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Walking around Baochao Hutong in Beijing.
Alta May was my great grandmother who did the original cotton on cotton embroidery sometime in the 1920’s. This is a newly made pillow that I have over-dyed and piece worked — adding a hand embroidered text a Sapho fragment: Someone will remember us, I say, in another time.
From a Monks robe. Both the outer and the inner lining of the robe is used. These are folded and pleated and pieceworked to create a pattern and uniformity using the permanent creases, and sun fading of the fabric. The back is an Indian raw silk to contrast the fine Japanese Jacquard. 20 x 20.
The text is from Mina Loy’s Poem, There is No Life or Death. Read the complete poem and some of her others over here. This pillow is from a group of text pillows–done free-hand on my sewing machine. The fabric is dark oatmeal linen and the thread is this fantastic pink from my favorite embroidery shop, Des Fils et une Aiguille, in Paris. The other pillows in the group, not shown, are similar and the quotes are at the very bottom of this page.
To see some of my past blogs on Mina Loy, click one or both of those links. 
The group of Grey Hmong Wedding Quilt Pillows— I just finished them this week– have accent colors from a true pink to a pale peach.
