26.2.10

Something´s in the air...

... that calls for a Spring Calmer...
























... and once more on a thrift-store book I bought
yesterday (for mixed-media collage perhaps), which
has handwritten side notes in the old German
writing, Sütterlin...













... by a Mrs. Clara Kleinsteuber...

24.2.10

Someday soon...

Here´s Hands of Time again...













I´m going over it once more, connecting disagreeing
bits and pieces...













... with skin-coloured thread - a shade I wouldn´t
fancy normally I think, but here it works fine...













And some of the little hands still need more doing
- emulating their ancient cousins, the mysterious hands
from Borneo...













This one is a pretty slow thing - started it last June.
But it´s going to be finished someday soon...

22.2.10

Eye candy...

Finished this one today...




18.2.10

What is a square.

I caught the little squares virus a while ago, and
it´s going to be chronical...













... because, as Jude pointed out in a comment on last
sunday´s long cloth post, "little squares can build a
lovely path" - and because they´re rather irresistible...
I don´t do them with paper, just cutting them from one
template, thumb ironing the seem allowances.













And I´m in the mood for neutrals (no big surprise
here), with BLUE...


"She cooked and seized.
Cooked and seized
She cooked and seized.
Forbearance
Cooked and seized.
Bridle is paths.
Just as about a path
Just as a path
Just as a path.
It makes no difference whether four
Ate one.
Sum to sum.
Our adding is more hours.
Ate one
Just as well ate one
Just as well eight one
Just as well eight
One just as well
Eight one.
How much are they like me
Like.
After walked.
Before walked
He made her talk
To have her
Walk
After walked
And leave a walk
Leave walk
Or leave her leave walked.
It is an error
Oh.
Join me
With observation
She may be
Our hour glass
Which we sought
And have not bought
For our hour be
Be an hour for me.
Such is sought
And here bought
For our be
Her be
Err be
Come Francis Rose
Or be
Forty leave fifteen
Thrilled be
Or sought by
It for him
Or for
Her
For him to be
When they may
They may
Shall shelter
They make
Shelter
As they may be
For and to be
Nobody knows how old showers are.
Or how should hours should be.
In inlay should be
That with mean
With be
With held will then
In to be.
What is a square."

(Gertrude Stein, from: Hotel Francois 1er)

15.2.10

Heart winners













Thanks once more to all who kindly invited me
and others for a glimpse into their thoughts
and homes by answering the Give-away question:
What´s to your heart´s content?
It has been a pleasure...

So, the winners are

Jane (Wisdom)
wintergreen.3 (Silver)
Suschna (Ottawa)

Please contact me, wintergreen.3, and let me have
your address...!!

14.2.10

It´s a long way...

Have been spending some time with the WAY
long cloth - here are a few impressions of
how it looks by now...













Stage 1...













... 2...













... 3...













... and backside














"It has always seemed to me that neutral
things would help us
if only we could hear
the eloquence
of their dumb ministry.

What is it that these things of the world do?
They submit,
and they endure.
They flourish. They don’t ask for anything.

They simply take what is given.
They flourish,
all at once, where it had seemed they
were merely enduring.
Everything can touch them.

We are searching for the world,
amongst this diversity
of existence,
that has formed itself so loosely
in a ramshackle system.

While our lives, one can see, are
just a routine sacrifice,
consumed and forgotten,
off somewhere to one corner
in the courts of the sun.

What can last? Only what we have made
and hand on
amongst ourselves, that is withering in our hands,
but never known without us.

So we take the dark roads
in beautiful clothing, greeting each other;
sorry for the void
that cannot see what we’ve become.

(Robert Gray: Annotation)

9.2.10

The teeth of time

I´m very fond of the Erosion Bundle Project, and
thought about participating - but where to put the
bundle/s, in the cold, in the city...?

So I decided to at least show how two balcony adornments
are doing, braving the elements out there...

Number 1: Welcome-to-the-autumn-winds, out and
about since September (can´t get really wet, though)...













... a bit ruffled (and bundled up...)













Number 2: New-Year-prayer-flag sort of thing, being
roughed up by the wind last week...













... and yesterday...













I´ll mend it...

7.2.10

White noise

Always good to be prepared... Yesterday the
recently dyed jaundice yellow proofed to be just
the perfect little helper for putting my annoyance
about undesired noises from upstairs into cloth...













Wrote a haiku, too, including it, covered up with a
layer of thin cotton:

Life´s million noises
Only way to shut them off
Seems listening hard













I´m sewing it to a piece of flower embroidered old
tablecloth - nice little may be meaning mish mash:
threadbareness of domestic comforts meets praise of
patience meets expectations of spring...

5.2.10

Fabric puzzle

Having bought this skirt in a thrift-store, for the
fabric, cutting off the buttons...













... I found small bundles of fabric behind them, on
the back side...













... which, openend up and ironed...













... revealed a young lady, ready for her afternoon
tennis match...

3.2.10

Layers upon layers...

...of clothing (outside), and of cloth (indoors)...

I have quite a lot of my pieces hanging here one over
the other, being short of other storage places...

...and a shark with a shawow...













...and a small booklet...













A strip of the recently dyed fabrics made me
think of this. I used that for the cover, adding
pages from other bits and pieces and scraps.


























"The cold grows colder, even as the days
grow longer, February's mercury vapor light
buffing but not defrosting the bone-white
ground, crusty and treacherous underfoot.
This is the time of year that's apt to put
a hammerlock on a healthy appetite,
old anxieties back into the night,
insomnia and nightmares into play;
when things in need of doing go undone
and things that can't be undone come to call,
muttering recriminations at the door,
and buried ambitions rise up through the floor
and pin your wriggling shoulders to the wall;
and hope's a reptile waiting for the sun."

(Bill Christophersen: February)

1.2.10

Turmeric hate-love

What were those abstract paintings on saturday?
No, you´re right - no paintings, but another
dye try - reminded by this of the bag of peels
I had gathered from the bottom of the onion crate
in a health food store a while back, I went to
use them.
I threw in a few bits of a pot cleaner, to see
whether it would rust, a tablespoon of turmeric
(can´t resist the stuff, ins spite of the fact
that I dislike the yellow...), and a little vinegar...
























The blackish spots come from the pot cleaner
bits, I guess (but it didn´t rust)...




































Did I mention I don´t like turmeric-yellow...?
Well, on the other hand...

P.S. Of course "Silent saturday" doesn´t mean no
one should speak (I´ve been asked) - I enjoy
comments then just as much as on any other day of
the week - it just means that I myself prefer to be
silent on saturday (and on sunday, too, most of
the time...)