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