A portrait

...of myself, walking in the rain, with a head-cold.

The shibori class is so interesting...for part of lesson 2, I made:

The square on the right was the lesson, then I made the strip on the left to use as a border on the self-portrait. There is much to learn.  

 

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Tea tin and shibori class

This little tea tin has been in my kitchen cabinet for years.  Just the other day, when I was pondering how to think about the new homecloth (see last post), I noticed it anew.  It is such a simple happy representation. I have become all discombobulated trying to decide if I want to portray my home from the point of view of history, from the front or the back, from the inside out, or even should I look at it as if from a satellite.  Now, when I become all perplexed with all these questions, I go look at the tea tin.  It helps that there is tea inside it.

And!  I'm taking the Online Shibori class from Glennis Dolce through Joggles.com and these are my first results. It's very exciting.  Although I've not done much dyeing, I'm having sensations of deja vu.

not snow, but...

 

Seeing the beautiful snow pictures on Spirit Cloth makes me a little homesick for back east, but here is an offering of hope!  The fruit trees are starting to bloom all over town; this is one from the big park just east of us.

Somehow, with no warning at all, I have caught a cold, despite trying very hard to avoid such a thing. Perhaps starting to prepare for tax time has made it feel welcome.

 

And here is how my homecloth is coming.  Gulp.  So far it is about order and disorder, infinity, my new glasses and the rosebush out front. I am not sure where it is going.  Well, inbetween coming and going is IS.  And likely that will change soon.

A valentine

 

Wishing a happy  heart to all. Since hearts are always breaking...a happy mending heart.

Spotted Pony and new cloth

This is a cloth (slightly over 12" square) inspired on my train trip home last summer.  It was early morning, the crescent moon hung in the sky and we were moving through Wyoming or Utah.  I imagined the horses out there chasing the train, or just running to celebrate the new day.

A detail of his happy feet.

Here is the beginning of my new cloth.  It is going to be about home.  Since most of what I do here is work, it seemed fitting to use my old blue jeans (which in the other sense, no longer fit.)  It is stretch fabric and doesn't like being squared up, so I decided to just let it relax and be that way.  The bottom half I paper-pieced and it does look nice and even, but the seams were so thick I thought maybe helter-skelter would create less bulk, so that's what I did on the top. This cloth or quilt is probably going to represent my view of the reality of my home as well as dreams.  Right now it's sort of a footprint.

hope

 

Here is a little foretelling of spring, blooming by my front door.

Reading about the snow back east, I feel a little envious, but at the same time can imagine it seems like more than enough and darn that groundhog and his predictions, so here is a sight perhaps for sore eyes.  I wanted to display my accomplishment re: paper piecing, but the camera battery ran down so it will have to wait.

Some progress

After several attempts, I have finally added my header picture...that is the running horse above.  Perhaps there is a way to have the title letters below the picture, but so far that process eludes me.

That little cloth is about 5" high by 9.5" long. Today I embroidered the bee on.  The almond growers in the Central Valley of California are having difficulties with bees too ill to pollinate, so this little bee is a prayer for help for our bee colonies.  


The orangey-pink fabric in the background is a linen that I dyed with onion skins from Trader Joe's.  It was a bag of multi-colored pearl onions.  I read about the process and that citric acid would help to set the color, but I didn't have citric acid, so I added the peel from a clementine and boiled it all together.  It made a beautiful color, but this is not a sturdy cloth, even though I stitched everything securely.   I felt commited  and went ahead with the project anyway but I doubt it would withstand a trip through the washing machine.  Also, I painted starch on the horse so that I could applique him more easily to the background; this helped. After the initial applique, but before the couching, I soaked the background plus horse in warm water to take out the starch because I read that silverfish like starch.  As you can see this is all very experimental.

Lastly, here is Agnes, my dog who is the size of a large cat.  She is a little skeptical about all this experimenting but is supportive for the most part.

Groundhog's Day Eve

Happy Groundhog Day (February 2).  Shadow awareness day!  Blessings on the whole idea, whether he sees it or not.