hoop by hoop

 one thing at a time

slowing down
hoop by hoop.
I don't need much really.
This enforced quiet time is just what I've been wanting.
hoop by hoop

I use the hoop as a design tool
I stay within its boundary
not planning but trusting
I'm not sure it will be OK

 "living is a form of not being sure,
not knowing what next or how
the moment you know how
you begin to die a little"  agnes de mille

an emergence
an unfolding
hoop by hoop
like nature does
hoop by hoop

the creative act is miraculous
it is defined by its situation

we are defined by our situation

studied simplicity
the world's fragility
the connection of textiles and healing
hoop by hoop

this piece is very large  (nearly 9 feet square)
the size means that it is part of my life for years
three years just for the stitching

hoop by hoop

this cloth is physical evidence
of hours of labour
of silence
of stillness
of healing for body and soul

 "the repetitive motion of a line
the caress of it
the licking of wounds
the back and forth
the endless repetition of waves
the rocking a person to sleep
an endless gesture of love"  Louise Bourgeois

hoop by hoop
made with the body
not the mind
with the heart and the empty quiet

you never know what's going to happen
please let me be myself and love me for it
hoop by hoop

with my hoop

In the work of their hands, they documented not only the world around them, but their inner world - a landscape of their loves, wounds, hopes, wishes, fears, and dreams.

The quilt was their confession in cloth, a form of visual music- life compressed, organized block by block, measure by measure, pulsing with heartbeat, rhythm, and melody - songs they never knew they were singing.

And that very object, the quilt, the consummate symbol of their femininity rolling, comforting, protecting, embracing all of their life, accompanied them through their rites of passage. 

It also became their magic carpet, their release.

I found this text in my 1990 journal

It was originally written by Barbara Damashek and Molly Newman, co-authors of the musical play Quilters.  They based their play on a book The Quilters: Women and Domestic Art

The photos are of two quilts I'm stitching now.  

fold lines and silk patchwork

women's vintage handkerchiefs, some cotton, some linen,  unfolded

My dear friend Connie gives me things when I visit her.
Over the winter she gave me a box of handkerchiefs.  Then she gave me another.
I pinned the hankies up to see if they would cover my design wall,
Yes, I think they will.

Then I noticed the beautiful folds.
The hills and valleys, the lines and creases.
Then I thought about how those lines came to be.
Laundry.
Washing, bleaching, ironing, folding carefully, ironing again and again.
Making small packets of empty heat and time.  Holding it secret.
No stitching other than the occasional monogram, which I believe was done in a factory.

I just wanted to make a note of this.  Of me noticing.

Martha Agry Vaughn Quilt 1805  Maine  silk patchwork

I have also been looking at this beauty.
It's giving me a path.
It is in the collection of the Winterthur Museum.

day lilies/solar dye

 April collected the day lilies each morning - those that had bloomed and perished.  She stuffed them into glass jars and topped them up with water.

We got so many, we dumped the solution into a galvanized steel tub.  I think this tub changed the dye colour from red/pink to brown/yellow-green.

 

We moved the solution into plastic pails and left it all for a couple of weeks.  The last time (daughter) April did this, she used a glass jar and left it for weeks.  She says that the silk turned purple then.

  

this time, the silk turned grey-green and a wool crepe turned yellow green

  

These are wool crepe.  They feel wonderful.