we have hardly begun, we are already here

tiny red hearths 

she was born 2014, the quilt was finished in 2016

velvet shapes

she was born 2017, quilt was finished 2018

cotton pinwheels

she was born 2020

quilt not finished yet.  Pictured are front and back, hand pieced.

the 10 year old.

the seven year old

the almost four year old.  

indulge me

Love Spreads

Another post about doing my work while grandmothering the new twins.

I only had one piece with me for nearly three weeks and it's gone through several nick names.

For a while I called it Holy Rothko, because of the dark reddish field of colour floating between the warm grey linen borders and because of the holes that marked it in a grid.

Then as I continued working on it, I called it Holy Holy, because it had taken on a spiritual quality.

For a while it was as if this piece helped me confront my own mortality.  

Grace with Juni

.

Judy with Daisy

I'm working it from the back side, stitching with running stitch around and around the backsides of the reverse applique dots, and then cutting away the sheer fabric that covers them.

So that the velvet circles bloom.   

While in the rented house, I'm taking care of Grace's cat for a while as her household gets used to the twins.    In the above photo, you can spy the quilt I mended last year on the bed.  Ned didn't come this time, but our other two daughters took turns helping their sister.

Mostly I've been cooking for the new parents.  I've been using recipes from the pandemic cookbook I compiled in 2020 of family favourites.  

I've been able to get in an hour of stitching by the window in our rented house each morning.

The piece is still not finished, but getting closer.

Love Spreads pinned to studio wall, nearly finished.

Newest title?  Love Spreads 

Inspired by a quote Maria Popova  sent me in her newsletter:  

Love is essentially self-communicative:  those that do not have it catch it from those who have it.  True love is unconquerable and irresistible; and it goes on gathering power and spreading itself, until eventually it transforms everyone whom it touches.  Meher Baba   

Home from England

It's easy to say - trust in yourself.

It's easy to say - just do one thing that you're sure of and as you do that, you will start to know what to do next.

It's easy to say - plunge in, and then go slowly.

It's easy to say -  not to know but to go on.

Working intuitively.

I think that this kind of approach seems mysterious and a little scary, 

but it really is very much like life itself. 

we went to a family wedding in Newcastle on Tyne in the UK..  There were peeling church bells

We don't know what will happen each day.

It helps to follow routines.  It gives a sense that we do know.  

For example I always sleep on the same side of the bed.

But many things happen over the course of a day that you cannot plan for.

You just have to react.  

A typical example is a conversation.

You cannot predict what the grandson will tell you or what your old friend will ask you, but you will reply.  And it will be a good reply.

The conversation will continue.  Something worthwhile will happen.

You didn't know that this would happen.  You didn't plan for it. 

Same with my stitching. 

When I begin, I have a general idea inspired by the materials.

For the torso piece in this post, I was triggered by the faded indigo silk.  

I took the faded cloth with me to England along with a wool backing cloth and some pinkish toned threads.

I honestly did not know what would happen with it. 

I started at the edges and with couching.    

I liked how they became strong and also lively.

I drew the piece into my journal,

Then I looked at some photos of pre-history Newgrange 

and put some dots and zigzags into my journal drawing. 

The British Rail system is really good.  Ned and I spent quite a bit of time on trains moving back and forth between the north of England and the south west region of Cornwall.

Couching is one of my signature techniques.

As I was doing it, I thought about another favourite technique, the reverse applique dot.

I could reveal the white backing cloth using that technique. 

We visited the Hepworth Gallery in Wakefield to see the Sheila Hick's retrospective.  

While in England I stitched when I needed to. 

In the middle of night sometimes and also on trains and planes.  

Doing one thing and then another thing

Liking something and repeating it 

Not liking something and not repeating it.  

This is the way I work.

Our elder daughter and her teen boys and our son and his wife went to the wedding too.

Sometimes 'mistakes' happen, 

and I have to cut things up or in half and start again. 

I keep going.

I don't know but I keep going. 

princess or mermaid?

I'm not sure if I've mentioned this recently, but I've been working on my archives.

stitching in car on highway 69 south bound

My archives include photos and papers and actual quilts but this post's text is about my journals.  

(the images in the post are of my recent stitching and grand daughter collaborative drawings)

My journals are 'my book' and I have been writing it for 37 years.  

by 5 year old maia and grandmom 

A few years ago I started to type selected journals into the laptop.  

In the beginning,  I bundled up the books and put them back on the shelf.  

See here.  

by 5 year old maia and grandmom

However, that wrapping only added to the 'journal clutter' 

that I worry about leaving  behind.  

stitching in car on highway 69 north bound

So now I am giving them to Ned to burn one by one.

I will never finish going through all of them,

but the project remains fascinating to me and I do it an hour each day.

Maybe some year I'll use the notes that are organized chronologically to help me  

write a memoir or an autobiographical novel about being a mother artist.

truth telling

I went into the studio last week and pinned things up and looked.

I thought the dotted sheer panels I made last summer were finished pieces in themselves, but now I know better.  They are layers.  I look and I move things around and look some more.

Sometimes I just look.  

Stumped.

I would like to speak honestly about blogging.  

Writing  this blog seems hard lately and I am going to take a sabbatical from the writing part of it.  I will still post photos of my work, but please don't expect me to write.  I can't.

And there is something else.  

Recently, I've received emails that let me know that my blog is not working.  People have been asking for help with comments or following.  Blogger won't let them in anymore.  I don't know what has changed. 

 Come over to instagram with me. It's easier.  My handle there is @judithemartin

from 2008 journal:  Accept me.  Love me.  Who am I from the inside out?  I am enough as I am. 

Fare Well

Today is the last day of 2020 and I am thinking about endings.                                                         About things feeling finished.     About turning the page.

Above is  Underfoot The Earth Divine, one of the few pieces I finished during the pandemic.

The first image in this post is the reverse side of the piece, and it high lights the lovely wool thread drawing that happened spontaneously.   

The second image shows the front, pieced from rescued damask table linens.  You can see where I cut holes into the piecework in the lower half, and then repaired them with velvet.  

Good bye 2020.  

We've had many challenges this year.  

We've learned a lot about our selves.  We've learned that we can rely on our own selves.                 We've learned that we are strong and we are beautiful.  We've learned that we will figure it out.

I spoke about these ideas of inner strength and softness in the lecture I gave in Toronto last October.  The lecture shares about where I live and about the creation of my work.  It details the spring and summer of 2020 and shows how my work helps me to carry on through emotional turmoil. I learn to trust myself through the step by step making of each piece.   

The lecture shows how I've learned how to let things rest when I don't know quite what to do next.  

And that mending and correcting errors  are essential because the journey of broken-ness is part of each piece and also part of me as a human.

The lecture seems a little slow at the beginning, but I encourage you to visit it when you have a quiet 45 minutes.  I hope that you can find the time for a visit with me, my dear friends.  Here's the link.

Thank you very much for being with me through 2020.  I felt your support.  Love You!   

how monkeys fold quilts

 visited son's family

 spent time with the almost 3 year old

 got to see the quilt I made her 

xo