Burn the Log, O Fire!

Hope everyone had a Merry Yule and Happy Christmas!!

My short-term plan is to be getting back to fiber soon.
As soon as I get back home, around the 8th.
I want to focus on natural dyes and battsss.
I have some theories as to why I had to stop stitching, for a time anyway,
and one is summed up in these lyrics to a Papa Roach song:

I tear my heart open
I sew myself shut
My weakness is
That I care too much

and the Scars remind us
that the past is Real
I tear my heart open
just to feel.

And btw, check out this interview with me on Spin Artiste!

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?

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.

a first step toward story cloth

on my quilt-weaving journey.. i've been reading so much and admiring other people's work but still a bit stuck on doing it myself. working with a patchwork base is so new to me and challenging. i want to work more abstractly and i'm not used to that - i usually have a loose plan for my stitching and it's fairly representational.

i'm also not used to thinking in terms of story, in fact i think i've been almost anti-story for some time now. i mean, i love stories, i gobble them up, but i don't make them. i'm sure it's largely past trauma plus grad school indoctrination (all that postmodern anti-grand narrative stuff), but i've been very suspicious of imposing stories on my life experiences, like it might limit the possibilities for understanding, or be too one-sided. i'm especially skeptical of happy endings, as much as i am desperate for them. but that's also left me feeling very fragmented, with parts of my life that are completely not understood or integrated, or even remembered most of the time.

but now i'm seeing some amazing stories unfolding in cloth created in this community. so i think i need some story. the challenge is to tell some of my own that aren't contrived. and preferably ones that bring joy, and that don't end. i'm going to be taking jude's magic diaries class which lasts for six months, so i hope that's enough time to at least begin putting my life together. at least i can start gathering fabrics for it!

this little piece was inspired by cindy's wonder woman bracelet, i cut what started as a square block into my own power bracelet. i've actually thought of getting cuff tattoos for power, but this will work much better when i visit my parents. i wonder, what is it about cuffs that makes us feel like warriors?

i rubbed sunny's carved year into the fabric with chalk and then stitched it. i have what may be inordinate love for this wheel. she still needs more work, but i may have exhausted my repair abilities. still, she shines. i love having her with me in this bracelet. i have it buttoned tight so i feel her always next to me, encircling and ensorcelling me (i learned this word recently from my friend eva, isn't it grand?) spinning with the bracelet on is pure magic.