monkey hands

Shopping at the "Black Market" in Ulaanbaatar

I love the colors, the textures, the sounds and the smells.

Today, here's a look at some of the fabric stalls. Tomorrow (or the next day) I'll show photos of some of the other things the market has to offer. It's an amazing experience!

Sign marking a fabric shop

shooting pool outside the market

a stall with rabbits for sale

people selling wares on the market periphery

Selenge of Mongolia Quilters (red coat) entering the fabric part of the market

Selenge negotiates

Selenge loading her Prius. At night the wares are stored in these colorful shipping containers.

Thinking Boro

Jude Hill's "Contemporary Boro 2" online course starts next week (see her  Spirit Cloth blog), so I've been thinking boro as I try to decide what I'll use for my applied learning--an old shirt, perhaps, or maybe a bag to carry.

I've been fortunate to see the boro exhibit a  couple times now at Amuse  in Tokyo (click the highlighted* terms for more information from the source).  If you're in Tokyo or get a chance to visit, this is an amazing place with a vast collection (the result of one man's life's work) of rural Japanese clothes, cloths, cookware and tools, including this farmer's jacket:

and this coat, below (with apologies for the sideways images--these were taken with my phone, and I'm too eager to get back to stitching to fiddle with them--click on image for larger version).

detail of coat:

I have a few more photos of clothes and cast iron tools--let me know if this interests you and I'll try to post more as I go along. For now, my needle beckons...

* barely highlighted--faint gray on my screen, sorry. I'll try to figure out how to fix that.

Bojagi Inspired Scrap Project

Some of you may recall the pojagi (or bojagi) styled curtains I made last year, like the bojagi/pojagi panel in this post: pojagi (in my earlier blog, alone in the studio). I used ramie and silk from KwangJang fabric market in Seoul (click link for more about this great market). 

In the interest of thrift and utility, I've been using the white cotton scraps and odd pieces from my wonky blocks to piece a pojagi-style curtain as I go:

The French seams are machine sewn with odd bits of fabric leftover after squaring up wonky quilt blocks. The cotton isn't as opaque as the ramie; it will be good where more sun protection is needed.

Sashiko Patchwork

Vintage Japanese fabric (1960s-70s) and sashiko on indigo. 19" square, lined in navy cotton. 

Some of you may recall the sashiko squares used in this little nine-patch wrapping cloth (which could also be used as a table topper or wall-hanging) from this post ( nearly a year ago to the day). 

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After sashiko-style quilting several blocks, I'm retiring this project for a while. It's just too heavy and warm to work with now. It will be a cozy comforter while I finish the quilting next winter.

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Personal Note: I'm heading to the hospital tomorrow for sugery--bone graft and plate/screws--to repair my broken foot, so I probably won't be sewing much or posting for a few days. I'll be back at it soon, and I'm taking my Magic Diary Cloth along for the ride in case I feel like stitching!

 

Roots, Spiders, "Mistakes" and Creativity

freshly dug ginseng root on a bed of moss

A very sweet man gave me this box of freshly dug ginseng root a couple days ago to help aid healing (the broken foot repeat). What a good friend! I'll slice it into hot water for tea.

I've long had a fascination with roots of all types--edible and nonedible. I like their twisty, thick-then-thin shapes, and I like the idea of roots, of taking root, of being rooted. I'm awed by the beauty of these particular roots -- like lace, reaching deep and wide for nurishment while creating strong suport, an anchor.  

I'd been thinking of adding roots to the "magic diary" cloth I'm making as part of a wonderful online course I'm taking with Jude Hill of Sprit Cloth, and seeing these roots confirmed that direction. In a connected vein, here's where spiders and mistakes come in:

On impulse (with thanks to Deanna of Eclectic-Meanderings), I started a second online course this week with Karen Ruane, and it's a wonderful contrast with, and compliment to, Jude's course. This week the lesson includes reviewing and/or learning different stitches, some of which I've started practicing: 

The big-ish blue "spider" was wonky, with some legs flushed out and others skinny, long, and sorrowful (I'm just learing this stitch, please be kind). In the context of my growing idea about adding roots to my magic diary cloth (Jude's class), seeing and touching fresh ginseng roots in their bed of moss, and learning new stitches (Karen's class), out of an ungainly spider I created an...um...even wierder spider? Or the beginnings of roots, perhaps? As seen from the top looking down? It seems root-like to me. 

I'm not yet sure where this is going--that's what I like about process and experimentation.

Becoming

something?

Three patches for a nine-patch, perhaps?

Embroidery (sewing thread) on peach linen, orange wool, and white linen.

A foot in process--thanks for the idea goes to Grace of Wind Thread!

Plenty

of time for stitching now.

Embroidered muslin, about 2.5" square 

Broke my foot--5th metatarsal ("Jones fracture")--or rather, broke it again. It happened at the Beijing airport upon return from X'ian Monday night (2/13). The previous fracture (August 2010) never healed properly, even after 16 weeks in various casts and another four weeks in a walking boot. I knew it was "at risk" of refracturing. Now I'm waiting for x-rays and records to arrive from the U.S. so a local orthopedic surgeon can recommend treatment.  

 

 

 

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One kilo of buckwheat hulls and 10 meters of single width (about 18") loose-spun muslin--my purchases at the block-long and wide fabric market in X'ian. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fabric Market in X'ian, China

Great Wall in Winter

One of my adult children has been here for a few days, and my mom arrived two days ago.  This is where we were yesterday--on the Great Wall at Mutianyu, about 90 kilometers north of Beijing. 

A small village, as seen from the Wall.

It was cold on this overcast winter day, cold and quietly beautiful.

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.

New Learning: Quilt Weaving Course

Today I'll begin "Cloth to Cloth--the basics of quilt weaving," an online course from Jude Hill at Spirit Cloth. I've done a bit of random cloth weaving in the past, using scraps of projects to create new fabric, but it's been done as an aside or an add-on, an afterthought. I'm eager to learn from Jude (her "Sun, Moon, Stars" course was/is terrific), and to approach the technique as a primary process of creating unique fabric from cloth weaving to use for backgrounds, accents, and blocks.

This is a musing-on-cloth I made a few days ago as I was playing my way through "Sun, Moon, Stars":

bits of fabric scraps and floss on a scrap of linen; about 3" x 4"