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/
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| 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
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| The Cailleach |
The Cailleach t
hemes
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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
