Being present

 June 18:  The day we drive to Ottawa and begin the wedding.

June 23:  The wedding was a big success.  We leave for Puckwana today.  I couldn't find the card I wanted to give to Grace so I wrote a long letter to her instead.

June 24:  We are at the cottage and the sound of lapping water and bird song are loud.  Just us and the Alaska family here for a few days.  

June 25:  I played Racko last night with Ned and the two boys and won.  Maybe I'll try to let others win that game next time.  Ha ha.

June 26:  Rachel Cusk felt that she had entered another world in her book about being a mother, Life's Work.  

June 27:  The idea that patchwork can be a way to not worry.  If I make a lot of patchwork sections - a pile of them without worrying - and then just worry later whether they can fit together or not.  Don't worry first.  Worry last.

June 28:  We had a good sleep in our own bed although I had to add my heavy velvet quilt.  It worked.  First we go to Mike Shain's funeral, and then back to the family, all arriving by tomorrow.  

July 3:  A milestone for me because I swam at the back channel.  I was considering not coming back if I couldn't swim.  Baked two cakes and lay on the day bed with Suvi in the afternoon.  The cakes were for Grace's and my birthday.  Played Clue until late.  Aili won. 

July 4:   Jay gets up early and today he swam to Yrrah from Buffy's many times. I've been having more pain these last few days.

July 7:  I go into my stitching with my daydream mind and my intelligent hand, and ignore the body.

July 8:  You are here, alive, completely alive.  That is a miracle.  Thich Nhat Hanh

Included in the post are fragments from my written journal in combination with the sunlight and shadow quilt I took with me to the wedding and then the family cottage.  Life was turbulent and beautiful with all my children and grandchildren.    

new work that grows

There's something un-real about the month of December,
as if real life deadlines go on hold.

I've been stitching 9-patches, making new cloth from tiny squares.

In the busy days
in the dark time of December
I retreat into the grid.

I sit by the window with the bird feeder view and hand stitch.

mrs cardinal

mr cardinal

I pin my work up because it is impossible to see it when it is in my lap.

I plan to organize the finished quilt with a horizon.

I've been looking at the open water, it's always moving, the ice not in yet

The moving water makes me think that I always am asking why?
Why do I ask why?

Trust myself.
Learn why

"what does it mean to say "I lose myself"  asked Immanuel Kant in 1786

I  lose myself in this grid

it's dark by 4:30
It's the shortest day.
But the cloth gets larger.

In the evenings I plug away on the sunny-rainy piece.
The stitches make it denser, but it doesn't get bigger

Our girls come home on Saturday.

Time Piece

 

 When can we finally tell our stories?

 

And to whom?

 

Or is it better to just remember them?

Here, a stitch resist and indigo memory cloth

the time I've made
which is not a place,
which is only a blur,
the moving edge we live in;
which is fluid
which turns back upon itself
like a wave

Margaret Atwood,
Cat's Eye p 409

this post linked to off the wall friday

sensuous

christmas table with old family silver and the june wedding cloth

Our five senses (taste, touch, sight, sound, smell) give us material memories that the body can hold

new year's eve with melted metal luck-fortunes and sugar-coffee-lemon ready for vodka shots

in our unconscious and we are able to access that knowledge of sensuous physical experiences forever.

Perfect: to finish or complete

Perfectionist:  One believing in the possibility of attaining perfection.

Perfection:  The act of making perfect or the state of being perfect.

Yin Yin has been juried into Visions: The Sky's the Limit.  and needs to be shipped next week because there will be a colour catalog.  I put a sleeve for hanging the work along the top (see images above) but have since removed it.  It wasn't perfect.

All definitions are from The Concise English Dictionary

untitled

 today

what is really necessary?

snowy midwinter

 In the darkest depths of winter

 

 the spark of the new year's light

is understood.

Time Passes

It's time for an update on the circle project.
Panel One was installed in the church Oct 30, 2011, but has now been taken down and stored so that the walls of the sanctuary can be cleaned.
Panel Two (pictured) is being hand quilted on the frame. It is nearly done!
The top of Panel Three (see here) is finished and will be go into the frame when number two comes out.
Work resumed on the fourth panel yesterday. It's main fabric is re-purposed wool blankets. See here for an idea of what it will look like. Yesterday Margaret brought in two hand crocheted lace tablecloths for me to use in my work. This makes six that I have received, unsolicited. I am NOT going to cut them up. The beauty, time, labour, and love in each one is palpable. I will use them some day.

What I'd love is to see ten thousand hand made tablecloths installed together.
(Yes, crazy inspired by the 10,000 white roses project seen on Christine's blog.)

the cloud in me

The universe is our refuge, as is the certainty that we are two. Each remote from the other, we are kept alive by means of this insuperable gap.

Nothing can ever fill it. Is it because I do not know you that I know that you are? How do I protect without restraining? You remain a mystery to me. Our alliance will always involve a mystery.
Such is the union between woman and man. I want to live in harmony with you and still remain other.
I want to draw nearer to you while protecting myself for you. In which part of myself do I preserve you?
In which breath? How do I remain without suffocating?
How do I make earth out of air, and protect the cloud in me?

Neither mine nor yours but each living and breathing with the other. What makes me one, and perhaps unique, is the fact that you are,

and I am not you.


All text is from the Prologue of To Be Two by Luce Irigaray (abbreviated )