Happy Winter Solstice!

Warm wishes for a wonderful Yule!

and a Blessed Winter Solstice!

A new project to stitch

As a creator of Goddess related projects I am always on the look out for Goddess related artist and creations, I love hand crafted items related to the goddess and paganism in general so this past summer I took part in the 13 Goddess challenge and posted my first of several creations starting with this post: http://witch-crafted.blogspot.com/2016/06/a-new-challenge.html  I did all of my creations in hand embroidery and while I didn't do all 13 goddesses I am happy with the few I did make.


While I was doing some goddess research for an upcoming project I came across Brigids Grove website which this link will take you to http://www.brigidsgrove.com/ . While browsing the site I came across an interesting activity offered in the Creative Spirit Circle, How to create a Calamoondala.  I am eager to get started and decided to try my hand at making mine in hand embroidery, I'm not sure how this will work out but I am going to use the templates offered so I can try my hand using fabric and embroidery floss.

Here is a look at the first Calamoondala I will embroider, I am using the stitch and wash away product to make things a bit neater.

centering on fabric

The stitch and wash away fabric adheres to the fabric I like to use a spray adhesive to make sure the product stays put because I have had it lift off when moving the embroidery hoop around.

ready to stitch

The second template has many more goddesses I love the overall mandala look of the piece. I am using white on white print fabric in 100% cotton, and I'll be using cotton embroidery floss.

getting ready to center

Once I complete the hand embroidery the fabric will be cut into a larger circular piece or I will applique it onto another circular piece of fabric.  Yikes! I just had another idea making my Calamoondala as an overall applique though with my applique skills that may take  me until 2018, so for now hand embroidery will do. Now its time to select the colors of floss for both pieces.

centered and ready for stitching

What is a Calamoondala quite simply a circle moon mandala calendar created by Molly Remer.  I can tell you though there is nothing simple about these lovely templates as soon as I seen them I was so inspired to get creating.

If you love goddess goods check out the Etsy shop  https://www.etsy.com/shop/BrigidsGrove  the pieces are just beautiful.

I plan to post my progress on both pieces weekly as time allows. With this being the holiday season and having several online retail shops that may not always be possible but I will make the effort.

Happy Thanksgiving

What I have been working on this month so far.

I am progressing nicely on block 10 of the Hocuspocusville Quilt, it won't be ready for this year but the blocks will be completed before the New Year, at least I hope so.

I just love this block with all those cute little items hanging on the clothesline to dry. All 12 of the hexie blocks have been embroidered for the tree skirt class unfortunately I was under the weather and missed the second class so I will work what I can at home for the last class in November.

I did change a few of the motifs designs on several of the blocks to make them more personal I do that every now.  Since the 12 blocks are done I will start the work on the Winter Goddess embroidery I chose the floss I want to use and with the 12 blocks out of the way I have more time to put into a new embroidery project to give me a break from all those black threads used on those witch houses.

Another new project I want to start on is crafting a few spirit and goddess dolls, I haven't made any in quite a while and lately I have a few ideas knocking around in my noggin so I am gathering supplies and going through my fabrics to see what I have. More on the dolls soon.

October Stitching up a Storm

The month of October seems to have creeped in when I wasn't looking.  We are watching hurricane Matthew this week so I'm sure we will have lots of rain, wind and humidity to start us off this month. Last month we started off with hurricane Hermine which brought some rain and a few bunches of mistle toe fell from the oak tree.

I have been slowly stitching the Hocuspocusville Quilt blocks for a little over a year now and began block 10 in September a year from when I began.

block ten

I am currently working on the hand embroidery for the Christmas tree skirt from Gail Pan's book.
Christmas Patchwork Loves Embroidery.

The next 6 blocks will be 3 stars and 3 gifts I plan to change the motif design just a little to make the tree skirt more personal.

I am taking a class at a local quilt shop for the tree skirt it meets once a month for 3 months the second class in October 19th.
Another hand embroidery project I will be working on is a Goddess pattern from Urban Threads, she will be a winter goddess.

Instead of tracing her onto the fabric I decided to print out the pattern onto a stitch and wash away sheet because I wanted to use the snowflake printed pale blue fabric which will be easier to see stitching and I didn't have to struggle tracing it through the fabric.

The last project I want to start this month is from an Etsy shop, Cozyblue, this moon phases embroidery kit has everything I need.

The shop also sells just the pattern as a download which I will probably buy too so I can make another with different fabrics.  I just love the sashiko look of the kit.

Here are links to
https://www.etsy.com/shop/cozyblue

http://www.urbanthreads.com/

Seasons Change

Time is flying by so fast, and a stitchery update

August is moving along quickly keeping me quite busy and leaving little time for crafting, being sick through the first half of July messed up my birthday week away not to mention losing more of my free time but I did make up for lost time here and there when I could.

My first task was to write replies to nearly a dozen letters that  had to be put aside while I was ill, yes I am a long standing letter writer and there is one thing that annoys me it's when I let too much time go before I reply, the bug I came down with at the end of June was miserable and left my eyes tearing and burning so reading, writing and hand embroidery was done in short spurts when my eyes felt comfortable and less irritated.

I do have a four more Goddess I made for the 13 Goddesses in 13 Weeks challenge, I have continued to use hand embroidery as my medium and so far I am happy with the results.

Here is a link to the challenge, https://timelessrituals.blogspot.com/

The Mother Goddess

The Mother Goddess in ancient Middle Eastern religions, mother goddess, the great symbol of the earth's fertility. She was worshiped under many names and attributes. Similar figures have been known in every part of the world. Essentially she was represented as the creative force in all nature, the mother of all things, responsible particularly for the periodic renewal of life. The later forms of her cult involved the worship of a male deity, variously considered her son, lover, or both whose death and resurrection symbolized the regenerative powers of the earth

 

The Cailleach

The Cailleach themes are balance, cycles, rebirth, overcoming and winter. Her symbols are snow and blue items. In Scottish traditions, this is a blue faced crone Goddess who blusters with power throughout the winter months. She brings the snow and cold until the wheel of time turns toward spring on Beltane (May Day)

The Cailleach Bheur was a blue hag, said to frequent parts of the Scottish Highlands. Associated with winter, she was reborn on every All Hallows Eve and returned to bring the winter and the winter snows. She carried a magical staff, which froze the ground with every tap. She was also guardian to animals throughout the winter, and returned to the earth by turning to stone on Beltane Eve. In other traditions she changes into a young maiden, suggesting the changing phases of an earth goddess. Her sacred trees were the holly and the gorse bush, under which she traditionally threw her staff before turning to stone.  

The Morrigan

The Morrigan is often depicted shape-shifting into a raven/crow, or else wearing attire crafted from raven feathers. The Morrígan is a goddess of battle, strife, and sovereignty from the Irish mythology. She sometimes appears in the form of a crow, flying above the warriors Taking the form of the death raven announcing death, or the banshee predicting it with shrieks.
 

Tatsuta-Hime

Tatsuta-Hime (pronounced tat-SUE-tah HEE-may) is a minor wind Goddess, It is said that each year Tatsuta-Hime, Goddess of dyeing and weaving, dyes silk yarn and weaves a beautiful multicolored tapestry of yellow, orange, russet, crimson and gold.  She then incarnated Herself as wind and blew Her own work to shreds, the scattering cloth resembling the blowing leaves of autumn.

Her symbols are Fall leaves. Her themes are health, luck, thankfulness, autumn, blessings, abundance and protection. This windy Japanese Goddess blows into our lives today offering blessings and abundance for all our efforts. Tradition tells us that She weaves the Fall leaves into a montage of color, then sweeps them away along with any late-fall maladies. Sailors often wear an amulet bearing Her name to weather difficult storms at sea safely.

I am currently 6 Goddesses behind in part due to being ill in July and also the last few designs I came up with I wasn't happy with so I put them aside and now with summer coming to a end it will be time to start preparing my online stores with back to school and holiday items, putting old stock on sale, checking inventory and ordering new products.

My progress on Hocuspocusville quilt is coming along I have just completed the hand embroidery for block 8 exactly one year to the day I started the hnad embroidery on block 1.

block 8

Block 8 had lots of letters to embroidery which takes my poor fingers forever to work, and August being the worst month for my allergies my eyes were constantly itchy and tearing for a week and did nothing for my progress. I started the block on June 26th so I am hoping I continue to have good health for the remainder of the summer. 

Last week I planned out a small Goddess piece for hand embroidery so far I have four goddesses against a crescent moon I issued a mechanical pencil to trace my pattern onto fabric (I prefer the micron pen) I am not finished with the design I plan to add a few symbols,  here is a look at what I have so far. I will probably crayon tint the goddesses or perhaps even applique with fabric.  

This is for a friend who asked me for goddesses and the symbols of the 4 elements, it will be a small altar cloth for her. I am also working on this pinwheel quilt for a special little girl in my life.  The 

backing will be the fabric that has the very small white flowers on it and 3 parts of each pinwheel

Here is a look at block 9 for the Hocuspocusville quilt waiting for the first hand embroidery stitches to be sewn.

Well that's about all I have going on for now, tomorrow I will spend the morning before it gets too hot here weeding my garden and transplanting a few potted plants.  The humidity has be oppressive here in the morning it;s not too bad but by eleven I'm ready to melt, so I plan to be outside around 6.

Have a Happy first harvest

Time really does move so quickly here we are again as the Wheel of the Year turns to the first harvest celebration, whether you celebrate Lughnasadh, Lammas or both I wish you a very blessed time filled with happiness and a harvest of good things for the year to come.

Have a Warm and Wonderful Lughnasadh

Have a Warm and Wonderful Lammas

It is the beginning of the harvest season and I found a lovly photo in my files to post this lovely display of fruits and veggies really brings home the harvest theme.

Have a warm and wonderful Summer Solstice

Week two Goddess

FOr week two if the 13 Goddesses in 13 Weeks challenge I have finished my Baba Yaga which would have been my first goddess if my iron didn't choose to stop heating at the time I was ready to heat set the crayon tinting.

She is hand embroidered and crayon tinted on white on white print cotton fabric.  Here are some interesting bits on Baba Yaga the ‘old woman’ of autumn was called Baba by the Slavic inhabitants of eastern Europe, Boba by the Lithuanians. This seasonal divinity lived in the last sheaf of grain harvested in a year, and the woman who bound it would bear a child that year. Baba passed into Russian folk legend as the awesome Baba Yaga, a witchlike woman who rowed through the air in a mortar, using a pestle for Her oar, sweeping the traces of Her flight from the air with a broom.

The challenge guidelines can be found here https://timelessrituals.blogspot.com/  as well as more Goddesses and links to see what other bloggers are creating.

A new Challenge

My first Goddess piece for the 13 Goddesses in 13 Weeks challenge which began June 1st, here is the link for the challenge https://timelessrituals.blogspot.it/p/blog-page_22.html
You can join anytime until December 2016 and you can use any medium you choose, for my first I decided on embroidery using one of the basic goddess patterns.

My goddess is stitched on tone on tone white print cotton fabric embroidered with 2 strands of variegated embrodiery floss, the triqutra symbol is done with 2 strands of solid yellow floss.

I was going to stick with the suggested list of ideas and make a Baba Yaga goddess using embroidery and crayon tinting when I plug in my iron to set the waxy crayon it didn't heat so I pulled the plug on that idea for now and made my little Celtic triple goddess using the triquetra to represent not only the feminine qualities of maiden, mother, crone but also the 3 qualities of the Celt Goddess Bridgid when viewed as the triple goddess, those being Art, Healing and Metalsmithing.

I may not use embroidery as the medium for all 13 of my goddesses so please check back each week to see what I've come up with or check out one of my other blogs or facebook page, and please stop by the https://timelessrituals.blogspot.it/p/blog-page_22.html to see the beautiful Art there.

Happy Memorial Day

What I have been doing while recovering

It has been a few rough weeks but finally I am on the other side of a nasty bug that hit me in early March and held on and lingered for weeks. Now in the second week of May I can finally say I am feeling myself again.

Here are a few photos of what I have be working on over the past few weeks. These are the Hocuspocusville blocks I worked on while ill.

block four

block five

block six

This wonderful piece came out nicely I used a new method of printing the paper on a washable material that wasn't too difficult to stitch through, though it did not adhere well to the fabric.

triple moon

Hamsa Hand

The Hamsa Hand piece was from a kit and while I like the design I wasn't thrilled with the fabric, it is a polyester blend and pulls and snags easily so you have to be careful not to pull the thread to tight.  I and going to use the hand as an applique so I decided not to do the words.

Yoga Tree Pose

The Yoga tree pose piece is a work in progress so while most of the embroidery is done I am still planning the rest of the design.

I did get out and about a bit on days when I was feeling better and Mother's Day weekend was spent in Georgia at the Renaissance Faire

jousting

some vendor shops

garden art

Green Man tree

The Georgia Renaissance fair is a dedicated space and all of the stages and vendor shops are permanent building.  This is the 30th year of the fair and my first visit.

A few weeks ago I was having a good day and my son and I went shopping for a few plants for the front of the house, we were in the process of trimming down the over grown shrubs in the front and I decided we needed to cut them way down to near ground level because previous owners just added new shrubs night to the current plant and what resulted was a tangle mess of several shruubs all fight for room to grow.

over grown shrubs

pruning in progress

New plants for the front

Books I have read while recovering, the books on the Camino de Santiago really peaked my interest I love walking and hiking so I wouldn't be surprised if I attempt it some time in the near future.

Camino walking

ordered myself a copy

A few trips to the library on the days I was feeling up to driving yielded some interesting reads and added to my book challenge numbers.
Well that's my update for the past several weeks. I hope you have a magical day