Halfway through the year already. How did that happen?
The aerial map is filling up so quickly.
2024 so far
June days:
June
I really like the way the days are such different shapes on this year’s template. It feels like life. Some days feel longer or wider than others; some days have sharp corners; some days have crossing paths. Some days feel like running just to stand still.
June, detail
Some days were too hot.
June, detail
Every day, as always, just choosing thread and colour, letting stitches fall wherever they land. Marking the passage of time.
June detail
Today we can see the back of June.
the back of June
And tomorrow, July. Between times, the cloth lives in this cover. Part embroidery, part patchwork. If you missed it, you can read about the making of the cover here
Everything patchwork here this week. A little sketchbook cover, with one of Jude’s moons finding a home:
sketchbook cover, 6″ x 5″
You can see that I’ve couched a thicker thread (silk perle 3) over some of the seams, just to define some of the lines.
couching in the ditch
The little book of patchwork, I’m calling it. Somewhere to collect and join fragments of thought.
patchwork objectssketchbook page
Inspiration comes from unlikely places. This outdoor paving kit from The Range translates perfectly:
pavement patchwork
I’ve dug out these fragments of late Victorian patchwork, just to look and to touch the antique papers.
Victorian patchwork, impossibly tiny stitches
This week I’m putting a patchwork sampler together, just to see how that might work. At some point there will be a (hexagon-free) paper-piecing patchwork course. Nothing wrong with hexagons, but paper piecing is much more than granny’s flower garden.
Progress on piecing this patchwork is slow, but that’s fine and exactly as it should be.
hand piecing
Sewing by hand creates plenty of thinking time. I’m currently thinking about where I live online. I have the blog here on WordPress, an online shop with Big Cartel, and a Teachable school for online courses, plus Instagram and Facebook. Big Cartel and Teachable are quite heavy on annual maintenance fees, and ideally I’d like as much as possible in one place to simplify things more. I’m basically a Luddite, so I will need to investigate the technical options for reducing or combining everything I have into fewer separate spaces.
At the same time I’m weighing up whether to create more online courses with Teachable, or whether to create some sort of exclusive subscriber-only content for sharing more process videos and techniques etc. That would probably mean setting up something like Patreon, which would result in even more online homes, unless there’s a way to do something like that here on WordPress.
I’m also considering whether to continue offering overseas shipping for physical goods like fabrics and threads. International shipping is very expensive, it can take several weeks to reach its destination, and there can be additional customs charges when it does arrive. I have no control at all over any of that, but fielding the questions and occasional complaint does take time and energy. Customs charges seem to be particularly prevalent in European countries since the UK, in its ill-informed judgement, decided to leave the EU.
The box of patchwork pieces is basically a box of separate thoughts, plans and ideas. I just need to join them together.
There’s a lot going on here. Lots of beginnings but, as always, nowhere near enough time for the middles and the ends.
I’ve rounded up (squared up) some neutral and tea-dyed scraps for patchwork pieces, which will be a quilt eventually. (Cream pieces on a cream rug – someone tell the photographer the artist could have made this easier. Oh hang on, that’s me. And me.)
patchwork jigsaw puzzle
Patchwork, for me, is always about finding or defining connections. Puzzling things out, making sense of things, piecing things together from a few clues. The joining of fragments, little flashes from the past, collecting memories into one place. Because we are our memories, to a certain extent. When we lose the ability to remember, our sense of self feels less secure because the thread that holds us between past and present is broken. We end up losing ourselves along with the unremembered experiences. I think of patchwork as a kind of holding together.
patchwork in progress
I like to piece patchwork in the evenings while watching TV or listening to music. Nice relaxing thing to do.
And that would be fine, except there’s already a nice relaxing evening job in progress. I either have to finish that before I can get to the patchwork, or I have to put that down (again) to work on the piecing.
If you’ve been with me a while, you might recall the beginnings of A Long Life, which has become the current evening project. I started it a couple of years ago and have been picking it up and putting it down ever since.
A Long Life
It’s about six inches wide, and when it’s finished will contain 30,000 stitches. I have no idea how long it is – I won’t measure it until it’s done – but I do know that currently it carries 18,788 stitches. Yes, I count them as I go along.
A Long Life
I change colour for every decade (every 3,500 stitches or so) and change thread for the start of each new year. Factoring in leap years, when it’s had its thirty-thousandth stitch, it will represent the number of days in the life of someone who is just over 82. I have no idea why I’m doing this.
details from A Long LifeA Long Life rolled up
On top of that I have a couple of other possible big projects whirring away in the background, one of which might be a new online course on zero-waste stitching (aka Using All the Scraps).
Definitely playing a game of Tetris with time here. Move one thing up to make room for another thing, and so on more or less indefinitely. Good job I like to be busy.
