Merry Christmas to All

Happy Winter Solstice

I wish you all a very merry Solstice, Yule, Christmas, Midwinter. Whatever and however you choose to celebrate, may these coming weeks be filled with blessings and the spirit of the season.

Bubble & Brew block completed

The hand embroidery for Block 3 of the Hocuspocusville quilt is finally completed, it was slow going for a while with sore fingers, painful hands and just life in general.

I added black seed beads to the ladder rungs and the top of the fence post to give it a more personal touch.

I have nine more blocks to hand embroider which after the holidays I should be able to make more progress on.,  I will start block four this week.

Just for fun

Happy Thanksgiving

A little Irish Blessing

The Holly King

All the hand embroidery is done on the Holly King piece, now I need to decide whether to use it as a wall hanging, a quilt block or something else. As I look at it here I'm wondering if I should have used the crayon tinting on the face too, I'll give it some thought and perhaps make another. I loved stitching this piece.

Stitching Update, Violets and books read

I don't know what gets into me when I see one of these plants looking so lush sitting there on the shelf at the supermarket this morning but I had to buy it.  I haven't had much luck with African Violets but every few years I pick one up and manage to keep it alive for several weeks.

I bought one four years ago when I first moved into this house, I placed it on the windowsill in my living room for a while it did quite well new flowers bloomed as spent flowers were removed. As the weather grew cold I would take it off the windowsill when the sun went down and replaced it in the morning.  That went on for a few weeks until I forgot it was in the window and I was away for a few days and the temps dropped into the 30's and no amount of coaxing could rescue it.

I do love African Violets, they are such a dainty little flower with a subtle scent I pickup when I least expect so I am once again going to try to keep this Africa Violet thriving.

On another note I am making progress on the Holly King Hand embroidery piece I started last month.

I am so glad I decided to crayon tint this piece I think the subtle color makes the threads standout just enough. I am also working on the third Hocuspocusville block which I need to get back to this week, I have been trying to decide whether I want to use black seed beads in place of the french knots on the railings, or bite the bullet and gets lots of practice making french knots.  I don't know what I was

thinking when I drew little circles rather than just make a dot where each knot should go I guess I was so engrossed in the tracing that I just followed the pattern. I do like the idea of using seed beads.

I finished reading all the books in the Amanda Lee Embroidery shop mystery series except for the

newest one, The Stitching Hour, which I will buy eventually.

 I just finished reading Looming Murder today and I'll start the next one Tapestry of Lies next week.

Happy Halloween and a Blessed Samhain to all!

A day for a little celebration

I'm off to Ormond Beach for the day for the Pagan Pride Day festival.
Have a great day!

Have a great weekend

Tomorrow I am off to the:

Block two embroidery done

The hand embroidery on block two of the Hocuspocusville Quilt is complete, now it needs ironing before I move on to block three.

I put the final stitches in the tree last night and let me say I am glad to have this block done, all those little letters and other tiny details take time, but well worth it in the end.

Here is a witch photo for the 8th day of October.

Whats cooking in your cauldron?

Today its a foggy 61 degress here in North Central Florida and is a great day to stir up a big pot of vegetable soup.

Peace Square update

Day 6 Witch pic.

A few months back I made this little peace sqaure to send to the Artist for Peace Project across the pond in the United Kingdom.

Well after spending weeks in postal limbo it arrived and here is a photo of it with lots more peace squares waiting to be stitched together.

My block is the sixth block down in the last row, here is a link to The Facebook page if you would like to see more squares for the project.
https://www.facebook.com/AllwearesayingattheHolyBiscuit?fref=nf

Witches Tea sit down and pour yourself a cup

This and that

Well my plan was to post a witch photo a day, however things rarely go as planned.  Todays photo is a sweet hat for a Hedgewitch don't you think?

and even though I wasn't able to post on Friday or Saturday, here are the photos for the second and third of October

oct. 2

Oct. 3

I spent a few hours outside in my garden yesterday clearing away the over grown weeds since the day began cool and the sun didn't make an appearance until late in the afternoon it was a good time to get some much needed yard work done.

It was easy for things to get so out of control, I didn't bother with a garden over the Spring of 2015 too many losses last year and just didn't have the heart for it, soil will be tested once again this week and I do have the plants in pots so not a total loss. The 3 new bamboo plants are thriving and while clearing away weeds I pulled up the old oregano and cut back my 2 rosemary plants. I still have more to do and with the cooler temps it shouldn't take too much to get things in order.

Welcome October! How about a Witch a day.

The first day of October and I am dreaming of crisp cool mornings with the leaves of the trees turning brillant shades or red, orange and gold. Instead its 75 degrees, humid with overcast skies, so to get me in an autumn mood I'll add my own color to the day via internet photos

and to make things a little fun for the month I'm going to post a Witch a Day for the month of October.

A new pattern, some stitching and an unexpected surprise.

I have added another wonderful Crab-apple Hill Studios hand embroidery pattern to my growing collection of not only Crab-apple Hill patterns but Witch themed patterns as well.

This is the first panel in a series of 3 featuring the members of the Salem Witches Quilt Guild.  As soon as the first sketch was posted on the Crab-apple Hill facebook page I knew I was going to buy this pattern and couldn't wait for it to be released. Here is a link to the facebook page have a look.
https://www.facebook.com/CrabappleHillStudio/timeline/

And here is the link to the Crab-apple Hill website just in case you want to have a look around.
http://www.crabapplehillstudio.com/

I am making good progress on the second block of my Hocuspocusville hand embroidery and should

have the stitching completed in the next day or two depending on whether my fingers are still too sore from all the stitching I did yesterday.

Do you ever find yourself lost in the words of a book you liked? I just finished this wonderful story and here I am hours later still feeling the effects the words had on me such an unexpected surprise.

The author's descriptions of the foods, mainly the cooking, prep work, and eating seem to have seeped beneath my skin, I have always view food as fuel for the body and nothing more, yet while reading the book I could almost taste the words.

I have read many books dealing with cooking, foods, spices, herbs etc. yet this book moved me beyond the words, I felt something shift within me while I was reading and now I feel a sense of calm and a sense of saddness...interesting for sure so I am going to check out another book by the author, the Lost Art of Mixing to see what effect it may have, if any.  Perhaps my mood was just ripe for a change.

The Seasonal Wheel Turns

Wishing Everyone a Happy First Day of Autumn

And Warm Blessing for a Wonderful Mabon.

This is what I'm stitching

Progress on my hand embroidery projects are coming along nicely. I have decided to crayon tint the Holly King which is going to be part of my greenman series.

The crayon tint for the mistletoe and holly berries probably wasn't necessary since I will do those in a satin stitch but for me it defines where my floss and needle have to go while stitching.

Block two Hester's U-Pick for the Hocuspocusville quilt is going well, I love stitching the bare trees.

I purchased a 11x17" Q-Snap frame to use for these blocks so I have more stitching area to work before I have to adjust the piece in the frame, and less loose fabric to deal with.

My friend sent me this cute Primitive style pattern for the witch heads below. I am planning to tea dye muslin fabric for the heads.

I don't plan to be starting the witch heads until the next week or so if time allows.

Happy World Goddess

Today is World Goddess Day and in honor of the day I'm posting a few Goddess themed items crafted over the years.

The Triple Moon wall hanging

Hand Embroidered Spiral Goddess

Hand Embroidered four Goddesses

World Goddess Wall Hanging

This is currently on my embroidery hoop this week

Block number two of the Hocuspocusville quilt is ready for the hand embroidery, this block is Hester's U-Pick.

My other hand embrodiery project to work between the days when I get tired of looking at all the black threads is the Holly King, right now the pattern is traced onto the fabric and I'm in the process of choosing the embroidery floss colors.

I also dug out an old Simplicity sewing pattern for these sweet witch dolls I would like to get started on soon.

I think the dolls would make a nice addition to my collection of soft witch dolls I've made over the years.

Block One: The Potting Shed

The hand embroidery on block one of the Hocuspocusville Quilt was completed yesterday.

block 1 Potting Shed

While I love how the stitching looks in all black thread evetually I want to make the blocks with  more color like this same block below

Here is a link to take in more photos of the Hocuspocusvill Quilt and lots of other stitchery.
https://sewcolorful.wordpress.com/2011/01/12/block-of-the-months-the-beginning/

This one has just a bit more color, I just love the difference in appearance the adding of colorful threads give to the block.

The link for this block is here: http://gwargeddcrafting.blogspot.com/2011/02/hocuspocus-quilt.html

I had debated for several days whether to use a metallic thread for the spiderweb but I stayed with the all black, the next time around I will use it.

A new month