looking at the whole of it, with the huge seam down the middle, it looks to have been joined not for any design purpose, but just to keep the cloth together and to act as batting in the smaller quilt.


looking at that seam, i just couldn't resist...

and i see that this inner quilt is separately quilted and backed, and only lightly tacked to the current back.


so i am now bent on deconstruction. after i fully remove this backing (and use it somewhere else in this cloth), i think i'm also going to take the entire ragged pieced top layer off and re-back it without the batting (like cindy suggested early on!) and maybe rework some of the pieces with weaving of some kind. we'll see..

just a little stitching last night on a thrifted flax linen shirt. it's actually deep purplish brown, eggplant, aubergine colour. not as blue as it looks in these pics. possibly the beginnings of a kimoodie. inspired by grace, and of course, jude. i know i'm going to line it so that it's layered and warmer. and then add some beasts so that my friends are with me.