How Sweet It Is

The Camas are in bloom and the dandelions, too!

I only have to step out my door for an abundance of fragrance - everything is blossoming and a walk around here is intoxicating!

So much beauty to take in.

I'm back to stitching Palace of the Soul.

Jewels of the Soul

I have been thinking about questions, as well as stitching them onto a violet velvet piece which will go beneath the part of Palace of the Soul that my mother embroidered with butterflies that used to be the bib of a piece of clothing she made for me. I will add buttons and keep the bib fastened on the lower edge to make it like a trap door of sorts - or a hinged lid. A recurring symbol for me is that of the treasure chest or trunk full of jewels. I once made my son a cake shaped like that for his fifth birthday, full of candies for the jewels, including gold coins of course, along with a Pirate theme. When I was about that age, I lined up for hours to ask t.v. personality Mr. Dressup a question: How do you make your trunk disappear? I had no conception that such things could be done with editing, dry ice and camera tricks, so I was a little disappointed with the answer. I am stitching question marks as the jewels in my 'trunk' because they are of so much value. A question leads me on a quest of discovery and arises from what matters to me, which relates to how I make meaning and as a kind of organ of meaning, the soul offers up these jewels. To draw a question mark I start with an organic circling motion, seeking around until with a certain, downward stroke I define what it is I want to understand and I further solidify that focus with the emphasis of a dot - which can be a beginning or an end - and both. See the button holes at either top corner?

And what's inside this package I received today?

I will be starting up a vat or two in the next few days, and I probably won't wait for the online class to begin dipping into the blue. Strangely, my printer has not been printing blue for the last two weeks, since I got my class supply list, and there is still blue ink in the cartridge and cleaning doesn't help...

Could be a sign.

Hand Stitch

Maybe it was the colourful sunrise and the energy of the wind today that inspired me to reach for the crayons.

The waves were wild at the beach.

And I found some sea lace:

Later I did some 'hand' stitch.

A second hand on the top left of Palace.

Soul Fire

A dragon has alighted on Palace of the Soul, roaring out creative fire and setting the cloth ablaze. It is the Year of the Dragon - a fierce creature that commands respect and seeks the pearl of great price. I once named my black, serpent-slim cat 'Draco' after the dragon constellation.

I had chosen to add this fabric I dyed because I saw a dragon in it, which I used as a rough stitching guide.

Dragons are unpredictable and wont to fly off into the blue, just like creativity follows its own mysterious and surprising path.

And soon I will be into the blues, too, with the online Indigo Dyeing course taught by Glennis Dolce. I have been gathering a variety of unusual supplies for that and am looking forward to where it takes me when it starts next week.

Hearts and Flowers

I like how there is such a value contrast within the folds of the hem of this faded table cloth material and I had been anticipating using some of it. Some areas have a softer fade. The heart is silk satin I dyed. Palace of the Soul is now covered with fabrics and three quarters basted together. I am eager to remove those last pins so that I can add detail.

I like the 3D fringe of this part and I may add other colours of frayed fabric to enhance that.

I have cleared my table and will focus next on completing organizing my old basement studio, which is going to be where I will do more dyeing experimentation.

Last week I had an opportunity to learn a new stitch - only I decided not to count and just to eyeball it and see what happened. Even though it's not a correct interlaced double herringbone, I enjoyed myself and like the results and can see how I could alter it in many possible ways.

And I received year three of my blog in book form in the mail - I like having a hard copy for quick reference and to remember where my muse has gone over the course of a year.

Hand Made

I like to make most of the cards I give - and I had been longing to use my pink snow dyed fabric. When I was a child, my mother made some of my clothes, including some shorts with straps and a bib and although most of my life I have not been a sewer, I have saved items of clothing that held special meaning for me. Mom had severe rheumatoid arthritus, which makes the embroidered butterflies she put on the front of the bib even more special. As well as transformation, butterflies remind me of her. And they seem joyful to me - so light, beautiful and free. So I will add them to Palace of the Soul to honour nurturance and these other qualities.

The wonderfully curling bark I pictured in the last blog post, gave hardly any colour to some silk I wrapped with it and steamed, so I used some onion skins to add a little more colour and will keep over dyeing it until I am pleased with its markings.

I also had a little drawing fun and while I may not stitch these, they would be very simple to do.

The track lighting is now up in my studio, as it was quite dark and not really useable after dusk. I've also expanded out into my old studio, moving paints and dyes, stamps and stencils and all kinds of things to the drawers and shelves vacated by my fabrics, which are now upstairs. Still lots more to do before it's complete, but when it is, I'll be feeling like this:

Unicorn Dreaming

I came across this peeling bark yesterday, with it's intriguing texture revealing successive layers beneath. This was my mother's trunk, which was locked when I first received it, until the day my son came to ask me what was inside it as I sat making a major decision about my life direction - which track to take for my Master's degree. After telling him I did not know, I suddenly pictured the key to it being inside my mother's old sewing box of buttons. I went and checked, and indeed there was a key which did open the trunk to reveal alot of my childhood art work. I decided I would choose the creative expression track for my studies in Transpersonal Psychology.

Earlier in the day, I had been thinking about the symbols on Palace of the Soul - how my unicorn is made of old thin jean material I used to wear and how nearly all the other fabric in the cloth is new - scraps and bits of different materials, but the only used cloth is a piece of old linen tablecloth I snow dyed and handkerchief I natural dyed - both without any personal history for me. I cleared my various stitched cloths from the top of the chest to hang about my studio and looked inside at some of the art, noting this painting of a unicorn I did when I was a child and remembering I also wrote a unicorn poem when I was twelve:

And there was this copper etched print I made in highschool, with its rainbow horn like the one on the unicorn on Palace of the Soul.

And here is the portfolio I stitched back then, to hold the work I made:

At one time, I imagined I would breed race horses and had a page of names all beginning with 'Unicorn' ready for my future foals! So the use of the old jean fabric for my unicorn on Palace of the Soul 'fits' right in as it's a symbol that has been with me for a long time.

Gifts From the Snow

Here are a few of the threads, doilies and trims that the melted snow washed up on my shore: I prepared three different snow dye baths with the same items in each. The results are unpredictable - the same fabric in one bath absorbed alot of colour, while in another bath it came out virtually undyed and some fabrics are just one overall colour while others in the same bath are many. I have far too many samples to post but a few of my favourites will give you an idea of the range from one of the baths. This silk velvet is my favourite:

I prepared this fabric itajime shibori style, and interestingly, this one was meant to be snow moons but became moon butterflies:

And here are some fantasy mountains on linen - you may have to enlarge the photo to see what I mean:

I have other fabrics that are largely pink and some that are turquoise, avocado and reddish brown. The snow outside is all gone - but I do have a small bucket left in my freezer :) I also have partially sewn the ancient vesica piscis symbol onto Palace of the Soul, now.

To me, the snow dyed fabric it is on has the feel of an unfolding universe - a place of continuous birthing and emerging of the Divine Feminine. It is threshold, passage and chalice and maiden, mother and crone.

Pot Luck

I've added a few more bits to Palace of the Soul, keeping it growing little by little.

And I overdyed some wet felted wool I had previously dyed with maple leaves, this time using resists and a eucalyptus bath.

And I did a few pieces of silk, too.

Last night after being occupied with the felted book, I suddenly was shocked to realize there is that rare thing here, now - snow - and I had not even thought to do some snow dyeing! So I was determined to make that happen today and good thing, as the temperature has risen, rain is falling and the snow is rapidly disappearing.

Stay tuned for results - I've got three or four different colours of dye in each bucket and all kinds of fabrics, trims and threads prepared in a variety of ways.

Undaunted

A cold day out today and the robins were eating berries off the holly tree. These sketches I did are based on wolverine cave art.

When I heard Douglas Chadwick was giving a presentation on wolverines last year, I was eager to go, as I have been curious to learn more about them. I came away amazed at the amount and type of terrain they move through with such great speed, their courage and ability to overcome adversity and their enduring family ties. Here is a youtube that will give you the gist: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7Bkh-P54ws I have added one to Palace of the Soul,

along with a word my Finnish Grandmother told me about that encompasses the extraordinary endurance and tenacity I think characterizes wolverines and that aspect of soul drive to express itself no matter what.

Bright Spots

This morning when I basted another block for Palace of the Soul, I included a bright spot of red, which is not really as bright as in this photo, but echoes the colour of another part of the cloth. And then I went to get the mail and experienced another bright spot in my day: the arrival of a bobbin lace pouch from Deanna that I won last month on her blog at: http://eclectic-meanderings.blogspot.com/. Thank you Deanna! I love the fine lace and the colour

matched the ocean today

where I saw more bright spots like this arbutus bark and a chartreuse golf ball in the sea froth

and then there was this creature buried and emerging from the sand,

which I missed at first, as I walked by, because it was covered with water, but then I went back for a look when several seagulls circled above me and one dived to inspect what it may have thought were crab legs but are actually rope. I was fooled, too.