Symbols of Abundance

I had just a little time to do some browsing this morning and visited Spirit Cloth, where I am always struck by the depth and emotional shading of Jude's words and work, and that led me to Shibori Girl. Am I the last to discover this wonderful site and artist? These are some of her beautiful ribbons with base dye, before shibori wrapping:

They look like roses, of course. I once did one of those New Age exercises where you decide on a personal symbol of abundance, and for me it's flowers -- lots of them, especially roses. There are only two working rose farms in the United States, and I think it would be some kind of heaven to live on a rose farm. This is from Belle Story Rose Farm near Santa Barbara:

My peripatetic father finally found his home in his late 50s in Chico, California. He had a teaching job he loved at the university, and he bought a house and planted 50 rosebushes. After a life of instability and running from himself, he was home. He got mesothelioma from exposure to asbestos years earlier and died at 63. But I am glad that in the end he had his home, his community and his roses.

Here in the present, I've been asked to make a couple of ceremonial "tribal garments" for an executive gathering. This is very last-minute, so I've been ordering fabric online in a frenzy of power shopping. I'm using the Tibetan Panel Coat pattern from Folkwear. The folks at equilter.com were fantastic about filling orders quickly. Sadly, I can't say the same about SilkBaron, where part of the order was wrong (and it was a big order -- they made some money) and then argued with me, as if I must be lying, crazy, or stupid, instead of just fixing the problem. There are so many great textile resources out there, and it's a  disappointment and a surprise to be treated badly by people working with textile artists, but so it goes.

This project is more streamlined than it would be if I had more time, when I would design something really tribal with stamping, beads, coins, all the good Complex Cloth stuff, but I'm going to make it as beautiful and soulful as possible and be grateful for the time, space, and opportunity to do this, even as 100 pages of writing (and blogging) on the sustainable clothing market still awaits. More soon. 

Comments

[jude]

i am happy to see your reference to glennis at shibori girl, her dedication to the art is amazing and she is really one to watch. as far as service with online shopping, i have found also that equilter is fabulous....never a problem.
good luck with your project, sounds like a great retreat to me! and thanks for coming by at spirit cloth.