i went to take pics of today's tdf yarn, and i can't find my camera!! freaky-freak... anyhoo here are some afternoon hipstamatics..

this will look so much better with my other camera... could not capture the great 80s colours..

a drawer full o'lettuce.

my light green hydrangea, planted last year, and coming into full bloom. it is so big and full and right outside my window.

i've wanted dahlias for *so* *long* and now they are growing bigger by the day.

the dye garden is doing pretty well, actually. cleaning the rabbit cages yesterday seems to have turbo-charged it. i'm such a novice gardener, so the smallest growth thrills me.

an elder cloth

the magic diaries just started, a long-term journey with jude hill in cloth-making. i had no clear inspiration until now for a large cloth. but now i think i'd love to make an elderberry cloth.





i am thinking about whether to make it a representational piece. that would be difficult to do on such a large scale. maybe a small image of her on a large cloth. i wanted to move toward a more abstract way of expressing, but i am still not sure why or what that even means. there's a sense that representational work is somehow lesser, but surely that's nothing i need to concern myself with. i might have wanted to move toward abstract to allow things to be put together in different ways. not to be tied to an overarching image, but more free and poetry. but i want to make sure i don't dis/member elderberry in the process.

i've been reading some of my friend harlan's work on affect, which is something like a feeling or emotion but more bodily. less voluntary too. he also writes about the responsible way to respond to someone, especially when they die. like how to be haunted by them, intimately and vulnerably. these are things i want to explore. somehow even though i'm making it about her, it will end up being about me. i'm thinking that's probably not good, but still unavoidable. what she means to me has a lot to do with her, but maybe more to do with my feelings of guilt, loss, nostalgia. so i'm thinking it would end up being more about elders in general. but doesn't the mule deserve a cloth?

jude says to hold the idea close, get to know it. i love this.

maybe all the other stuff that would go into the cloth is the context for the mule. grace was writing about context. i mean, just to stitch her colours and shapes and eyes and tail would be no more the whole of her than something more layered with histories. and we do co-constitute each other, after all, we're not separate.

i never finished that knitted saddle blanket for her. the intarsia wasn't going well, and i didn't love the yarn. and i told myself she wouldn't have cared about it anyway. so it's in the knitting basket, in pieces. i wonder if there's a way to use the knitted pieces somehow in this cloth. or some of the yarn. or the design of it. hmmm, there's an idea! the design was what i loved. it looks like the pattern isn't on ravelry. i'll have to take a pic from the book and post it. it would work well as an inspiration to be translated into a quilted cloth because it is the type of thing that could be worked in small pieces. and it would be so nice to finish her blanket after all.

we miss you girl

our magnificent mule, elderberry, passed on this morning.
we think she was around 50.

i was told by an unreliable source that she worked the grand canyon for years.
i've known her since 2003, when this pic was taken.

she only started enjoying being petted a few weeks ago. before that, she tolerated it, but always walked away if she could. so the last few weeks were a special time.

i'm so grateful that she was with us in her retirement.

so strange tonight without her whinny-bray echoing in the wind.

i really love thinking of her as young again, running free.

simple spinning, that's what i'm longing for these days. it feels so restful right now to let the fibers slide through my fingers rather than wrestle with a bulky add-ins, or even a plan. a good thought for life too, maybe, something like letting it come and be what it wants to be?

i've not been well, lately, not at all.
i am hopeful though. test results this week.
and on drs. orders, have changed my diet so completely - only eating whole foods and no soy, gluten, dairy or corn. it's long overdue really that i start taking care of myself this way.
if i could just relax and focus on feeling better instead of all my worries x1000.
forgive me if i'm not all that attentive ... i want to catch up with friends and on lots of things. if you're reading this, it's likely that i love and miss you.

ringing in the tour de fleece

with a little spin....
the cirque du fleece team thread is here!

and it's my birthday, too.

more fur

sasha wanted more fur on her bear, and i have to say, she was right! i tend to stop when i am pleased with a piece, partly because i like delicate, half-there stitcheries, but also out of fear of ruining or overdoing. but sometimes continuing is the thing. he's more shaggy now and bear-like, more There, especially since i added some handspun wool which adds a lot of texture. and the stitching balances out the patchwork better now.

but how do you know when a piece is done, or when one more stitch is Too Much? i do love seeing the progression, like he has emerged from my dreams. at some point if i keep on stitching, maybe he would lumber right out of the fabric and into these woods.

our town

train whistles
smokestacks
sunflowers
laundry line
coffee
cool showers
sleeping and waking up

"Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it? --every, every minute?" Emily for Thornton Wilder

embroiderbear for sasha

i'm really happy with how this guy turned out. i hope the recipient loves him too. i wanted him to look a bit like a balancing circus bear or carnival bear... but still somewhat realistic and wild. he's on a vintage embroidered runner, and his body is an applique of part of an old quilt that someone else cut up (i can never classify an old quilt as a 'cutter'! i have a hard enough time even cutting the scraps.) so he's an applique' of patchwork. i guess i'm leading up to making a patchwork beast, where the patches and seams define the boundaries of the animal... i love that idea, but one step at a time.

it is thursday, isn't it?

so even though i'd had a run of productive days and was feeling wonderful, today isn't so much. my heath is really starting to concern me. i hope to get some stitching in. here's some yarn hanging to dry, waiting to go to Rosemary.

a pile...

a bear in process. he's not how i'm wanting to work these days, but i still like him a lot.

my poor woad will not grow! it has been this size for weeks and weeks and there are only two seedlings left out of dozens.

what is wrong, little woad?

they hatched! mum is nearby.

and here's a blanket that i found at an estate sale, among other cloth. it was hand-woven. it has details that thrill me, including stains and holes. it was woven in two parts and stitched together and then light-blue edging on two sides. i'm appreciating weaving more now that i'm learning about boro.

i read this morning that spinning was a gateway drug to weaving, so it was sure to happen. but up until now, i haven't thought in terms of squares. spinning is about turnings, roundness. but weaving dictates straightnesses. sort of.

what shall i do about this stain? i'd like to patch it, but i'm not sure i'll love the look of one big patch. i'd have to find the perfect fabric. something heavy-ish maybe.

i thought this was mended, but now i think it's just frayed.

held up to the light, striations where some threads are thinner than others.

and Ruthie, my ole girl, hanging around too.

lace

The Estonian lace summer shawl from Nancy Bush's book is coming along! It's not my handspun (wasn't adventurous enough for that yet, having never knit anything so complicated) but it's all laceweight tussah silk, so I might try to bundle-dye it once it's finished. Silk takes dye so beautifully that it's not likely to hurt anything. Although I will probably give it to mum, who prefers very soft neutral colours, when (if) she departs from her black.

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.

rudolph, the club-footed but still one of the last surviving guineas, loves to attack my head. which seemed like a good photo opp. but still, he eludes the camera.

i've become obsessed with jude hill's work and classes and videos. i wonder sometimes at my phases and obsessions.. they come and go, and come again. it's all about cycles. but sometimes that is frustrating because i want to accomplish more of one thing, not move on to another. sometimes i can't get enough spinning in, but then i had that years-long hiatus from spinning. then i was all up into quilting, and then forgot it for a while to re-connect with knitting. what is that about?

each skill builds through each cycle though. and they do synergize, if that's a word.

i've started to feel that my fiber work has not been about healing or getting to know myself as much as it's been about escaping. i can aestheticize or focus on making something to sell, and not face myself really at all. i think that's been what's missing lately. i want to interact more with what i'm doing, while i'm doing it. i think that's one wonderful thing i feel about jude's work is there is an improvisational quality that i've lacked. also, managing layers and working more with patchwork... so many important, exciting things to learn.

i'm having trouble with my advisors at school. they don't like my new, CPW topic, not at all. it's too bad because i was so fascinated with it and had done so much. it may be that i keep on with it and try to convince them, or shift to accommodate them. or follow my innards and move along. deciding what is right for me at this stage feels complicated. might be the perfect set of questions to begin a new cloth. a meditation on the future. i do find that what i imagine often comes to be, so it's important to take some time with constructing that vision... not making it all romance or revenge hehee.

new moon update

just a few yarns to be listed today at 5:03pm EST, when the strawberry moon is new.