Hand Maids

I have the most creative friends.  The interaction goes deep, to imagination and things unworldly.  The relationships are powerful and sustaining.  This week I documented what lives on the design wall,

  

A "threads of meaning" piece for me

A new skirt for my trip to tel aviv

Another pillow

But more remarkable were the two gifts I didn’t expect from two friends – both hand made from the soul.

My newest angel-guide

A story quilt about trusting change.  Every stitch was laid down intuitively.  The precious stones have power and meaning.  The cloth is hand dyed Cherrywood.

Silken beauty!

I am a scarf person.  Scarves are my jewelry.  Somehow, the Vagabond’s Daughter, knew that I love neutral as much as I do color.

It’s remarkable how the peach and taupetones work with my new skirt.

Her labels are as beautiful as the subtle colors that emerge from her dye pot.

Introducing – “On the Design Wall”

I had every intention of adding a post yesterday, er two days ago – my day off from the shop.  I shouldn’t complain but a day isn’t enough to fit in all the things I want to do to catch up on my art.  I started out at 7am, which in the days since we’ve moved has become my normal wake-up time – even earlier.     I’m enticed  by my new creative space and just loving being awake and aware to my whole house, after a long wait to get here.  I don’t even get coffee first, which was my usual habit.  The sunlight in the sewing studio calls me  brightly to attention.  It is east-facing, very zen, I suppose, and full of all things I love: books, art supplies, fabric, my computer.

I had this idea  to start a Pinterest board called “On the Design Wall” now that I have one.  I installed it this week – nine feet tall by ten feet wide.  So here goes….

Pretend that’s me in the corner without my head.  The wall is huge.

Here’s a closeup of the pillow in the picture.  All hand dyed with some hand stitching and a piece of vintage navy lace that finally found a home after years of stashing it.

I purchased these colorful 9″ zippers to make myself lots of skirts this spring and summer.

I finished another Daiwabo Taupe pillow sham to sell in my Etsy shop.   Last if the scraps.

But I digress….Here is the design wall in use.  Hoping for endless ideas in cloth.

Some Cherrywood scraps, shibori and other hand dyes

Transformation

is the word of the day.  Everyone and everything around me is in upheaval, but it’s all positive.  Moving our home has certainly been a transformation and undoubted upheaval, but here is my  minute to update the new Ideas in Cloth that have taken place in the last couple of weeks.  Lots.

She sits in her place above the chair rail in our new family room.

New, almost finished pillow cover for my Etsy shop.

First personal quilt I’ve made in a while.  Design wall still under construction.

My new, very sunny in the morning, workspace.  I used dress pattern fabric for the shade.

A sideways view of fabrics I’m proposing for a quilt commission.

And so many pictures still untaken.  Wishing for more time in my days and thanking those who have lately brought such goodness to the little time there is.