Thoughts from The Expressive Stitch

Here are a couple of quotes from the workshop. Those three days continue to resonate for me - I having a feeling a spell of good work is at hand!

"Time is paramount, precious, fleeting - never there when I need it. So to stitch, especially by hand is time-consuming, everlasting, forever. Therefore, I have to use the moments, any moments, to stitch. There are never ideal studio days. Like the embroiderers of Bangladesh or Panama, I have to use the moment to work. I always have a collection of materials ready to work on if there is a minute. These minutes become a kind of visual journal. I can return to a piece and remind myself of how I was thinking and feeling on that particular day."

"The simplest of stitches worked by hand, runs in and out through a fabric or whips back and around to grip the material and form a small ripple. This is an ancient technique and seems passe in the world "scan the image into the computer and watch it embroider on your sewing machine" Who after all had time?" - Julia Campana

"Hindu mythological tradition states that all arts and crafts are of divine origin. Artwork was a sacred ritual, other worldly, magical and divine. Leisure time was seen apart of creativity. In the religious texts of India, the universe is envisioned as a fabric woven by the gods. The ordered universe is one continuous fabric, the warp and weft forming a grid pattern."

"Uncut fabric is a symbol of totality and integrity. Rags also have symbolic importance. They are offered to the gods at certain shrines. It is said that the lord of tatters returns a whole cloth if a rag is offered. There is also a lady of tatters. The word kantha means rag." - Dorothy Caldwell

And I do promise to repost the pictures from the previous days. I was downloading them straight from the camera so they are not properly sized and could do with some editing.