Weavening

Weavening...the process of evening out woven blocks by weaving them together.

Jude created the process and taught it somewhere on Spirit Cloth.  I made up the word.

It describes what I am doing in the studio right now... weavening my fruit juicy cloth woven blocks together in groups of four, to start.  And then, eventually, weavening the four to each and so forth until...well, who knows.

Its really fun, mostly because I  decided to overlook the fact that because my strips were not the same size to begin with, row rarely meets row, column rarely matches column. I decided to overlook this because the alternative was to start all over with fresh, measured strips and that seems ANTI everything I am trying to become. Or actually, that I already am, since I am generally described in this family by the spinach in my teeth, the wine stain on my shirt, and the dirt all over my toes. Himself says even my smile is crooked. In short, I ain't hardly a precision kind of gal.

Anyway, I start out with four guys that are in position according to a master photo off the collection on the design wall.  The blocks are woven onto harem cloth and I've been putting each group on a piece of unbleached muslin, mostly because I have that.

Then comes the fun part: introducing each edge to its neighbor. Some go over, some go under. Some disappear and a new strip bit jumps in that I hope will get integrated into the neighborhood at large when the stitching comes.  I can't describe how interesting and joyful this is, getting so up close and personal with each edge.  

Then, I pin it all down, prick myself ten different places at once carrying it to my living room chair, and invisible-baste every edge going across and going down. Yesterday I also basted an entire row to my shirt. I have no idea if this is what is necessary to make this cloth durable enough for use...I will let you know in 3 or 4 years or until Jude steers me right.

In the end, I have these.

They seem sturdy, and yet, they are wonderfully, incredibly soft.  I don't understand how that happens...layers of cloth get SOFTER, not harder.

I am really happy.