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I Ching Modern Quilt-along: Week 8 ~ Cutting
Introduction
Finally we begin working with the materials! Yay! There HAS been a lot of prep work for the I Ching Modern quilt-along. I appreciate your patience!
Since the last post on TRANSLATING, I hope you have decided on the form or pattern for your I Ching blocks.
In order to immerse myself in randomness I have decided to pre-cut all the shapes I need for my I Ching Modern Quilt. The shapes will then be pulled blindly as needed, according to whatever hexagram I throw that day.
If you want to use the same form I’m using for translating your hexagrams then follow the specific instructions below. If you’ve created your own pattern then figure out the shapes needed in each color way and start cutting your fabric accordingly.
Information
I’m making my I Ching blocks from strips and rectangles. Each block will be 12″ wide and 18″ long. Six lines or strips compose the length of the block.
YANG lines (made from one strip):
So 18″ divided into 6 parts = 3″. Remember to add a 1/4″ seam allowance for each seam. Therefore I am cutting 12 1/2″ x 3 1/2″ strips from my dark neutrals and from my bright colors. Put each color-way of strips into their own paper bag.
I am using dark-neutrals strips for the solid yang unchanging lines.
I am using bright-colored strips for the solid yang changing lines.
YIN lines (made from three rectangles):
The broken yin lines contain three sections. So 12″ divided by 3 parts = 4″. After adding my 1/4″ seam allowance on each side, I am cutting 4 1/2″ x 3 1/2″ rectangles in all three color-ways. Place each color-way of rectangles in their own paper bag.
I am making the broken yin unchanging line with two dark-neutral rectangles and a light-neutral rectangle in the center.
I am making the broken yin changing line with of two bright-colored rectangles and a light neutral center.
Probability (how much to cut):
I will need 24 I Ching Modern blocks to make a large square sized quilt, 72″ x 72″.
There’s a 50/50 chance to throw either a solid or broken line. If I need 24 blocks with 6 lines each that’s 144 lines or strips.
Half will be YANG solid (72), and a quarter of that half will be changing (18). So I will cut approx 18 strips from my bright colors, and 54 strips from my dark neutrals.
Half the strips will be YIN broken and will have the same chance of occurring as above. So I will cut 72 rectangles from my light neutrals, 36 rectangles from my bright colors, and 108 rectangles from my dark neutrals.
It will be interesting to see how close the outcome matches the probability! It is likely that the real ratios will be off. In that case I will cut more shapes as needed at the end of the process.
Assignment
Okay cut away!
If you’ve already thrown a series of hexagrams go ahead and sew together several of your blocks in one sitting. From there sew a block when you ask the oracle a new question about your creative process and cast a new hexagram.
Next week I will illustrate the entire process of ASKING the oracle, CASTING the coins, READING the oracle’s response, and SEWING the block.
Leave a comment if you are participating in the quilt-along. Also post any questions you might have.
It’s never too late to join an online quilt-along! I’ll be posting new segments of the quilt-along on Mondays. Access the archive and subscribe to the RSS feed here: I Ching Modern Quilt-along.
I’ve set up an I Ching Modern Flickr Group if you want to post images of your sketches, process, and final results.
Posted in Craft Therapy, Quilt Alongs, Tools, Tips, Tutorials
Tagged ichingmodern, quilt pattern
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Bereavement Work
I’m making two memorial quilts for Quinn and Sailor Hill, from their father’s clothing. David Hill was the captain of a ship that sank at sea. He saved the lives of 120 crew members by communicating their location. He went down with the ship.
His wife Amy commissioned the quilts. She was 5 months pregnant with Sailor when David died. Quinn was three. I can’t imagine the depth and pain of her loss, but I can connect with it compassionately. Especially when I’m stitching these quilts together for her children.
Find out more about my approach to quilt making and the bereavement process at Passage Quilting.
Posted in Craft Therapy, Passage Quilting™
Tagged bereavement, clothing, davidhill, memorial
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Good Friday Prayer
It’s Good Friday, the day of Christ’s death and burial, so I chanted a little prayer to Jesus while I was stitching today. Do you ever sing or chant or hum a tune while you’re quilting?
Tonight I’ll attend the Good Friday Liturgy at St. Gregory of Nyssa Episcopal Church in San Francisco. It is a powerful ritual enactment of Christ’s burial.
The sanctuary is stripped bare and draped in black and very dark. Everyone enters and leaves in silence – no socializing or whispering. It’s completely somber.
There are many scripture readings, hymns, and prayers. The highlight is the chanting of scripture that describes the trial and passion of Christ.
Everyone receives a tulip and half way through the service we follow the icon of the dead Christ. The icon is carried into a big rotunda surrounded by the icons of 100 dancing saints and placed on the communion table. One by one we bring our tulips to the table and lay it next to the icon of Jesus. Some people bow or kiss the icon as they place their tulips.
There is a blessing of incense around the table towards the icon and flowers and out to all of us. People bow to receive the blessing as the incense is shaken and expelled in their direction.
Then a sublime chanting begins and everyone prostrates – like Muslims – during parts of the chant. The movement of prostrating is very intense and humbling – up and down, up and down.
When it’s all over we leave the sanctuary in silence and while exiting into the cold dark air we each receive a fresh-baked hot cross bun to take and eat – HUNGRY into the night.
Posted in Craft Therapy, Mantras for Creativity, My Creative Process, Passage Quilting™, Stitching
Tagged bereavement, davidhill
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Mend It Better Winners All
What a great title for a book!
Thanks to all who entered the Mend It Better Giveaway with your AWESOME comments on How To Mend A Broken Heart. I can’t begin to tell you how impressed I am by the wisdom in your responses. I may need to create a sidebar link to your comments as a reference for all of those who at some point will be in need of some serious heart mending.
I’m also happy to report that my heart is feeling quite mended these days!
- Time, the great healer
- Daily prayer and meditation
- The wise, listening, and insightful hearts of friends (and my therapist)
- Feeling my feelings
- Nurturing compassion for myself and others
- Expressing my anger with humor
- Regular exercise
- A kale-carrots-humus-meatless diet
- Breaking all contact with, access to, and thoughts of the ex/relationship
- My solo trip to Death Valley
- The blessings of coworkers
- The consistent calls from my sister and father
- And the kind words of advise and support from all of you
… have made all the difference. I am very grateful to be single and back on my path, with a rich and fertile heart. I think my capacity for love has actually increased!
You are all winners but the winner of the Mend It Better
Feli says:
I think it is wise to still be thankful for the love, the joy, the devotion, the passion, the phantasies, the state of mind you were in while you were in love with the one who broke your heart. Nobody can take that away from you.
It’s your former boyfriend’s karma to have finished the relationship and perhaps he didn’t tell you the real reasons why he left you. You don’t know anyway if this love would have survived the daily routine that follows after the intoxication of the brain in the first year of love.
To my opinion good and close friends who listen to the seemingly never ending thoughts and doubts that dominate your mind are the best remedy.
And……..time is really a healer!
Take care!
Greetings from Germany
Feli
Posted in Current Giveaways, Mending, Personal Heritage
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Death Valley Defiance
On my third day in Death Valley I hiked the Golden Canyon/Gower Gulch Loop. I had already hiked for 3 hours and it was the hottest part of the day when I came to the base of a steep climb against a chalk-white canyon wall. I almost turned back, but something clicked.
Full of anger, sadness, shame and fear I started climbing that wall. I began at the beginning of the relationship and called up every memory from the big events to the most intimate details to the brutal ending… AND I kicked the ass of every last one of them! I was relentless, like the steep path in front of me that went on and on. I cried. I climbed. I felt the bittersweet of each painful, fond memory and I let go, one by one, step by step. In my defiance, I felt great compassion for myself.
This was my reward. What a view. I felt strong and held at the top of that canyon.
Everything was silent. There was only the sun and the wind and the rocks.
I didn’t see any other people. I was alone with Death Valley.
The experience was cathartic.
When I got back to my campsite I was feeling very good. Over fifty teenagers had arrived while I was gone. They were preparing to leave on a three-week backpacking trip, in groups of ten, the next morning. There was a lot of buzzing youthful energy around the camp.
I grilled a small pork loin and my friend, who I had met on my first night in the desert (just as the full moon was rising), joined me for dinner. John brought some whiskey.
We drank hot toddies, talked about relationships, and watched the beautiful high school fireflies packing their sacks, brushing their teeth, writing in their journals, preparing for sleep.
I Ching Modern Quilt-along: Week 7 ~ Translating
Introduction
Over the last several weeks we have begun READING and documenting our I Ching castings into our daily creative process. The next step in the I Ching Modern Quilt-along is TRANSLATING these random readings into a quilt form.
So here is the thing. If you read my blog you know that most of my quilts are improvised. I’ve written extensively about the modern improv quilt making process.
The I Ching Modern Quilt is NOT improvised. It is completely determined by a random process. Once you decide on a form for translating your I Ching hexagrams, there are no more decisions to be made. Improvising however requires a choice every moment of the process.
How are these two processes linked – random vs. improv? And what is the value of making a quilt using a random process if you are into improvising?
Many people who view an improvised quilt will comment on how random it looks. A random factor infused into the improv process will loosen up the imagination and break us out of a rut.
What does randomness look like? What does fate feel like?
If you improvise on a regular basis, notice how it feels not making any decisions and merely executing fate. If you follow traditional patterns and map out your quilts in an orderly way before hand, notice how it feels to make predetermined but unpredictable blocks. In other words notice your rhythm of attention!
Information
Now is the time to get out your graph paper and use the I Ching castings that you have already documented to decide on the form that your quilt will take.
Assign Color Sets
Your hexagrams have three variables – unchanging lines, changing lines, and the spaces between broken lines. See the step on CASTINGfor a refresher on how to document the unchanging and changing lines of your hexagrams.
Previously you gathered three sets of colors. Now assign each set to one of the variables listed above. I will use my dark set of neutrals for the unchanging lines, my set of bright colors for my changing lines, and my light set of neutrals for the spaces between the broken lines.
You can invert this relationship if you want more of a white quilt (see right). Or you can use your bright colors for the spaces and your light set of neutrals for the changing lines, etc.
Check out this link for more clarification on how to choose fabrics for dynamic color sets.
Choosing/Creating The Form (Block Pattern)
In this post I’ve include several sketches of different translations using the same set of castings. Notice how the randomness plays out differently in each form!
Remember we are working with six lines or a hexagram, made up of three lines or trigram. The sketches above include two different hexagon patterns, a traditional flying geese pattern and a simple strip pattern in two different dimensions.
When sketching out your translations build the pattern from the bottom right corner just as the I Ching hexagram grows from bottom to top. Since the primary hexagram contains the relational hexagram if there is one, I’ve only included primary hexagrams in my translations.
Usually when you see a hexagram drawn out you see spaces between each line. Notice that in my translations I am not including the horizontal spaces between the lines themselves. I’m only including spaces between broken lines. I think this abstraction creates the modern feel, but of course you are welcome to include these horizontal spaces in your translation.
I may make more than one I Ching Modern Quilt, but for my first one I will be using the simple strip pattern in the dimensions of a 12″ x 18″ block (see sketch at top of Information section).
Think of the ways you can adapt traditional patterns such as Log Cabin and others, to translate your random castings. The possibilities are plentiful.
Calculating Sizes and Quantity
Use the graph paper to help you calculate the size of your blocks, the size of the individual pieces that compose the blocks, and how many blocks you will need to make the size quilt you want to have.
Assignment
Get your graph paper out and your colored pencils and have some fun designing the way you want to translate your castings. Sketch out several options including ones based on traditional block patterns, and ones that you design yourself. Don’t map out the entire quilt using every casting, you only need a sample. Be sure that whatever you design you can figure out how to sew it!
If you want to use the same translation I’m using, I will provide complete sewing instructions, starting with measurements in the next installment of the quilt-along when we begin CUTTING.
If you have clarifying questions please post them in the comments and I will respond. I’ve also set up an I Ching Modern Flickr Group if you want to post images of your sketches, process, and final results.
It’s never too late to join an online quilt-along! I’ll be posting new segments of the quilt-along on Mondays. Access the archive and subscribe to the RSS feed here: I Ching Modern Quilt-along.
Celebrating My Birthday
For my birthday I bought myself a bouquet of daffodils – fresh like spring – and a book of love poems by Pablo Neruda. I worked a full day at St. Gregory’s.
Afterwards I met one of my girlfriends at Anthropologie. We went as volunteers to help craft their store front window. We were scrunching, dipping, gathering, cutting, and taping things like plastic bottles, coffee filters, plastic wrap, pieces of paper, and bubble wrap. Then dipping it all in wax. Eventually all the parts will make a big coral reef of recyclables. It was okay, my heart wasn’t into it, but I was happy to make the effort.
At 8PM we joined three other friends for a birthday dinner at Luna Park in the Mission district of San Francisco. This was the cake of the day. Each of these women are amazing in their own unique way – and here they all were, like four living volumes of wisdom – Tamara, Alison, Melinda, Michele – caring for me, feeding me, celebrating me.
I felt a sense of belonging. It ended up being a fabulous birthday after all.
As a footnote I am SO impressed by the quality of comments being posting for the Mend It Better Giveaway on how to mend a broken heart. I’m taking heed of every one of your suggestions. Talk about living books of wisdom! Blogland is such a wonderful thing. Thanks to you all!
ps. the giveaway is still open until the end of the month.
Mend It Better ~ Review & Giveaway
It seems proper that I am reviewing Mend It Better: Creative Patching, Darning, and Stitching
in Death Valley.
Kristin asked me to contribute to this book after seeing my post on The Unpredictable Geography of Mending. I was very pleased that they included my article and tutorial, particularly because my focus was on the spiritual aspect of “Mending As Devotion.” Here’s a taste of what I wrote:
I believe in creatively mending clothing because it connects me to a deeper desire to care for, repair, and tend to the worn-out places within myself and in my relationships with others. Mending for me is an act of devotion that nourishes my sense of personal agency.
REVIEW!
With 223 pages Mend It Better
Mending can be technical, but it cal also bring new life to old clothing. A creative bit of stitching and reshaping can make a dress that was banished to the back of the closet shine again… I have included all the information and instructions you need to repair your clothing and the clothing of those you love.
This book is a beautiful and thoughtful publication by Storey Publishing, visit the Mend It Better website for more sneak previews!
GIVEAWAY!
Want to win a copy of Mend It Better
