Days passing

Somehow the days are passing. I hit on this edge motif for the solar ritual cloth, a row of one-inch squares in black and white topped with a colorful seasonal line of two-inch squares. Now that I have it I have to repeat it all the way around. It would be tedious except that it’s a perfect small calming package of stitching that builds each morning. If I can manage my impatience long enough, I will finish. It’s helpful to play with a little variation in color and pattern while keeping the element of black and white contrast.

The center is another story. Round things, representing the solstices and equinoxes. I cut the circles down because they were too large and dominating. I may cut them down again until each circle is about four inches in diameter. This reduction gives me interesting border ribbons to play around with.

I made the Autumn corner yesterday and photographed it outside. It’s unsettling to pick up different seasons than the one we are in. Summer will be the last corner I make, oddly.

There are no raw edges. I want there to be raw edges in this cloth. It’s hard for me to trust that a cloth will evolve in a preferred way. Preferred how? I seem to believe that there’s an ideal to get to, and I have to take the right steps. Just take steps, no right or wrong about it.

And the backing. I am visualizing “day sky” — something blue, mottled, and thin. Will I have to dye some blue-gray double gauze that I have with indigo to get the mottling? Maybe a dip in bleach, scrunched up? Curious. But I’m not there yet.