{"id":9488,"date":"2020-05-04T07:25:30","date_gmt":"2020-05-04T14:25:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.gemtactics.net\/wordpress\/?p=9488"},"modified":"2020-05-07T06:38:15","modified_gmt":"2020-05-07T13:38:15","slug":"mourning-cloak","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gemtactics.net\/wordpress\/2020\/05\/mourning-cloak\/","title":{"rendered":"Mourning cloak"},"content":{"rendered":"

Contrasts.<\/p>\n

I stitched a strip of lovely peaceful blue and brown scraps, thinking the robe would move in a direction full of color and light. I felt like I was on vacation in Mexico or the Caribbean.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

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Then I draped the robe over the guest bed, where a cloth had been resting for a long while. This cloth, a thin black wool (?) with muted tan, red and blue strips and metallic threads woven in, was waiting to see if it wanted to become a pillow cover. So far, it didn’t.<\/p>\n

When the cloth met the robe, there was an immediate affinity. Something really appealed to me about wearing this beautiful cloth wrapped around me. I thought of cutting it to coat the robe in linear strips. I realized the feeling of this cloth was in direct opposition to the peaceful blues. I couldn’t reconcile it, so I went to sleep on it.<\/p>\n

In the morning, I had new vision — the cloth as a drape, around the shoulders of the robe, maybe asymmetrically, maybe stitching down the wrinkles as Jude shows on her blog. I hate wearing shawls because I can’t keep them on and they interfere with tasks, but this could become a stitched-down shawl shape.<\/p>\n

I tried it out. Then I made a hood by pulling the back of the cloth around the sconce light. The way it looked actually frightened me. It reminded me a lot of the image of the Abu Ghraib torture victim. Ominous, scary, dark, terrible.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Gradually the associations shifted and later that morning the words “mourning cloak” came to me. One of my favorite butterflies that I don’t see much anymore. These words seemed to free up a feeling, a way to stitch into the unimaginable concept of so much death, so much suffering, so much injustice, so much degradation, so much cruelty. The construction I was thinking of started to feel more right, although it still looks damn scary.<\/p>\n

I worked a bit more on the draping. It’s going to be tricky. I could get a pleasing arrangement of triangular wings down the sleeves, while leaving enough for a hoodlike semi-circle in the back. Maybe.<\/p>\n

I still don’t know what to do with the peaceful blue pieced strip. Include, as a contrast – dark and light? Lining? I think the robe needs a lot more pale tones actually. To set off the beauty of that cloth (a gift from Suzanne) and to honor the solemnity of the time.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

It also reminds me of an academic gown.<\/p>\n

I really don’t like the purple sheet surface and have to remind myself it’s going to be transformed.<\/p>\n

A lot of thought and feeling work involved in a handmade garment. This one anyway. I’m wanting to start another one, an easy pleasant summer top.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Contrasts. I stitched a strip of lovely peaceful blue and brown scraps, thinking the robe would move in a direction full of color and light. I felt like I was on vacation in Mexico...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9487,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[150],"tags":[389,387,373],"class_list":["post-9488","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-stitching","tag-cut-my-cote","tag-fantasy_robe","tag-large-cloth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gemtactics.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9488","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gemtactics.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gemtactics.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gemtactics.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gemtactics.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9488"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.gemtactics.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9488\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9517,"href":"https:\/\/www.gemtactics.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9488\/revisions\/9517"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gemtactics.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9487"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gemtactics.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9488"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gemtactics.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9488"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gemtactics.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9488"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}