Deborah Bates's Blog

thank you terror
thank you disillusionment
thank you frailty
thank you consequence
thank you thank you silence

~ Thank U, Alanis Morissette

 

Hello HARI KUYO: February 8, 2012

An elegant moment; an opportunity to pause and reflect; a time to acknowledge the humility of thanks: Hari Kuyo (otherwise known in Japan as the Festival of Broken Needles (great link Here) , Needle Mass Day or The Pin Festival) is my adopted holiday (or here) for taking creative stock. It allows me to look back and peer forward at where my needles take me. This year, we did not travel very far in service to cloth, only in miles. My needles relocated to new surroundings. It has taken a bit of time to settle in, but I think that they are ready to once again bind and deliver new bits of embellished fabric into being.

Take a moment today

to give thanks to the tools of your trade. On Hari Kuyo, we set our old needles into soft beds (cakes or tofu are traditional in Japan – Anything from bread to batting will work – it is the concept of bringing comfort and rest in thanks for diligent service that is important). Pause. Breathe. Cherish.

ever brave, ever strong, ever true: thank you (My faithful needles deserved a better home than a dusty drawer)

A New Home

In setting up my new surroundings, my needles have a new home. I found a magnetic spice rack – basically small tins that click onto a metal plate. They are perfect for visually displaying the variety of needles that we all use. A quick bit of labeling organized them into categories, leaving one tin to hold the weary needles (perhaps for paper or metal stitching), until their annual retirement party that is Hari Kuyo.

Thank you dear Japan

for Hari Kuyo. I am thankful for being able to visit again this year. Such wonderful people. This holiday from across the ocean is a good time to remember the strife of the Japanese people and their re-building. (A great support is Quilts for Japan, and on Facebook )Everywhere, there are signs: "Pray for Japan" Here's to giving thanks, thoughtful reflection, hopeful prayers and wishes for plentiful inspiration sewn with fresh new needles.

with Waka and Yoko

 

 

 

 

 

My new friend, Natsuko

Halloween on the Ginza

 

 

 

Sew what you love!

XO

I heard the sad news of Steve Jobs' passing while on the road to a teaching event (navigating via my iPhone).

Steve made my life happier. He helped me to learn and grow. He helped me in my career. He let me PLAY. He made a real difference. My experience is trivial, but together, a whole lot of trivial changed the world.

"Your time is limited- so don't waste it living someone else's life. Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary." Steve Jobs (1955 – 2011)

DO a whole lotta what you love.

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You know that feeling when you meet a GOOD person? (Of course anyone can be a good person, but some people simply exude 'goodness'). They make life feel wonderfully worth earning on a daily basis. I do not know if that makes sense, but I do know that I met such a person.

Bev Rogan of Quilts for Japan woke up one day and wanted to help a whole bunch of people that she saw were in need. So she learned how to use Facebook, got the help of her son to start a modest website, and started making phone calls. And now 1700 people have comfy, cozy quilts to make a cot feel like home in a relief shelter. How GOOD is that?

Not one to rest for long, Bev is at it again. Project Threads of Hope is aiming to provide Quilt Kits to those in need, by getting quilters (and other strangers) to dig deep into their stashes and Cut, Bundle & Send some goodness around the world. Can you help?

Kits are due by September 24 at locations in the US and Canada. Click the Project Threads link to learn the full deets!

Join up with her on Facebook and you might even win a copy of Threads! (Threads for Threads – it just seemed like a good fit).

Come on' – you'll never use all of that fabric anyway, right? : )

Out on a Saturday morning, looking at my cup and thinking about how simplifying the complex equals beautiful space. (taking the black out of the Starbucks logo is such an 'aha!') I am a clutterer by nature. Do I first need to overcomplicate to then pare back? Yup!

Am I at a point in life where I am tired of overcomplicated? Yup!

Will I repeat this Sysiphusian cycle? Of course. But for this morning, the sun is shining and life is simple and sweet.

Chintz and Company image on my Pink Pinterest Page

Going to my Happy Place

We are now officially through one-third of our transitional stay in Motel du Crust and I am going through serious creative withdrawal. My stuff. Having purged a good deal of it and put the remainder on the truck, I wonder what truly remains of my stash?I miss colour. I miss thread. I miss my books and drawing supplies.

We are now in our own special version of the Dog Days of Summer…

Buddy on cliché bedspread (complete with cigarette burns)

Looking at our surroundings on a daily basis can get a little depressing.

For a coordinated look: Matching cigarette burns on the sink

I have been trying to distract myself with dog walking, episodes of "Love It or List It" and doodling the furniture placement in our future digs. Visual Retail Therapy and re-facing the blog could only fill so many hours.

$1.47 for a pack of pencils, $39 on new craft books; hooking up to Pinterest = Priceless

But my true salvation during this crafting hiatus? Pinterest! I regularly run down my laptop battery by pinning and re-pinning all sorts of eye candy. Name your passion and there are pics waiting for you to build a board with. Its like having a magic doll house, with access to unlimited furnishings – design any room of your fantastical choosing – pick paint colours & designer furnishings - build the ideal sewing room; or get down to serious planning with a mood board for your next great quilt project. In a place where there is no colour, no good smells and nothing to spark happy imaginings, these virtual pin boards let me build my happy place.

The Motel du Crust may be short on rhinestones, but so long as I can power-up the laptop, there is plenty of sparkley-ness to be had.

This personalised pillow from Bambina on etsy made its way to re-pinning

 

Pin what you love!

 

"Dreams of Spiritual Strength" by James Jackson - A bronze sculpture spottedon a recent trip to Portland

I am oh-so-happy to share that Threads has been awarded the Bronze Award in the 2010 Forewords BOTYA.

What an honour to be included in the company of the talents of Amy Barickman, and her awesome Vintage Notions (silver).

Or the irresistibleness of Brenna Maloney's Socks Appeal (gold)

Each book fulfills the mandate of sharing a unique voice, but I find that we also share a common thread. We are all writing about basic ideas, products and techniques and how they make magic in our ordinary days. The loving comfort of a simple sock toy; the enchanting appeal of common sewing tools in our contemporary sewing spaces and the powerful potential of a simple spool of thread in the hands of its user. These simple things bring joy & fulfillment.

I did not have a bronze medal to show, but I wanted to share a little bit of bronze from a photo that I recently captured with my phone (apologies for the poor resolution). This bronze sculpture, from Native artist, Jim Jackson, held my attention. There was so much to see in every contour and embellishment (the horns, feathers, dress and staff – what do they all mean? What spiritual strength does he seek?). With each achievement comes the seeking of a new goal, the pursuit of a next step, the looking beyond.

So many thanks and happy dances for this moment and congratulations to Liz, Amy and Brenna. Here's to this moment and to good things to come. Here is to celebrating the ordinary and to dreaming of that which makes a difference.

Always seek, and

Sew what you love!

My corner of the world disappears

The once burgeoning bat cave has gone from terrifying to tame. My overblown stash of fabrics, threads, paints and ephemera has been stripped down to the essential pieces. Downsizing to a smaller place has challenged me to look closely at what I keep; to ask myself what is  important to my creative story building. So as I look to the west, I need to say goodbye to familiar things. (To those who love Margaret Wise Brown's Goodnight Moon, my apologies, but I think that you would understand the sentiment.)

 

In a Great Grey Room….
where once were
fabrics strewn
and a superhero for to swoon
Now stands a post in the middle and an empty chair
A vent that leaks and barren baskets that squeak
A corner now empty, for hiding fabric-a-plenty;
A peg, a pipe and creations hushed
and a beautiful sink filled with coloured paint slush
Goodnight Room
Goodnight Moon
and goodnight memories of fabrics strewn.
Goodnight post and goodnight chair,
Goodnight leaks and squeaky squeaks.
Goodnight secret corner
Goodnight pegs for dyeing and pipes for fiber-tying
Goodnight creations hushed
and goodnight beautiful sink filled with coloured paint slush
Goodnight stars and goodnight stairs,
Goodnight stitched memories everywhere.

The Classic Goodnight book - Reading the words reminds me of short goodbyes to the days' toys; long goodnights to children out of the nest and now the meloncholy farewell to my creative space

       

Class wrap-up and Award Run-up

Having gathered together since September, our creative quilting class established a comfort with one another that gently came to replace expectations of "learning more stuff" with "learning important stuff." The syllabus for the class listed an array of techniques that we would explore, but on our final night I asked students to put that all aside.

There is joy to be found…

The excitement of conquering new techniques and adding to the personal tool box gets us jazzed.  Fine tuning and following our instincts releases of our unique voices. Art Making brings joy.

I ask students to "take what you need and leave the rest behind." Sift out what is important for you and what you want to say with your voice. A critical part of the artistic journey is a need to try everything. But the baggage of too many techniques can hold you back. Pack light. Use what resonates for you.

In the end, my class description was a sham. Painting, stitching, printing, cutting and burning… all of that was secondary to things like discovering curiosity, self-confidence and enthusiasm. To witness that is a gift.

Letting the Secret Out

In the final hours of sewing together there were questions of how to do something just right. The answer, beyond the basic mechanics, was that there was no "just right."  Making art is about self-expression. Reflecting you in your art gets it right. What comes after is the continued shaping, honing and polishing. Discovering that something that I made was "right" even if I had never seen it done before, was an "aha moment." Sharing that secret is the most important technique that I can pass along.

Threads has its own voice

Before Threads: The Basics and Beyond; before Stitch Journeys… there was learning and teaching; discovering and sharing. There was the spark of finding a voice. In sharing my own discoveries, I am humbled and astonished by those that students have made in class.

How can I put into words  the honour of our book being nominated for Forewords Book of the Year in in the Crafts & Hobbies category. The criteria for this nomination included:

… expand a reader's world, introduce a voice society needs to hear, offer practical knowledge where none existed before, or simply entertain so compellingly that all distractions fall away…

Holy Smokes! Really? Could this really be all connecting?

Thank you

Thank you to students for being brave. Thank you to readers for buying the book. Thank you for hearing my voice, and most of all, thank you for sharing your own.

Good Morning Gift

When is motherhood  not riddled with self-doubt? Mother’s Day, with all of its precious gifts, crafts, cards and “coupons” for completing household chores is a hyper focused day when our little monsters dust off their halos and become the angels that we know are hidden beneath anything from tantrums to the closed off teen years of self-discovery. We look at these precious children and wonder “Am I doing this right?” It all goes so fast, until one day, we are sitting in a kitchen of many pots and plates with no one to cook for. How many times do I ask – “How badly did I do?”

And then the last fledgling gives me the most amazing gift….

a perfect gift

Taking the soon-to-go-to-University (and last of the flock) daughter to work at 5:45 brings a bit of mystery and surprise to the morning. As she exits the car, there is a little note taped to the inside passenger door. I point and ask what it is, but she heads off wearing a devious little smile.

The note is celebrating a little mother-daughter moment that we share. When I come home, I discover that these notes are taped around the house – on my alarm clock, mirror, stove… I am the child now, filled with the excitement of hunting for these sweet little gifts – not the least of which is the actual igniting of excitement. I am happily seeking and discovering these little bits that honor our relationship in ways that get lost in the everydayness.

She checks in with me on her break to see if I have found all of my little paper presents. Her clues lead me to what she had hoped would be the final discovery (and it is) – the most wonderful of gifts. She, of few words and untold wisdom, lets me know that I have done okay. On this day that can often leave me asking “how much have I messed up these perfect little beings?”- my child lifts my fears and lets me fly.

I can’t stop crying.

Miracles of everydayness