from Journey to Odyssey

Gosh, has it been that long?  The first quilt Journey started here. Further photos from the wayback time machine here on Flickr. And it has been a journey that has developed into an Odyssey. Journey was the original mooncloth.

Sometimes it’s funny to go back and read an old post.  Notice how some things change and others remain the same.  Like how I am still not a quilter.  Blogging for over 10 years now and there are so many posts I still enjoy going back and re-reading- as a reminder. Others not so much- but still a good reminder.

In a much more recent post, I showed you how I was binding the edge of the test mooncloth Under One Moon in a little video. A couple of pics of the semi-finished piece:

under one moon

keep going

This was sent off as a gift with a hope of continuing.  Some thread and a needle included.

Continuing on with the larger one I’m calling Odyssey, I’m realizing how much I like the feel and drape of this cloth in my hands as I stitch on it.  And right now as I head towards Quilt Festival I also realize that about 90%+ of the fabric I see there is not fabric that I would want to hand quilt with. Of course quilting began with the reuse of scraps from clothing and household textiles that lived previous lives and had a softness built into them.  Fabrics now are made for machines with tight weaves, bright colors, and slick finishes.  This makes them harder to push a needle through by hand.  And less desirable to hand quilters. I don’t know how others feel about this but I will be noticing next month at the festival and wondering about it more.

I hope I can get this one finished in time.  Or near to-at least in a way that it can be continued on the road. Late afternoon light…
Seems it’s a Nine patch.  Just turned out that way.

And in workshop news… the upcoming indigo workshop at the Japanese American National Museum is going to be a little different.  We will be making some small fermentation vats that folks can take home and continue with.  We will also be using the pre-reduced indigo and doing more shibori.  Perhaps you want to explore doing some more detailed stitched shibori on larger cloth?

making pattern stencils

transferring pattern

stitching choices

nui shibori-many variations

Workshop details and registration are on the museum site. Saturday and Sunday October 8-9

all cloth and thread dyed in the fermentation vat.  mostly rescued fabrics. silk and cotton threads.