Tag: Stitch: Sampler

Sampling a life in stitches, 2018

~ Liz A ~ 9 Comments

I recently joined the Fiber Artists of San Antonio (FASA) and volunteered to do a five minute “show and tell” at the April meeting. Only five minutes?! Anyway, I decided to (try to) do a sampling of how my work has changed over the years, beginning with how I learned to stitch as a kid and the last kit I ever did when I was in college …

The Chase Sampler, 1970s

Then moving on to my time as the Needleworker for Colonial Williamsburg in the early 1980s, when I taught students how to stitch silk on linen samplers …

 

while making canvaswork …

and marking linens  …

Followed by my library career days, when I only made time to stitch when on vacation …

as recounted in the post Sampling life: a family in stitches.

Culminating with my retirement, when I realized that cross stitch samplers were no longer what I wanted to do, after one last go at it …

But I’m most looking forward to recounting how I found Jude Hill’s Spirit Cloth and a lively blog community of stitchers: the Kindred Spirits who have sustained me ever since (many of their blogs can be found in the right side bar). Jude’s online workshop Spirit Cloth 101 led to the creation of my now preferred modus operandi, which I refer to as “patchplay” …

the development of which was documented during the creation of Prairie-tea-dyed cloth Land of Flood and Drought 2015 (best understood by going to the end of the 19 or so posts and reading them chronologically).

That in turn led me to Remember 2016, my favorite sampler to date, which shows the way I now learn by playing …

 

one day at a time …

And so it continues …

bagstories

Feeling more like myself

~ Liz A ~ 15 Comments

I am grateful to India Flint for the insights I received during her bagstories project. And I will honor her request not to divulge the construction techniques provided in her private Facebook workshop.

That said, I do want to share part of the journey that led to the creation of this bag …

As you can see, it is somewhat larger than the bag on the right, which was constructed following India’s original instructions …

But those of you who have been reading this blog for a while will most likely recognize its roots in the Remember 2016 cloth, which utilized Jude Hill’s paperless piecing technique …

Indeed, the first patches in this new bag were trial bits from Remember 2016. Others were remains of last year’s Peace Pin Project. And some were made from cloth gifted by Kindred Spirits. Most are linen, either thrift store bought or vintage clothing and linens from my past.
There were even several abandoned slow stitch projects pulled out and finally put to good use …

Speaking of which … I recently went through my scraps, discarding many that were too small and/or too shredded to be of much use. But in going through the myriad bits and pieces, I realized that I recognized each one … where it came from and what project it was used in. The memories that were triggered astonished me. 
So it is that this bag has become a holder of memory. Point to any patch and I dare say I can spin a story (or two or three). In the days to come, I may do just that. But for now, I will rest in the satisfaction of its wholeness and in sharing that here.
Addendum:

First Golden Eye …

Agarita …

and Bitterweed …

US II

~ Liz A ~ 14 Comments

I’m calling it done, with thanks to Don for touching up the frame …

the cloth now named US II, a tribute to our 40 years together.
It was originally imagined in a much simpler form, but after the spare outlines were stitched, it began to tell its own story of the places we have called home.

First in Virginia, where we raised our kids … rivers running through it …

but a faded outline compared to the lighthouse at Cape Hatteras …

long my heart’s home … where I’ve walked many miles by the sea, watched storms roll in, and caught the last rays of sunlight to the west where sea oats bend in the unceasing wind …

And “can’t you just feel the moonshine?”

How perfect then, that we found kindred grasses growing a thousand feet above sea level in the Texas Hill Country …

prairie grasses that sink deep roots into limestone bedrock formed millions of years ago at the bottom of another, more ancient sea.
We share our Edwards Plateau home with abundant wildflowers … bluebonnets, Indian paintbrush, and countless little yellow ones… all interlaced with timeless rivers …

And I dare to say the stars at night are big and bright, here inspired by Hazel and stitched on cloth from a long-worn nightshirt …

Lastly the sun … on a bit of Jude Hill indigo (as are the other two) … a smoldering memory of the 2017 eclipse as seen in St Louis …

because our hearts live there, too.