Tomorrow's Blue Moon and some autumn patterns

Full moons always seem powerful to me, I feel deeply creative and intensely magical during this time, when we have a blue moon, which happens when two full moons occur in the same month, I believe we are empowered more than ever.

The blue moon, which will not happen again until 2018, will illuminate the sky Friday. During this time why not take the opportunity to be illuminated as brightly as the moon, be energized, radiate and glow.

Tomorrow I am going to attend a small gathering for a little magical stitching and I have just the items I want to work on.

This sweet acorn pattern above and the lovely little pumpkin pattern below were both purchased from Prairie Point Junction and I thought they would make a lovely addition to my home during the upcoming autumn holidays.

 http://prairiepointjunction.com/

My idea was to use a single motif for napkins, tea towels and peraps a place mat or table topper, this in addition to the actual pattern project.  I think the ring of motifs would look nice as a candle mat on an altar or perhaps even an altar cloth.  

Tonight I need to trace the hand embroidery motifs onto the fabric so I can bring them along tomorrow for our gathering.

What do you have planned for this July's Blue Moon?

Crafting Witches and Reading challenge Update

I have all of the Hocuspocusville Witch themed blocks traced onto fabric and will begin hand embroidering the blocks later today.  I was surprised at how quickly I was able to trace all the blocks once I sat down and found my groove.

Over the next few weeks I have a few other Witch quilt patterns to start, the process of tracing the embroidery blocks, to piecing the appliques should keep me quite busy for the next few months.  Here is a look at some of the patterns I will be working.

I think these will make a nice addition to my growing Witch collection, and I hope will give me more experience doing hand applique.

Here is my update on the books I have reading for the 2015 Witches & Witchraft reading challenge.

I choose Crone Level which is 16-20 books, I'm happy to say I reached my Crone level and passed it reading 27.

Here are the Books I have read so far this year:

The Penguin book of Witches Katherine Howe

The Wizard and the Witch John C. Sulak

by Lenora Henson

The Wicked Garden

The Witches of Snyder Farm

Beltane

Aurora's Wake

by Dolores Stewart Riccio

Circle of Five

Charmed Circle

The Divine Circle of Ladies Making Mischief

The Divine Circle of Ladies Courting Trouble

The Divine Circle of Ladies Playing with Fire

The Divine Circle of Ladies Rocking the Boat

The Divine Circle of Ladies Tipping the Scales

The Divine Circle of Ladies Painting the Town

The Divine Circle of Ladies Digging the Dirt

By M R Sellars (Rowan Gant Series)

Harm None

Never Burn a Witch

Perfect Trust

The Law of Three

Crone's Moon

Love is the Bond

All Acts of Pleasure

The End of Desire

Blood Moon

Miranda

Spellbooked by Joyce and Jim Lavene

The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane by Katharine Howe

Preparing for some witchy stitching

Today is one of those days where everything comes together and I can spend a few hours, if not the entire day indulging in some me time.

I am anxious to get some hand stitching on the Hocuspocusville blocks started so today I managed to trace 3 of the blocks.

potting shed

bubble and brew

My plan is to trace all the blocks for hand embroidery before I begin stitching so I can just do one after the other.

I did have a set back while tracing the patterns onto the tone on tone fabric, the fabric was so rough it wore down my micron pen nib so I decided to just use unbleached muslin, which I was originally planning because I can see the tracing on the fabric better, and I had enough on hand. I think if I went a head with the other fabric, stitching may have been difficult.

So anyway, the first 3 blocks are traced with 9 more to go, it takes about forty minutes or so to trace each block depending on the details.

Peace Square and the Four Goddesses embroidered

4 Goddesses

Another hand embroidery piece has been hand stitched, now onto pressing and adding a simple border.

My Peace Square stitchery is done and also needs to be pressed and trimed to size then mailed off.

Peace square

I love working small hand embroidery pieces, it keeps my fingers busy and my stitching improves with each piece.

Happy Summer Solstice to All

What I'm Stitching this week

Stitching on the Goddess hand embroidery piece was started over the last weekend, with 2 Goddesses to go.

I will put the piece aside for a short break so I can start embroidery this little Peace Square for the

Artists for Peace project, information can be found at this link.
https://obsesivcreativ.wordpress.com/

Oh and I finally replaced the Goddess cookie cutter that disappeared from my supply box a few years ago while I was teaching a class, this one is a little different from the original, bought 3, one to use for actual baking, one for clay projects, and one to adjust the bottom to resemble the original cutter.

Goddess Cutter

original Cutter

Greenman #2 completed.

All the stitching on the Greenman #2 hand embroidery is complete, I am quite pleased with the piece

now I just have to decide how I am going to finish it. I have been considering adding borders for a small wall hanging or altar cloth, a friend suggested a pillow and I have toyed with the idea of framing it. In the meantime I have been planning a few other hand embroidery projects.

On the 21st of May I attended another hand embroidery class at the local quilt shop, this class focused on fill in stitches.

Getting the chain stitch to curve at first was a challenge as you can seen by the cane shape stitches, I made improvements at the top and achieved the arc I was aiming for.  The chain stitch looks great in spirals which I need to practice.  The other stitches are the blanket stitch top in both dark and light purple floss, when they are flipped and stitched together they make a nice fill space.  The purple leaf shape is my fishbone stitch which I love and the heart is a randomly stitched long/short stitch.

A small hand embroidery I finished yesterday is this cute little motif a free download from: http://www.red-brolly.com/

I am selecting the floss colors so I can start the Goddess piece I have traced onto the fabric and added a backing fabric to stabilize my stitching. I plan to begin stitching during tonight's Full Moon.

Over the past few weeks I have been gathering a few new patterns for hand embroidery, many with a garden or nature theme, two of my favorite things, and since I didn't plant a spring garden this year I grow my plants with needle and thread. These two patterns are from http://www.birdbraindesigns.net/

Garden Sampler

Thyme to Garden

My love of the ocean and seaside had me buying this cute little pattern on one of my trips to the quilt shop, I am planning to get a few patterns on the lightbox for tracing so I have several things to work on.

I also have an old iron on transfer book of just seashells which I have used over the years usually

tracing the patterns in the book rather than cutting them out and ironing onto the fabric, I have an idea forming in my mind for a summer or ocean goddess altar cloth using some of the shell motifs. More about that in a future post I'm sure.