my trembling heart

Happy Winter Solstice

My Trembling Heart on the studio wall,with journals and the book I read while biking.

The kids are starting to arrive today.  Ned and I have been getting the house ready.  

I have also been finishing up the trembling heart piece in the evenings.  

Actually, I've been procrastinating on everything. I give myself so much slack these days. 

For example, I spent two hours mending my foot pillow, (it was not on the to-do list).

I love having a pillow to put my feet on. I make them for myself out of unfinished projects.  The one above was falling apart (from use) and instead of writing those Christmas letters, I did some hand sewing.    

Before bed last night, I thought about blogging and how I have been not been able to.  

So when I gave in to my needle this morning I thought maybe I could just tell you about this project. 

I like to use velvet when I mend.  Can you see the strip of velvet across the back of the pillow? 

Below are the 8 x 10 hand printed photos of my older brother/ younger sister that my mom photographed and my dad developed that I found in my father's papers. The plan is to mail them to my siblings. I think that they are stunning. 

I have not started to decorate yet.  The tree is not up.  

I've only removed the autumn clutter from the living room, and baby proofed it.  Those crystal decanters on the mantelpiece are heirlooms from Ned's family.  We're giving one to each of our kids this year as we de-clutter and carry on through our 70's.

Above, you can see my foot pillow under the part of the table where I sit when I write because it has the best light.  The pillow on my chair was mended with velvet last summer.  

Poem Blanket and My Trembling Heart, two works in progress

Sending out my very best wishing for serenity over the next few weeks.  May 2026 be a year of peace. 

Why I haven't written

all my life   
hand stitched cotton quilt with silk self portrait (etching)  made in 1990 by Judy Martin

I think it was because I prepared a presentation to give over zoom on Dec 1, and doing that took most of my reflective brain, leaving me almost empty.  However, I am grateful to have been given a reason and opportunity to consider how my life and work fit together and what my thesis is.  I hope to be able to share those thoughts here soon.  The talk was recorded.  

Otherwise, I've been staring out the window a lot.  I've been re-organizing my bookshelves.  I've been dyeing a little every day with onion skins, sumac leaves or berries.   I've been doing a lot of stitching.

Thank you for reading this blog.  xo

baby quilt in progress for 3 year old grand daughter - all new fabrics , hand pieced.

mended world

 I think the cross stitch marks the place where this cloth was stitched. 

I purchased it in IKEA department store about five years ago for not very much money.  A pillow cover.  It used to be black fabric. 

I think about Three Continents by El Anetsui . 

 Each stitch made from metal waste.

Then I am reminded of this wedding gift from Etsy  for Grace and Asan.  Their two countries, Canada and Turkey each outlined with stitch.

"I want to put the world into a painting, and then for that painting to repair the world."  Sean Scully

Silenced

by events in Japan and Libya.

African Threads

When I was in Nova Scotia last week I had the privilege of seeing Valerie Hearder's large collection of African Embroideries. To get a better idea of the wide variety please visit her African Threads site. What I am showing here are the unique portraits of contemporary life done by the group Kaross. Each measures about 14 by 37 inches. Val told me that this group employs nearly 1000 embroiders to work the designs made by a few. Each supports their often large extended families with this work. This is Archbishop Desmond Tutu. I purchased this embroidery of the archbishop. I love it. The embroiders are mostly women and are paid by the weight of their stitching. Most of what they do is decorative and very beautiful. The portraits are unusual within her collection. They are political because they are about contemporary life. They are one of a kind. Above is the current South African president, Jacob Zuma. Nelson Mandela at his birthday party. Another version of Mandela's birthday celebration.

Val has work by other embroidery groups in South Africa as well. The aids epidemic in Africa has hit the Continent very hard and the stories she shared with us were heart wrenching. A portion of everything African Threads sells goes to the Grandmother to Grandmother foundation of Stephen Lewis. She has many smaller, more affordable, less confrontational pieces than what I am showing here. This is a piece from a smaller group of thirteen women. Each designs, stitches and signs her own work. The aids story appears again and again. The Zulu woman who made this artwork tells the same story over and over in large tree of life wall hangings like this one. She compares the aids crises to the plague of locusts and war in how devastating it has been to her people. She uses only beads.

African Threads

Valerie Hearder has started a new blog, African Threads, about the African embroideries she brings to North America. She speaks eloquently about the Stephen Lewis Grandmother to Grandmother foundation which she supports with a donation of 15% of her profits. Several new embroideries came in to Val's etsy store just before Christmas.

I attached this one to a cloth bag for Connie and pieced some velvet around another to make a pillow for Nancy.

late as usual

I make quilts, books, and mixed media drawings. I use cloth, sequins, thread, and old clothes. I dye, paint, photograph, and draw. The content of the work is autobigraphical, I suppose, but I've stopped thinking about that aspect and just keep making.

our hearts

The world

The world is too much with us, late and soon.
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers.
Little we see in nature that is ours.
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon.


written by William Wordsworth in 1807