Erosion Bundle Project, the final chapter

If you have been reading this blog for a while, you may remember the Erosion Bundle Project which led to a string of prayer flags in our back yard. You can follow the process from the chubby little bundles hanging in the tree to the prayer flags hanging in the very same tree here.

During these 4+ years, I have been posting updates several times as the bright colours have been softened by the sun and the edges frayed by the wind. I have been strangely attached to them and was planning to keep them there permanently. I thought they were becoming more and more beautiful.

(Those stitches were once black, and the white-ish fabric orange and purple)

When we were packing up the old house, they were still happily dancing in the wind

but one day I noticed that the trees were gone and the flags with them.

My reaction was something like this: What??? What!!!!! Oh Nooooooo. 

I wish I had known so I could have moved them, but there you go. Why watching these frayed and dirty little scraps swaying in the wind gave me any joy at all I don’t know, but they did. 

What I do know is that the chance of there being more raggedy flags swaying in my future is quite high. The trees may not be there anymore, but I’m sure I’ll find a way to dress the new house with some fabulously eroding scraps.

Thanks for stopping by!

Forgive

May you forgive the wrong doings of others - and others forgive yours.

Prayer flag for the exhibition at the Oceanside Museum of Art (original post here); hope it will make it there in time.

Prayer flags in progress

If you have been reading this blog for a while, you may have seen some of my prayer flags. I made the first ones a little over two years ago when my father went through surgery, and the process was very comforting. Other flags have been made and released their prayers into the world since then, and those first flags are still hanging outside in our yard getting more soft and ragged for each season that goes by.

Vivika Hansen DeNegre was inspired to start the Prayer Flag Project which now has led to an upcoming exhibition of prayer flags at the Oceanside Museum of Art. When SewCalGal posted a call out for prayer flags to be displayed (and with pictures and a link to those first flags of mine), it was like things were coming to a full circle and I wanted to participate.

As this summer has been all about sheers for me (and face it, they are spilling all over my desk) it was natural to grab a few and start working.

For some reason I found it strangely difficult to get into it. The thought behind the flag would not come through, so after a couple of attempts, I left them like this.

 

Maybe I’ll feel it tomorrow.

If you want to participate, you’ll find all the details here.

Serenity prayer flag

I have been feeling a bit on the anxious side this week, waiting to hear news about a few things. I did not realize what a toll it has taken on me until yesterday when grandson decided he would go for a little walk on his own and not tell. With a pond, lake, river and stream close to our cabin, grandpa and I were not too happy about it. Seriously, I wanted to puke, faint and cry - all at the same time but any of them would have been fine. The relief when husband found him on the other side of a hill was gigantic, but residue of the fear stuck with me.

This morning I was reading a comment from libbyquilter who had made her first prayer flag, and it struck me – I needed to make a serenity prayer flag. I don’t keep art supplies up here, just bring whatever on which I’ll be working – which is nothing at grandma weekends. Determined to make a flag I went searching for suitable materials and came up with dust mop thingies, a disposable kitchen rag, coffee filters, scraps of wool yarn from needlepointing, grandsons coloured pencils, water colour paint and large Hama beads. The paint brush was next to useless so I cut off a piece of a sponge for painting.

The flag went together in the blink of an eye; drawing, painting, stitching with a very blunt tip crewel needle, and tying.

Aaaaaahh (sound of me exhaling)

Serenity

Prayer flags revisited

Hanging out in the garden these past few days, I have been revisiting my prayer flags. I absolutely love the first series which I made for my father using the scraps from my erosion bundles.

The flags are getting softer

and more ragged and beautiful for each passing season.

The two series from last year

(originally posted here and here) got trashed though. Literally.

The original plan (last summer) was to let them hang for a few weeks and take them inside, but now they were all stiff and dirty and not suitable for indoor decorating at all. I was not attached to them like the first series so it was easy to let them go.

These have a few more years in them I’d say.

Then there were 14

I love how the Prayer Flags look tied together. They seem much happier banner-style than as singletons; like a huge slightly secretive smile cheering in our yard.
The first flags are still withering away in the sun and the rain. I am more attached to these, probably because they were made for one particular moment in time.

Thankfully the patient husband has yet to put his foot down demanding tree-decorations to be limited to Christmas.

Grief

Grief
is the last one of my 18 flags for the Prayer Flag Project.

Grief is often a part of big changes; for better or for worse you lose what you had. You also grieve what you never got and what you’ll never get. I was never all that good at grieving (more like an F-), so I have quite a bit of catching up to do. It’s ok, I don’t mind, it actually feels right.

Support, Love, Trust and Grief were made differently than the other 14. I found a format for flags to be part of an exhibition here, so I made these 4 flags according to that just in case. They are quite a bit bigger than the flags from last summer and my first series for this project, quite suitable for such important topics.

The materials are from the same trifty scrap bag and the prayers still written on yellow pieces of fabric stitched between the layers
but I have added more strips of fabrics so they will move even more, layer upon layer
including pieces of an old duvet cover that I brought from home when I went to college, and which was later dyed hot pink for my daughter
and black stitching.
I made a colourful string from scraps of yarn for hanging them together.
Don’t they look wonderful in all their pink prettiness!
May the wind in my back yard travel your way.

Love & Trust

Love and
trust
all wrapped up in one little perfect package.
“Consistent expressions of affection and love are crucial to feelings of love and trust in our children.” (found here) Yeah, I think he’s doing all right.

(Pictures taken at Utstein Kloster, more to follow later)