January last day and the Wheel of the Year welcomes Imbolc

  In the last days of January winter finally arrived in north central Florida bringing temps in the mid 20's and hard frost for several mornings.  It doesn't last long, a few days and then the temps rise again though last week the temps hovered around 55.  It's nice to have a few brisk cold days to remind me in the land of perpetual green that it is indeed winter.

Imbolc comes on the tail end of freezing nights and the Cailleach is slowing releasing her hold on the winters cold.  The first dandelions have started to appear along my driveway several already 3 feet tall with the tiniest of yellow flowers and white puffs of cottonlike seeds.  The tree beside my driveway once filled with bright red berries has given way to dry brown berries which seems to happen at the end of winter here in my corner of the world. Tonight it's only suppose to drop to 39 degrees.

Recently my next door neighbors cut down all of the trees in their backyard so I've added an additional bird feeder to the backyard. There is quite a bit of bird activity in the trees and the feeders are visited on and off through the day. Early morning the air is filled with birdsong before dawn and then again about 10 in the morning when all sorts of birds let me know if the feeders need a refill.  I have been blessed with cardinals, though very elusive eventually I may get a photo or two.  

I finished the hand embroidery on The Moriae, or the Greek Fates “spinners of fate” controlling the lives of humans in pieces of thread. Clotho spun the thread, Lachesis handled it, and Atropos cut the thread at the end of one’s life.  I thought a fitting piece for this hand embroiderer.

  I was ambivalent about using the 3 shades of pink floss in the end I am happy with the piece. I decided the eyes should be a haunting blank white. 

After much thought I decided I wasn't going to do a Goddess a month challenge or any other theme of the month challenge this year. Now that I am recovering from the ills of 2020 and half of 2021 I don't need the personal challenge to keep me stitching. I'm confident I will keep stitching among other activities that I missed during that dark time and I continue with projects that I have put on hold unto I felt well enough to work on them.  I will still do a few goddess pieces throughout the year, in fact, I have the Morrigan prepped and ready to stitch along with a new Greenman piece.

I have several new books to read and a few that have been waiting on my to be read list currently I am reading Gateway to the Crone by Jude Downes, I had started this in November but had to put aside all 

reading because the online shops were so busy I only had time for short spurts of stitching, my brain was too tired to retain anything I read. Does that ever happen to you?  You read a few pages or a chapter and can't recall a thing you read.

I also started reading Yemaya by Raven Morgaine, this was a Yule gift from a friend so it's on the top of my list.                                                         

Well it has warmed up to 56 so I am off for a nice walk in the park.

January is Moving Along and Some Stitching

 The month of January is moving along in a flash. I often wonder where the time goes when I am not paying attention.  The full moon on the 17th was beautiful, I was outside briefly to take my trash can to the curb and there she was rising above my house at 7:25 p.m.

I didn't expect to see her at all because it had been raining most of the day and more rain was expected, yet to my surprise and delight she was shining brightly.  I stood in her light to absorb her energy and I could feel her pull rising my energy from me.

On January 1st I began stitching  a new hand embroidery piece. I have a few other designs I need to transfer to fabric once I chose the fabric I want to use for each project.  Here is a look at my progress up to January 9th.

She is the first of three figures in this design, I am using an older 100% cotton fabric that I love it has a paisley design in the palest natural tone, if I am not mistaken it was 108″ fabric sold as quilt backing. I’ve use the fabric for several pieces and just love the look of the design when stitched. So far I am using DMC floss 603.  I don’t often use so much pink but for this it just felt right. 

Later in the week I continued my stitching working on the second figure of the piece and using DMC 602 floss. It’s a slightly darker shade of pink than the first figure, originally I had planned to use a blue on the 2nd figure and purple for the 3rd, but the more I looked at the colors together I liked the shades of pink rather than the multiple colors, the third figure will be stitched in DMC 601.

The piece is of The Moriae, or the Greek Fates “spinners of fate” controlling the lives of humans in pieces of thread. Clotho spun the thread, Lachesis handled it, and Atropos cut the thread at the end of one’s life.  I thought a fitting piece for this hand embroiderer.

On the 17th I spent a few hours stitching the second figure, removed the piece from the hoop to move on to the third figure, threaded my needles and put it aside for the night to give my fingers a rest.

The first two figures are not complete I still have to go back to stitch the hair, face and hands, since I will be using the same color floss for flesh I thought it would be easier to do all at once. Now I think I should have just completed each figure as I stitched. Looking at the two figures together I can’t tell the difference in the floss, so perhaps the pink, blue and purple colors I had originally planned would have been a better idea. Once the stitch and wash product is washed away and the black lines are gone the colors won’t be so identical or at least I hope so.