April 12, 2014

The Polar Vortex

I started The Polar Vortex when our world was layers of snow, ice and cold.I finished it last night, just as the yellow of the daffodils burst open all around me.

I want to pass along something I actually learned from the woven panel on the right (and originally from Spirit Cloth).  That is, the utility of having completed components hanging around.When I am not working on something specific, I followed Jude's example of creating random weavings, pairings (stitching sets of two scraps together), and other little bits and pieces. I was never sure what to do with them so I threw them into an old wooden box.  When I was looking for border panels for this piece, I pulled stuff from the scrap baskets and then had the brilliant idea to go back to the wooden box, where I found all kinds of more complex goodies. Voila!

My goal was to stitch more freely than I have in the past, not worry very much about outcome. The pink beads came from the winter sky at dusk this year, which was ice blue with long wispy lines of ice pink. As for those weird stitches in the gray sky, the best I can figure is that aliens snuck in while I was sleeping, grabbed a needle and gray floss, and crafted thread signals to the Mother Ship.

11 comments:

  1. Julie--love the spontaneity and joy of this piece. and the reminder the value of randomness. this makes me smile--i'll carry it through my day. thanks.

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    1. Thanks, Patricia. And yes, randomness. Exactly.

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  2. hey, I just popped over from Nancy's where I began laughing and continue to do so over here, the two of you have brightened my day, big time, so thank you to you too;-)

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  3. "wild thing you make me heart sing!"
    (The Troggs from a very long time)

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    1. Despite my dazzling good looks, I am old enough to remember all the words.

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  4. julie. with your humour " you make everything groovy" to continue the Troggs lyric,
    i love your spin on the winter. and i relate to P.V. lindamorris

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    1. I think I love you. But I want to know for sure [bass bass bass bass]

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  5. i love the alien stitching a LOT. am working on being able to let that kind of stitches
    create their own part of the story...it's not easy...but you have created very
    interesting symbols here...you encourage me to keep going...
    This is just Great...makes me Happy thinking of Weather this way....

    and just an aside...your email alerts for posts are still going into my Spam thingy...
    i don't know how to fix that. so i am going to reenter my info above and see if that helps....

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    1. Ha, what if all weather was just the wake of a beast???

      Spam thingy happens because of a filter you have set (or have not removed) from your email options. Fixing it is well over my pay grade but play around with it and see.

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  6. hey julie me again lindamorris. just wanted to say thank you for the reminder about having cloth pieces handy, i was unhappy with a backgrnd in a piece i was working on, read your entry here and found the perfect thing, in some "colour blanket" strips of colour a la jude i had in a drawer. so .appreciate that sharing. ( i have begun a blog not sure if i can profile self here , i will try it, but is taking me awhile to figure it all out, will try another time if not work now )

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    1. Isn't it fun to be able to root around in your own piles for stuff that is already put together? I will head over to your blog and see what you've been up to...

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