Weaving progress and goodbye

I'm very much enjoying my weaving. I keep having to unweave and reweave as I go wrong. But I'm happy with where this is going, and am learning a lot. 

Because I'm doing the 1YearofStitches2017 project it is an easy transition moving from one thing to the next: because you are in the same room; because you see it awaiting your touch; because you have awoken the inner whatever; because colour and texture are there calling to you. 

Part of that daily practice opening doors.

We had the funeral service for Cecil this week, a gentle saying goodbye for a very few of us. Pen lead the service, as she did for Mum. She is exactly who you want to help say goodbye to someone you've loved; her kind heart shines out, she is reverent, firm, gentle in her words, gently humorous too, all expressed through the foundation of being that is her faith.

When I stitched that afternoon, I nestled in some last seeds, dispersing in the spring breeze amongst the ripe buds of new beginnings, life always arising in the release of old life passing. Part of letting go of a beautiful person, adding a little memorial - not to remember her by, she is engraved on my heart, but to say

"this person meant something"

Practice too

One of the pleasures of Christine's classes is the lunch time discussion. Last time we talked about the benefits of using sketchbooks and also a daily practice like 1 year of stitches. In both you take yourself out of, analytical, active rational brain mode, which tends to predominate in our day to day lives, and relax into doing and being mode. We talked about the way this sort of practice can release creativity. One of our class members was very dubious so it's got me thinking about it as I stitch or weave. What is happening here?

I would liken it, in part, to the hours spent practicing scales, arpeggios, five finger excercises and then my pieces, when I learnt the piano. I think in part you are developing muscle memory; allowing your body to do just this thing, whatever it is, without thinking about the why. You are being with your needle and thread, piano keys, the shading in this bit of the sketch, these colours of weft and the rhythm of the weave. You are getting into the zone.

But the other thing that is happening is that the act of doing allows the subconscious to make associations: it resembles when you're trying to remember something, and the minute you stop trying it pops into your head, or a day later, or the following week. The trying can act as a block, but in doing, you are opening yourself to the possibility of something, without worrying about what.

With my tapestry weaving, still very much in its infancy, I am just watching what happens as I work. My fingers are learning the shape of the weft on the loom, my eyes are absorbed in colour and form, I have a sort of plan, but mostly I am learning how to do that thing; how to make shapes, to change colours, to put colours together.

So, having noticed that my weaving wasn't covering the warp threads, I loosened out my tension, creating "bubbles" to allow the yarn to flex at round the warp, shown here before beating down.

Then I realised that my weaving was putting on weight, a diet was needed. I had begun with three colours, one thread of each, to allow a level of refinement in the shading ....... however

So I cut down to two colours on the go at a time, with the odd insertion of a single pass, or half pass in a different colour, just to see what will happen.

And meanwhile the sort of design, shady in the back of my mind, continues to emerge

Likewise, with my stitching ......

Practice

One of the pleasures of Christine's classes is the lunch time discussion. Last time we talked about the benefits of using sketchbooks and also a daily practice like 1 year of stitches. In both you take yourself out of, analytical, active rational brain mode, which tends to predominate in our day to day lives, and relax into doing and being mode. We talked about the way this sort of practice can release creativity. One of our class members was very dubious so it's got me thinking about it as I stitch. What is happening here?

I would liken it, in part, to the hours I spent practicing scales, arpeggios, five finger excercises and then my pieces, when I learnt the piano. I think in part you are developing muscle memory; allowing your body to do just this thing, whatever it is, without thinking about the why? You are being with your needle and thread, piano keys, the shading in this bit of the sketch. You are getting into the zone.

But the other thing that is happening is that the act of doing allows the subconscious to make associations: it resembles when you're trying to remember something, and the minute you stop trying it pops into your head, or a day later, or the following week. The trying can act as a block, but in doing, you are opening yourself to the possibility of something, without worrying about what.

So, with my stitching, I follow the length of thread, the colour, whether I feel like using a familiar stich or experimenting. Today was a catch up day, so four needles and thread.

Today was also the first quarter, the balanced moon, the moving towards light again. She rose today at 10:30 and will set at 2:15 tomorrow morning.

But inevitably, because it has been raining, or it's windy, or I've noticed leaves coming through on the flowering currant, or new growth in the soil - these things come out in the stitching (sometimes they masquerade as elephants)

Likewise with my tapestry weaving .........

Tapestry Update

Once a month the little group of us from Sussex Stitchers still get together to do our bit of weaving. You'll remember I started with this - which has a few nice bits, but is basically about learning various techniques. 

I enjoy the colours, and they have a relationship with the photo collage that I started with, but the forms are uneven and don't relate to the design.

"Life is for learning"

Here is where my current piece has got to - shown upside down, as that will be the orientataion when it comes off the loom.

loosly based on the Nazar symbol, but there will be more below. Shapes symbolic of house and home if I have the space.

I'm rather pleased with it so far, though looking at the bottom, lighter area, I can see that I need to rework it to cover the warp better. I either need to loosen the tension on my weft thread or use a slightly narrower weft. I'll see which works, and refer you to the quote above :-)

The coming of green

The first swirl of green has rushed in on the band of blue above the birds

Does it grow from, or fly into the moon?

is its source perhaps the dark moon on the other side?

who can tell,

all we know is htat green is precious, it signifies life

a change of colour and a new moon

Did I mention in the plan that, as well as stitching by the phases of the moon, I am also going to change some of the colours I am using according to the seasons? No? I thought not. I'm hoping this isn't going to be one "rule" too many in this project, but we are moving into Spring now, so yesterday I drew off a series of greens going from darks to lights. 

Half of my selection of threads will continue the same throughout the year, relecting the turning from dark to light of the moon, but the rest will change. I am thinking reds, browns and golds during Autumn, they seem appropriate, but am still puzzling about summer; perhaps shades of purple? What do you think? It could be yellow for the summer sunshine, but it's hard to go really dark with yellow, unless I use the Autumn colours. So, some thinking to do while I enjoy a lovely range of warm and cool greens as spring progresses and the earth begins to give of her bounty.

Here's where I am

And here's where the Moon is

a bit of a catch up

Well, I may not have been blogging, but I have kept up with the stitching and am now moving through my second moon phase, past the last quarter, delving down into the dark again. This feels appropriate as I lost a much loved Aunt two weeks ago; readers of my other blog will have met Cecil. She would have been 92 next birthday and was one of my inspirations to start stitching. We shared interests in gardening and stitchy things, and when she was still active in the WI I always envied her trips to Denman College for stitching tuition.

So here is the current state of my year of stitching project

Lots of different stitches

Dark and light keeping pretty much in balance

Watching what everyone else is posting via the Facebook group is a real pleasure; there is just so much variety there. Also little snippets of people's lives and thoughts as they comment on what they are stitching and why.

Beautiful that we can unite in such a lovely occupation in the face of all that the world throws at us.