protection cloth

 A long time ago I read that mothers placed their babies on black and white cloths when they were put down in the ground or the floor.  A grid or a zigzag pattern of black and white confuses the dark spirits who might live beneath us.  The cloth is a protection device.  

I’ve held onto this idea for years.  It’s time to make a protection baby play cloth.  I need to do it.  I am loving the doing of it.  My love is in this grid and my grandmother strength and determination are in this cloth.  Making something that grows larger and stronger with every step along the way, makes me feel stronger and somehow safer.  

her mermaids

 The idea came to me to use black and white grids in the floor quilt I’m making for the twins and to use white with black dot fabric in all the bias bindings for the wee flanelette padded cloths.  

It is more

No longer, 

Not yet.

Hannah Arendt

or a window

 I want my work to be like a mirror 

where people become connected to self 

or a window 

or a door

Stare

Stare

It is the way to educate your eye.

Stare, pry, listen, eavesdrop.

Die knowing something.

You are not here long.

Walker Evans

four noble truths

Feel discomfort about change

Sit still like a mountain 

Don’t resist 

Let it be

Buddha

Loved Better

She reminds us of the world’s dazzle. She seems to say; the world has no need to be represented - there it is, all around us, all the time.  

What the world needs is to be loved better. 

George Saunders wrote this about Grace Paley