handstories

Blue & yellow and a Blue story

    One morning, I woke up wanting to weave, remembering the fun of being in Jude's Cloth 2 Cloth workshop, everyone weaving together... 

    One of the reasons that I find myself blogging less, is feeling like I have nothing to say.  My life is so quiet now.  There are no interesting stories like there were in my teaching days.  

    Getting lost in the details is a happy place.

    “She Wove Her Sky in Starlight”

    The sun was still coming up when I went for a walk one morning.  Sometimes I stop for the views for a long while and have to remind myself that the goal is to be moving.

    The top yellow fabric led to the rest of this golden cloth.  With pieces from Deb, Jude, and Blandina.  It's still in the works...

    Yesterday, a two-hour phone call with Blue.  It was so swell.  He has grown so much during his adventure in Chile.  Gaining self-awareness, confidence, friends from all over the world, and stories galore. 

    So, I will borrow and share a Blue story...  Recently, his old sneakers finally gave out.  A Chilean friend took him shopping.  When he told the salesman his size, he shook his head with doubt.  Blue is tall and has BIG feet, size 13-14, much bigger the average Chilean shopper.  They went to the stockroom, and they all searched together, looking for anything close.  Just as they were about to give up, they found one pair of sneakers in size 12.5.  They were comfortable enough.  Blue was so happy to have them, and said it felt like a miracle.

    Fast forward to last week:  A group of them went south of Santiago to a friend of a friend's family cabin.  Surrounded by mountains, forests, and lakes, they had a wonderful week of hiking, kayaking, etc...  On their last day, thanks to a friend of a friend, etc... they were taken on a tour bus around the area.  One stop was at a fancy hotel/restaurant where they were treated to a delicious meal.  "You would have loved it, Mom!  It was like a fairy tale... something Snow White would have found in the woods.  You felt like you were inside of a magical tree."

    The next morning, packing up to leave, he couldn't find his new shoes.  He remembered switching them out for his flipflops on the bus the day before.  They were still on that bus.  One friend said he looked like someone had died.

    He flipflopped to the bus stop, mourning his precious shoes.  As they boarded the bus for the ten-hour ride back, the driver asked, "Does anyone here have big feet?"  Blue called out, "Yes!"  The driver pulled out a bag with his shoes!  They had been found on the other bus.  Folks wondered if a basketball player had left them?  Somehow, they had found their way to this driver, Tio Rico (who everyone called "Uncle").  Blue gushed his thanks and shared his shoe search story with him.  Tio Rico laughed and laughed, and at each stop along the way, he would call for Blue to tell the story of "The Miracles of the Giant Shoes"!

    Blue and Tio Rico, and the Giant Shoes!

Contented in Through

"Through"

    While naming pieces for today's update, "through" kept coming up.  So many things feel like "getting through" right now, not in a bad way, just things going on, and remembering my mother-in-law's idea that "through is a place".  I guess we are always in through.  (This through started with a dreamy piece of Deb's cloth and was framed in Tina's twilight purple.)

    In anticipation of K's surgery on Monday (the biggest through), and of his being home for weeks, I wove and pinned the next section of the quilt.  Did it have a name?  If so, it's gone now.  

    I'm guessing that there will be less time and focus for making pieces for the shop.  Quilting will be a comforting no-thinking required thing to do.

    Not the best photo, but a sense of where it's at now.

    And a blurry hot pink photo of the current socks on the needles in the bright sunlight.  I often knit a few rows after breakfast to wake up my hands and head.  These are eye-openers!  Someone I know has been wearing a lot of hot pink and fuchsia lately.

    Bear close-up for Barbara.

    "Razia" meaning "contented".  Wishing the same for us all.

Weaving self

    There was a day in the drear of August, at a loss of what to do with myself (or in spite of), that I went looking for old projects.  Looking for something that could be continued without much thought or effort.  Many half-starts were found, including three made of six, nine or twelve inch square pieces.  Another with random pieces patchworked together, a few with appliqued creatures, and strips of hills from this pattern, begun more than a decade ago.  Just looking at the stack of starts and stops made me weary.  Was there a way to mishmash them into one?  Just to get a useful blanket if nothing else?  Without math or planning?

    The rotary cutter was grabbed.  Much of it was cut into three inch strips.  A strip quilt was in mind.  In the aftermath, looking at the pile of long and short lengths, I knew that I didn't want to spend hours sewing long lines on long strips, so I put them in a box, put the lid on, and shelved it all.

    A week later, I woke up and thought of weaving- a possibility.  I was remembering Jude's workshop years ago, and that day she mentioned weaving on Instagram- a sign.  I spent the day re-reading and re-watching her Cloth to Cloth workshop- a path.  

    And begin, again...

    It seemed to fall together so easily. 

    The weaving will continue in and lengthen out of the white cloth.

    I can't tell you how good it felt.  Forget to eat-stretch-call people back-or start dinner good.

    I remembered the joy of those early days in this community, Jude's generous sharing, the excitement of learning a new way to be with cloth, getting to know many of you, the photo of Grace up on the ladder stitching into her huge cloth weaving for her daughter, finding my own way with cloth while holding hands in this circle... it was filling.

    It's so good to feel the glow of autumn again.

 

woven

    Going through the desktop, I came across the sweet little loom from Velma.  Weaving seemed like a good comforting idea.

    So much went wrong in the making of this little inch of shifu.  I decided to just go with it, and then the third warp thread broke.  Patched the whole thing together as best I could, or good enough anyway.  That third thread was completely lost track of.

    I'm going to love it anyway.  It's how things are.

& on

    Filled in a gap with weaving.  What a relaxing thing to do that was, although it would have been more so had the "warps" been the shorter direction.  That would've created longer "wefts", ins and outs, before the need to turn.  Stitch and learn.  

    I got stuck for a bit, after the weaving.  Turned it this way and that, with no idea where to go.  That's when I look for a line to follow or extend (I'm sure this is something that has come from Jude's sharings over the years.)  Here it was echoing the curve of the moon and then continuing the dark patterns in the lower fabric.  Now the story is starting to flow again.

feeding self

    On Sunday there was an urge to do something different.

    The little loom made during Velma's wonder-filled workshop was warped and woven with leftover kami-ito (spun paper).  

    There was love for the rhythm of it, the forgiveness in it, and even for the need of fixing it here and there (and more for the fact that it could be mended).

    A few other scraps and threads were woven in.  All the while thinking about story weaving, bringing slivers of tales together...a pink silky ribbon from the Edwardian gown, indigo thread from Jude, a short length of yarn from a long-ago spinning, and a small fluff of tulle that also danced at the ball.  

    The places intertwined with the darker paper... those were penned with John O'Donohue's blessing of a poem, "Beannacht" and painted with prussian, indigo and lunar blue. 

  "...May a flock of colours,
      Indigo, red, green,
      And azure blue,
      Come to awaken in you
      A meadow of delight...."      

     (Excerpt from "Beannacht")

    So, here it is, with some weaving of ends still to do, and awaiting what's next for it, but for now, it's a story all on it's own.  And the more I look at it and think about it, the more I realize that it's not that different from, and maybe just the same as, one of my little stitched boat cloths.  

    Ha, the urge for new led me right back home. 

in & out, round & round

    The art teacher shared the beautiful bold work of Xenobia Bailey with the third graders, and then they wove . . .

    They all began with the same colors, but then went wild with their own ideas.  Some of the yarns were from my stash, including some early handspinning.  It was fun to share some of their stories with them as the students worked.  

    Today I stitched them together for displaying.  I love them grouped together, and seeing how happy the kids were with the results.  "We made that?!"

making Shifu with Velma

    Such a good workshop.  The kind where time flies by, you're exhausted in the best of ways, are surrounded by a very good company of kindred makers, and filled with information and inspiration.  These photos only graze the surface of what the experience held.

    Velma Bolyard

    My wonky "wobble-sabi" (a Velma-ism) Shifu.  

    Thank you, Velma!

weaving connections

    In the first hour at IslandWood, I heard there was an artist in residence, that she was a weaver, and that my group was not scheduled for a session with her.  Very generously, one of the teachers offered to trade groups with me for the afternoon (probably because I looked like I was about to cry with disappointment).   

    It was such a lovely few hours.  In her own words, Melinda West is "growing, gathering, and weaving with plant fibers from the Pacific Northwest."  

    A few of Melinda's creations that she had on display for the children.

     I loved her sweet gentle storytelling way of making connections for the children- creating kinship with her, Salish traditions, and the natural world around us.  

    We began by stripping a cedar branch and smoothing it with another plant.

    While massaging and twisting the branch into a circle, we watched the short film Melinda made about her teacher and neighbor, Suquamish elder and Master Weaver Ed Carriere.  (Do go and enjoy the film here.)

    Using sweetgrass, we wove a "web" in the circle to hold a clam shell with beads inside, and then, with more sweetgrass or yarn, created another weaving to enclose the shell.  (Sorry there are no photos of the children weaving, all hands were needed to guide them through the process.)

    They were also able to make beads by hollowing out the centers of twig pieces.

    Afterwards, Melinda shared the importance of giving back to the earth and to the future.  She guided them through the planting of a Cedar tree, ending with a ceremonial singing of a Cedar thank you song while rattling their clam shell necklaces.

    The students loved their creations, wearing them proudly throughout the week.  Thank you, Melinda for such a rich and full experience!

weaving selves

    Today I helped while the fourth graders learned weaving skills.  The Art teacher talked about trying to figure things out for themselves, by doing, experimenting, watching . . . persevering.   I love how she connects making art to building life skills.

     Of course, we were there to help.  At one point my name was being called from too many directions at once.  

    "Ms. Monte is not my name any more."

    "What is it?"

    "I'm not telling."

    Rather than stopping the calling out, they began making up new names for me . . . sigh

  "Over, under, over, under, . . . "

   I will be chanting it in my sleep.