Friday, July 16, 2010

London Journal

       After my workshop with Kaffe Fassett, I had cut fabric left over, and pieces that I had found at the V&A.  I nearly went on a wild goosechase  for pure nostalgia and realized how dangerous our memories can be.  The complexity of history, the complicity that goes into maintaining it and the domestic undoing of those constraints were all amply discussed in the show, but seemed to play out within my own life as well-isn't life amazing.
       My family also felt like wild Canadian Geese let loose in civilization so my triangles flowed out around this quilt taking us to the river as well as Abbey Rd. Studios and beyond.  My sense of the city, the flow of movement and time compressed between monuments.

Thursday, July 15, 2010

family quilt/summer quilts


My darling daughter asked me to make a family quilt to wrap us all inside.  I found myself drawn to Sunbonnet Sue because I'm an old Holly Hobby fan, and loved the idea of using her old favorite dresses as the skirts and bonnets for Sue.  I hand-dyed the yellow background(with turmeric) and used old shirting as the borders-beautiful piece of hemp fabric as the backing and organic wadding.  All the other fabrics are vintage.  I have more work on the quilt since this picture-lots of embroidery around the girls-butterflies and balloons.  It has become one of my favorite objects around.




Connecting seasons to colors through my fabrics-pale purples for the lavender surrounding my garden, pinks for the rambling roses and sprays of sweet peas and bleeding hearts that just began to fade. My board holds two such creatures-one, a brightly floral snowball arrangement;  the other, another drunkard's path that curls around to a jockey-cap centre-dark at the moment, but I plan to move it in other directions with some applique and embroidery.  Also making a forgiveness journal quilt that encourages me to forgive those who condescend, annoy or distract me from my serenity.  I add pieces gradually, some with only raw emotion, others more labor intensive-I plan to add a few more to the list as it's such an amazing release of energy.
enjoy your quilts, gardens and children!
                              

Tuesday, July 13, 2010




Pillow cases for my beautiful nieces' new bedrooms.  Love, fairies, applique and some stumpwork though
it's not that visible in the image.  An early work, but my early lesson in making to give away-so pleasing and a tangible and nearly permanent sense of presence, each stitch has my love in it-and all that singing that only my machine hears-but I find myself in praise of creation while I make my quilts and quilted goods. I wonder how many quilters belt it out to the humming of their machines.  After London and our visit to

 this wonderful show,  I have new material for my material madness.  Piece Out!

Monday, July 12, 2010

five rites

Remember spinning in circles as a child?  Well, all that practice finally has purpose.  For the last few months, I have added the five tibetan rites to my yoga practice.  They work on restoring balance to the vortexes within our bodies.  The rituals take only ten minutes, but I feel as though it's ten cups of a clean coffee buzz for the rest of the day.  Information and instructions are easily found through books and internet--Look for the original book,  Ancient Secret of the The Fountain of Youth by Peter Kelder for images of the poses and the very interesting story of how these secret rites became public knowledge.  As I'm always looking for wonderfully flakey titles--
As the Flower Sheds It's Fragrance-has to be one of the best so far.  Actually it's a fascinating account of Mataji, who had a strong following during WWII.  May we all lead our lives shedding our fragrances.
With Blessings.

Sunday, July 11, 2010

flowers

bee balm to attract the hummingbirds and bees
watch the pollination at play within my gardens,
change my template to increase my size, my sense
of wonder and fulfillment, all that I am and all that
I will be-held back only by those old images of me

so unglued from the pages of old manuscript,
cleared out by grace and others need, it all makes sense
in our electronic age, to start over and over again,
we skip over time, and come back to some place similar
only as mom says, never look back, never want what
you never wanted in the first place.

So as lady of the lavender beds, within some
certain peace, I watch the world fly.