For the love of Japan

 Living here on the west coast, I feel very connected to the plight of Japan.  Not only did we receive a shot of radiation over the jet-streams, but we too are on the ring of fire and all of us know it's not a matter of if, but when.  I find myself hugging tighter to my loved ones and needing to venture out of myself to make some difference.   As our classes wrapped up, all my schoolmates felt the strain, yet we managed to turn our stress and sadness into a very beautiful project.  We divided into four groups and used fabric that we had dyed for another project as well as items of fabric that had a meaning to us that we wished to impart into the quilt.  We all felt so connected as we collaborated over it.  Thank you to all the lovely women who made it possible and Eleanor, who gave us the opportunity and time.

We sent the quilt through Quilts for Japan and if you have any interest in it, they are accepting quilts until the end of May.  Contact me and/or look it up on the web.  

spinning time

My student days are with me again and I'm consumed by all the new information that I gather and try and make into myself.  It's taken months for me to return to some sense of normalcy, and my second project feels centered and clear.  Yes I dyed and printed all these fabrics--some velvet, linen, cotton and silk,  sewn in time for the release of Aung San Suu Kyi.  This brave and wonderful woman has resisted a vicious and cruel regime and still retains gentle grace and forgiveness for those who oppress her and her country.  As I sew and weave my tapestries, I have sensed myself on a different time to that around me.  Slow and steady, like the heartbeat of the earth, I shape space with colours and build slowly into my images.  Here, I have time to think, to feel the changes around us with reason and calm.  Yet the act of creation is itself fraught with tension, the choices, the placement, the desire for more, to do more. Perhaps I haven't achieved the perfect balance, but as I stitch it all together, a project that remains unfinished, the scales shift.

May everyone have a blessed season of family and friends-love and good food.  May the light shine upon us and bring us peace.

crisp finishes

I already feel the signifiers of autumn, the shifts of colours and the coolness of the dawn-and soon we are all back at school.  I have followed my dream and enter into a fantastic textile arts program this fall so I suspect that I will have little time for my little blog although hopefully many new art projects and the creation of my own fabrics for my quilts.  We have slowly begun de-cluttering the house of all the detritus that accumulates from a year of bills, school, and information overload.

I completed my tribute to my grandmother and I believe that it's rather wonderful if I say so myself.  I even worked silk with machine quilting and I love the result. I would love to know what you think and hope that it inspires others to make their own memorial quilts during times of sadness as I found that it really helped me focus and understand my grief and my grieving process.

 I also made this pillow which was to become a gift, but I couldn't part with it and now have it on my bed scenting my pillows with the dried rose buds, lavender and rose geranium that I stuffed inside a muslin pillow with all my oh-too-small scraps.  I love not wasting a scrap, not even a silk thread.

I would love to hear from others who love
crazy quilting and see what they have done with their pieces. This one is called "Do unto others" as I embroidered the aphorism (my personal favorite) on the black velvet.
Many blessings for the next week.

Sad Stitches for Belle

     My summer reverberates with the loss of my beloved grandmother, who through her strong and idiosyncratic beliefs, taught us all about health, manners, gestures, elegance, kindness and strength of will. As a family, we have lost our lodestone and our cornerstone and feel bereft of her presence and I have lost my greatest mentor, friend and champion.

I have spent many hours piecing together my quilt tops and finishing them off as best I could in my temporary set-up in the mountains.

                              










 Here, I grow my beds of vegetable and herbs for the winter, watch lazuli buntings if I'm lucky enough, frighten off the coyotes and bears that occupy the woods around us.  Gluey with life, the air nourished my soul, mind and body and opens me to the purest pleasures.

Les Fraises Parfait.

one patch of wild french strawberries
two nearly clean fingers
one greedy mouth.
divine and glorious.

Encroachment

I have always hated being copied by others whether in clothes, taste, style, or just being.  I've had some crazy people with fixations on me and I've had to hold myself strong to flow through these relationships and leave fairly unscarred.  In quilting, sharing is the name of the game whether it's patterns, ideas, or even material. I have found that this world relishes collaboration among women instead of the competitiveness that we normally find in our relationships-who has the better house, car, kid, stove, etc and on it goes, but in this world, my world, a gift of a scrap of this or that makes all our lives sweeter.  As the summer nears its end, I find myself with an oddly pieced and deeply scarred journal-it holds the bitterness and the sweetness of these sultry months.  As I strengthen my seams, I make beauty from all the pieces of my life and I learn to lose without grasping for control, but with the ability to ruthlessly cut the threads in one place and slowly undo them in another.

I finally finished my fleur-de-lys from my on-line Nancy Chong class.  She's a great resource for patterns and easy instructions for something that looks complicated.  I used a vintage fabric for the center and a more south pacific inspired material for the backing and binding.  I love practicing my hand quilting and practice I need, so I have another one waiting for more attention. For the next few weeks I will be off-line while I fabricate more textile stories. Have a wonderful summer with many blessings.