Cloth Weaving

I am taking part in Jude Hill's Cloth to Cloth workshop. If you haven't heard of Jude and her amazing cloth weaving endevours then you really must pop by her blog. Her work is incredibly inspiring and oh so liberating for a beginner to quilting, like myself, who is prone to wonkiness and lack of precision.

The course doesn't start for another week or so, but I have already started a little cloth weaving experiment.
The cloth is woven and stitched to a backing (in my case an old baby muslin) to stabilise it, the cloth is then embroidered, appliqued and embellished according to ones whim, the blocks can be attached and made into a quilt as with standard patchwork.

Being as I have oodles and oodles of scrappy bits of fabric, and not many large pieces, this particular craft is well suited to me at the moment.
Most all of the Spirit Cloths (as Jude calls them) I have seen are very organic looking and mostly in neutral colour palettes, using recycled fabric. Alas, whilst I do like organic, I posses very few neutral toned fabrics and so I am conscious that my own attempts look somewhat gaudy and bright in comparison to the pale and beautiful cloths Jude turns out. Still, one must be true to thine own self, and I do like colour so.
Left over scraps from Amber's book bag have found their way in, same for some of the scraps from a project I did with the fabric Sena sent, and a few other scrappy pieces, including some wide satin ribbon in acid green.





I started weaving the cloth at about 8pm yesterday, and then began stitching it to the fabric, which I completed at around 2am. Quite a lot of work, and it is only 10" square, but I do stitch quite slowly at the moment on account of my illness, still at least the inability to sleep allows me the extra hours I need to make progress.
I am not sure how any embellishments will stand out against the psychedelic rhapsody of colour, so I may have to rethink the neutral debate after all if I am to achieve some contrast and tone....

There is something incredibly healing about stitching and colour. It allows me to switch off from anxious thoughts and exist solely in the moment. I am looking forward to working on my cloth more tonight, and very excited about starting the Cloth to Cloth workshop in a few days time, my fingers are twitching at the very thought.