Maria Wulf Full Moon Fiber Art

I just tied the last knot on my quilt “Pockets.”

It’s only 6pm, but it feels so much later.  The moon hasn’t risen yet and the dark is enveloping.   I saw the last chicken hop up into the coop a little more than an hour ago.

Even though I’m done working I don’t want to leave.  It’s cold outside and my studio is warm.  But I need to close up the hen house and it’s time for dinner too.

I’ll have to clean up my studio tomorrow before starting on my next quilt for Linda.  But that will help me find the fabric that I’ll be using for it.

The lighting isn’t good for picture taking this time of night so I’ll post the finished “Pockets” tomorrow.

The nice thing about leaving my studio is that the farm house is warm and, of course,  Jon is there.

It always feels special to me when the full moon rises over my studio and I get to see the shadows it throws of the maple tree on my slate roof.

It feels like an anointment, a blessing from the moon herself.

After a morning of shipping our my Zip Magnets and the last of my Spirit Owl Potholders, I got to work on the backing for my quilt “Pockets”.

Hannah was good enough to email me and remind me that the pants that inspired this quilt were hers.  And that they were loaded with enough pockets for her to do her farm chores.  The pair she sent me finally wore out, but she had two more getting ready to go into a collection of fabric that she is planning on sending me.

Thanks Hannah I couldn’t have made this quilt without your pants.

“When we engage in fiber arts, we are creating something, but we’re also participating in historic traditions tens of thousands of years old. You are not only not only making art for your soul and for future generations, you are embodying the work of our ancestors.” – the woven road

I had no doubt it was a red doily.  Although it could easily have been a close-up of one of Suzy’s shawls too.  The design is one I’ve seen many times before, something crocheted or knitted for sure.

But I was stunned to read it was a microscopic photograph of the cross section of a Poplar tree taken by photographer Robert Berdan. 

We humans have been knitting and crocheting  for thousands of years.   Yet this well known pattern we created is the same as the pattern that is found inside a tree.

Did we  know this on some level?

For me, seeing this photograph speaks to our innate connection to the natural world.  To an artists ability to subconsciously connect to those things that are invisible to most of us.

It gives me a sense of community too.  Not only with other humans who continue to recreate theses patterns, but community with nature too.

It makes me feel safer as if I can trust the natural way of things.  The natural processes of life and death.