monkey hands

Morphing Beast; Teaching: Third H.S. Quilt Finished

This little beastie started out with an odd kind of menacing face that never seemed right (see the before face here). A small scrap of fabric and a new face later, this little beast now seems more friendly, even a bit curious. With an ode to Jude Hill's "Beasts" class, and now the Spirit Diaries Course, online, more info here at Spirit Cloth. Check out "Classes".

Tomorrow, after living and working in Beijing for two years, I return to teaching--part time, not full time anymore-- at Keene State College. With temperatures in the teens during the day and the single or negative numbers at night, it's going to be a rude start for an 8am course. Nevertheless, it will be good to be back on campus with colleagues and students, and I'll still have time for fiber and textile work/play.

These generous folks:  

made most the blocks or longarm quilted this great quilt, now on its way to a happy recipient!

Here's to the generous world-wide community of quilters, including longarmer Phyllis Dewey of Quilter's Pantry! Three quilts are totally finished, two more are quilted and waiting to be bound, one more is pieced to send off for quilting, and the blocks pressed for the seventh and final quilt, soon to be squared, cut, and stitched together.  

More Dolls and Mongolia

             

Mongolian dolls made by quilting group members--great Ghenghis Khan inspired faces!

Selenge, her daughter and mother in the quilt shop; they were great hosts and fine company. I'm eager to return.

A new doll gets hair

                                Partially restored Summer Palace in Ulaanbaatar, "Big Sky" country!

Selenge picked me up from the airport in her Prius (just like the one I drive at home except for the language).  I'm working with her to set up a website for the project.  www.mongolianquilts.org 

Itinerant Doll-Maker

I've made dolls with people in the U.S., in India, in China, and now, in Mongolia. It seems to me that people are drawn to dolls and doll-making because dolls are made in our own human image. Creating a doll in a mixed-language group helps create a common language -- two eyes, one nose, one mouth, two arms, and so on.  We are so much more alike than we are different. 

                            These are just a few of the talented quilters I worked with in Ulaanbaatar. 

I brought this doll, upcycled from a sock and scraps of fabric, as a model for one of the dolls I'd be teaching the group to make. It was met with sighs of, "Oh, how Chinese!" and "That is a Chinese doll."  Yes, that makes sense, as she was made by me in China with Chinese materials.

                                                                       Newly made Mongolian dolls! 

 

Maybe Some Moss

(under my tush) when it comes to reading blogs and posting here...  Taking time and space, I guess (thanks Jude, for words). 

Stone figure in Bangkok temple garden

Temple grounds in Bangkok_orchids wrapped around trees

I'm getting my groove back on, with lots of catching up to do, although probably at a slower pace given my new found freedom now that I'm back on my feet.  Things shift again, as always.   

 

 

Doll prototype, Boro patching

I'm using rough unbleached muslin to make some dolls for an upcoming summer teaching project in Mongolia (provided I'm crutch-free and walking well by August). I was going  to make a Mongolian doll in traditional dress last night, but somehow I ended up with home-on-the-prairie or little miss shetl here.  The thing that matters most now is getting the doll pattern down so I can make a papper patten and PDF instructions. So I'm just having fun. The traditional Mongolian costumes will be fun to create, too. I'll take another trip to the Beijing Women's and Children's Museum to look at their great displays of traditional dress as part of the process. 

 
 Tie shoes and wacky socks under that prim dress:  

What kind of face?  I often stumble here.  I should probably make the face before I stitch the doll so I could mess-up and re-do, but it seems the doll's personality doesn't appear to me until s/he's stitched and stuffed. So...simple stitched lines for eyes and mouth?  Embroidered eyes and mouth? Drawn (this is scariest for me) face? No face?  Old dolls often had no eyes/mouth, but it seems to me that's saying something about seeing, smelling, and speaking--as in being heard or something, yes? 

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I'm still working on my boro-inspired apron, but I took a break to patch my pjs. Before taking the boro class, I might have found a black scrap and made an unobtrusive fix with black thread,* but this time I decided I want my work to be visible. It makes me smile.

* or I might well have tossed them--my favorite pj pants--into the giveaway bag.  I'm changing my ways.

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Today marks 16 weeks post-break, and 12 weeks post-op (bone graft/plate/screws) for my poor old left foot.  I'm off to see the surgeon this afternoon.  The last x-ray was six weeks ago and showed "no sign of healing" (i.e. bone graft filling in gap). I'm hoping today brings better news!

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Our air quality continues to be quite bad. The days are gray and hazy--it's like looking through a steam/dirt filled sky. The sun is not visible, and the light stays dim, as if in a heavy rain, all day.

Seeing (and Sewing) Beasts

When I first glanced this poorly dyed (lots of bleeding and smudging) linen batik in Muxiyuan, the large wholesale fabric area in the south side of Beijing, I saw beasts.  I didn't see shapes that could be made into beasts, I saw beasts. My vision or imagination was so strong and clear that I actually thought it was screened with Jude-like (of Spirit Cloth) wild, soulful, imaginative beasts. 

Maybe I just have beasts on the brain these days. I've been dreaming in beasts since beginning Jude's Sprit Cloth Contemporary Boro 2 online course, and it was about this time last year that I was creating a Chinese folklore inspired tigercat project for an enrichment program for migrant workers' children (see more in this post TigerCats at Human Capital Unleashed). Here's an example: 

So, with beasts on my mind, I was delighted that this was a "remnant" of four or so meters, and thus I could purchase the coarsely woven, dyed cloth. Cloth in the market is usually sold only by the entire roll or bolt--typically 100 to 6000 meters--but remnants, sometimes beginnings or ends of rolls that have flaws, are often available.  I washed and dryed the cloth and put it aside. Last night I picked it up and put a 12" square on my hoop. 

This is my first creature (or creatures--is it a three-headed beast, or three beasts, connected?) from this cloth.  More are sure to follow!

Busy Monkey Hands

A bit of this and a bit of that...all over the place these days. Lap projects, mostly. Good for folks on crutches! Like me. 

A new bird with fabric from Shimla, India, a bit of sashiko on 8" square "snack mats" and a new pincushion. Yes, it's a tuna can pin cushion, because I needed a pin cushion, and I had tuna for lunch one day. So retro-craft, I know. In case you're wondering (as I was) pincushion may also be written as pin cushion.

Eyes or no eyes on this birdie? Usually I have an immediate sense, but not this time.  I may be a bit birded out just now. 

The wonkies are finished--the wonky blocks, that is!

For this quilt -- blocks on bed for arranging -- as conceived in this sketch: Wonky Blues quilt. 

For this quilt -- blocks on bed for arranging -- as conceived in this sketch: Wonky Blues quilt. 

Dyed sashiko yarn on muslin face with unraveled wool thread for earrings. A bit of fun today--inspired in large part, I think, by the totally engaging Contemporary Boro 2 online workshop I'm taking with Jude Hill of Spirit Cloth.

Snack time! 

Wool Faces Quilt

The seams in this medium-weight wool needed to be firmly pressed and also stitched to stay flat, so I've been hand-stitching away. It's rather mindless, meditative sewing--quite relaxing at the end of the day when I want to keep my hands busy, and when my brain wants to slow down.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The next step is to add a border or to start quilting without a border in order to make the size and weight more manageable. If I proceed with the second option, I will quilt the "body" and then add front and back borders. 

It's not quite this wonky--pinning it on the design wall has distorted and started to stretch the wool. I didn't leave it there long! The colors in the photos aren't true (they're richer, deeper), but I'm not sure how to remedy that problem. I seem to get either over or underexposed images no matter what I do.

Spring temperatures are here, with highs in the low forties now, but the air quality has been quite bad. Click on the U.S. Embassy's AQI image, below, to read the warning for this "Hazardous" level of pollutants. When it gets like this, as it often does, visability is so poor that flights are delayed or cancelled and highways closed. School children stay inside during recess and phys ed, as does everyone else who can possibly manage to avoid the air. Many people, millions here in Beijing alone, especially the so-called "migrant workers" -- Chinese citizens born in other areas of China who lack official relocation papers from the government--must work outside all day, six or seven days a week, in spite of poor air quality and serious health consequences.

 

Wool Sun, Cotton Moon; Wool Faces Quilt

The little blue cotton cloth-weaving became a moon, and scraps of the wool I've been using for another project are becoming a sun and also the background cloth, inspired by the "Wispering Sun, Moon, and Stars" online course and the "Cloth-to-Cloth" video series I'm taking from (although it feels like with) Jude Hill of Spirit Cloth.  U-tube videos are blocked by government censors here in China, so I haven't seen the videos in "Cloth-to-Cloth" yet, but Jude's pictures and clear instructions, also included as PDF files, are plenty for now.  (I'm looking forward to watching the videos the next time I travel out of China.)

I'm connecting the faces (stitched in New York City, Shimla and Delhi, and Beijing) to other washed wool blocks to make a warm wool throw about 50" x 70" (or so-once I attach a border). This will be a project I can continue working on when I travel; I'm planning to use a combination of traditional hand-quilting methods with sashiko and embroidery to quilt this small blanket.

This is not the final arrangement--I'm still playing with placement.

Aubergine Wool Face

I used to call this color "eggplant," but I like the way "aubergine"feels and sounds when I say it--so lush, earthy, and sensuous.  ~ aubergine ~