Bessesdotter's Blog
Valentine’s Day 2016.
This day marks the time when my love for making art results in the Spirit Cloths that are in my hands most days.
Several hours daily are going to embroidery and hand stitching. The machine comes in to do some laborious tasks. There is less quiet time, but the movement of my hands is slow and there is a zen to it nonetheless.
Once the embroidery was completed, the batting and backing attached, the machine quilting is being completed.
A long night of breaking threads at the machine.
Needles breaking. Threads breaking. Again and again. Adjusting tension and trying little tricks to keep everything running smoothly.
It happens with hand stitching too. Knotting up, catching a thread on the back, tangling. Sometimes it’s that kind of stitching: tangling and knotting.
Learning to wrestle wrought threads.
wound tightly.
Unbound.
Loosened. Breathing.
Softness.
This is the nature of thread work. It teaches me to allow anger in and out—no withholding of breath. Letting it be its own nature. Turn off power and tidy the sewing room. Go to relax and read a bit
morning. opening the sewing desk and do my morning ritual of preparing the machine with basic maintenance. Open the bobbin case. Get the dust remover, brush and oil. Ahah! The culprit exposed in the sunlight streaming through the window. A tiny speck of shredded rayon thread is barely visible under the auto cutter. Another fine long strand is found at the bottom of the case
I remove the threads, flush with air, brush well, oil bobbin and put it all back together.
Last night I did that twice. But I couldn’t see the small specks of thread. Even with my Ott Light.
Under light of day everything is exposed and seen with clarity.
Learning balance and timing, during fatigue and frustration was not the time to problem solve. Bernina sews like herself again.
lost in the thought
of movement
needle rocks through cloth.
pulling perle cotton over
strands of colored floss and yarn.
textile. machine fingers wove the linen I am tasked with working my threads into.
—– stay in the moment.
watch yet
don’t look. long crewel needle stabs into my hand.
no blood. small punctures. they happen. often.
the small pain I feel takes me tumbling down cobbled paths of wondering whose labor made these items in my lap.
woman. child. Machine.
bring me back to purpose. stay with the beginning. waiting for the end.
what is my desire for speed doing here!
! slow !
it down. relax fingers. stretch. back. go again. not so tight.
relax. lost in the motion again.
building my web.
Boundless 