Merry Solstice!

 Today those of us on the north side of the planet celebrate the longest day of the year and look forwards to the slow waning of the sun's light. This is a time of fruition and fertility (in ideas as well as fields and beds.) and a time to work on projects. I'm celebrating by burning pretty things...
   "What! Burning what kinds of.... oh no." That's right, after finishing my Wheel of the Year embroidery I started on a smaller wheel, this four seasons tree of life was made entirely to be offered up as sacrifice. "Sacrifice" doesn't just mean killing the fatted cow, it means "to make sacred" so anything that is offered before a deity is a sacrifice. In the traditions of northern Europe a sacrifice would be ritually destroyed to ensure it could not be used by anyone and was truly a gift. Clay and metal items were dropped in lakes, wood offerings were burnt.
   "But you're not going to destroy all that hard work..." Yes. Yes I am. It's a piece of art for the Gods of old, and it was made with this purpose in mind. I admit, I'm giving it to someone else for the actual destruction, it would be a wee hard to do myself.

And I don't have time to dwell on last years piece, the wheel spins along. I picked up some lovely maroon linen and a variety of colors for this year's project. I've chosen flowers to represent each of the eight high days and the seasonal changes. Tomorrow I start embroidering Lavender for the midsummer. Here's to another year! I hope everyone has a blessed solstice!

Spinning with Granny

Grandma is from New Zealand, where sheep outnumber people 7 to 1! She used to spin, but hadn't for many many years, so when I pulled out my spinning wheel she had to give it a go! She was impressed that I can now buy roving all clean and carded and ready to go, as she recalls that being the least fun part of the process. And of course the design and workings of a spinning wheel hasn't changed for over a hundred years, so it was a familiar feeling!

End of Summer

Summer is drawing to a close, and so too is my summer section of my wheel of the year project! I've completed the tree and added a vine around the outer edge. I need to go back to the needlework shop for one more color, as I decided to add the names of the high days to the wheel.
In a few weeks when the autumn equinox hits I'll be starting the Fall tree in a new set of colors! I was pleasantly surprised at how quickly this went, which bodes well for completing each section in it's allotted season. It's quite relaxing to know I have a year to do this, and there's no rushing! Perhaps all my craft projects should have laid back time lines?

The Wheel Doesn't Always Turn One Way...

After a few weeks of very warm weather and a weekend of 80+ F degrees, it spent the last two days snowing. This is actually fairly normal for Colorado, skip Spring and go straight to Summer, then come back around to a little bit of Winter.
I know better than to trust an early season, so all the seeds I've planted are frost hardy. There's a reason we call them "Snow Peas" and Radishes hate warm weather. Of course the tulips didn't miss a beat. In fact the moisture was a huge boon to them! My table will have a fresh bouquet on it for at least two weeks from now.
I finally started on the fourth and final stage of my Wheel of the Year project. Spring will be a light colored tree with small buds and pink flowers. I'm looking forward to bringing the whole circle together, and already plotting a project for the coming trip around the sun. Nothing like crafting to make us enjoy every single season!
What does spring look like for you? I feel it's the season that people are most in touch with, we've kept so many of the old traditions celebrating fertility and rebirth (like spring cleaning, Easter, Earth Day and May Day) that even in modern society we all recognize the return of life. Be sure to get outside and watch some flowers blooming!

Finds - Summer Solstice

 Once again the wheel has turned and we are at the longest day of the year! The sun is lingering far into the evening, and the summer heat is starting to linger. One of the joys of Colorado is that the shade is still cool, and the nights chill everything nicely.

Painting by PamelaJonesArtStudio.

 Get the house decorated up for the summer with a colorful wreath from WillowgaleDesigns

 Get gussied up for a warm evening party with this classic print dress from CruelCandy

Liven up an outfit with a touch of spring meadows, this lovely pendent by MaggieJonesEnamels

If you're feeling Crafty, make your own solstice time yarn from the hand-dyed roving by TheCritterRanch. Remember, it's cooler to spin the wool than to have a pile of it in your lap while knitting!

Or, for an even more hot-weather-friendly craft, try this summer time cross-stitch pattern by ColorfulCrossStitch.

Whether you plan to drum down the sun around a mighty bonfire, or just toast the longest day of the year with a cold drink, enjoy your Solstice!

Finds - Summer Solstice

The longest days of the year are upon us, the wheel turns, and solstice is more than just a feature of astronomy. This time of year we celebrate the beginning of summer harvest and the greening of the world. The Green Man and the Earthmother are busy providing for all of us, and we are busy working hard to keep up. This lovely card from EmilyBalivet features the Oak King - bringer of Litha and this fine weather we are all enjoying.

The blazing sun is the other focus of the solstice. The longest days of the year with the noonday sun climbing high and lingering long. This is when the crops flourish and nature hits her peak. This beautiful mosaic piece from DoMosaics combines bright sunshine and mottled greenery, and I bet it glints in the sun.

The light this time of year is special as the sun angles high in the mid-day and takes it's sweet time waiting to set. This photo from AnnWilkinson beautifully captures to lush greenery and the soft light. If this doesn't bring you a warm fuzzy feeling you might be a robot!

We're having a gray day here, so I might need to have some artificial sunshine to brighten the room. This window hanging in lovely yellow from HarvestMoonByHand is both intricately made and simply beautiful. Try not to get lost staring at it...

Bring color and warmth to an outfit year-round with this necklace from 13thStreetJewelry. Lush olive green with little bits of sunshine, just right for the midsummer. But you can brighten your life in the winter with it too.

Some yarn for you crafty folks, fiber sunshine! This cheery yellow from SweetBasilFibreWorks in perfect for summer months. Get some colorful needles out and get knitting! Make something light and lofty - tho in these parts summer still has those chilly days...

So to celebrate the summer months and the Green Man be sure to get outside! And you can bring a little bit of outside in... This sweet mask from MythicalDesigns is colorful enough to hang on the wall when you aren't wearing it out to your local solstice party. No parties you know of? Then get your crew together and make your own!

Wheel of The Year

I started this project less than a year ago, and followed thru all the seasons, summer, fall, winter and spring. It is finally completed, with spreading trees and bright red letters for the high days.

Spring

Winter

Autumn

Summer

So then we are faced with the task of hanging this piece. I was hoping to place it directly on a piece of wood, but I couldn't find solid woods in a close enough size, only plywood. So I bought some square dowels and started cutting!

I used my "high-tech" staple gun to make a row of connectors at each joint. It was a little wiggly but sturdy enough for stretching fabric. The fabric actually stabilized it quite a bit.

I washed the cloth gently, and hung it to dry. Then I ironed it to as flat as a piece of lumpy embroidery can be. I taped everything in place at first to center it.

Now the great challenge, which side goes up? Also, how do I get those last few pencil marks off the linen ground? It was a very fulfilling project, and really did help me to be more in touch with the changing seasons. I'm already plotting a new project, to be started this midsummer. I'm thinking about doing herbs that are sacred to each high day, giving me a chance to learn more herbcraft too! This may become a yearly ritual for me, who knows how long it will last...

Sheep to Shawl... or what ever else you want to knit...

This brain looking mass? Actually a rather dirty fleece that has been stuffed in my closet for three years... eeew! Actually part of my package deal when I bought my spinning wheel off an older lady, so it's mystery wool. I was dubious as to weather I could make it usable, but I figured a great way to start off washing wool at my new house.

And wow! It cleaned up just fine, and the nice crimp appeared to prove that it is in fact off of a sheep. The lanolin is rather set in to this wool, so my heavy scouring still left it rather greasy - makes it tougher to spin but makes the finished product very durable! The wool was high quality, not at all brittle, anf it fluffed up nicely for dying...


I dyed several hunks when I was dying my last batch of yarn, but the colors on the fleece were very different from the colors on the yarn. Luckily my new yard has a great clothes line just great for drying wool. In Colorado it's so dry anyway, and just a few hours in the sun left it totally ready for carding.
I carded it down at the craft shop, as I'm waiting for my drum carder to come in. It's amazing to watch lumps of wool become huge fluffy batts, then as you spin they magically shrink back down into a skein of yarn. Pictured is my dusky rose skein, but I also carded a blend of purples with mylar sparkles! (Can't go wrong with sparkles!)

After the yarn sits stretched on the niddy-noddy to relax the twist a little I twist it into skeins and put it out for sale! With all the warm weather I should be washing and carding a lot this summer, so come by my shop and stock up for all your winter projects...

Embroidered Offering - Balance

The wheel of the year keeps turning, so that all thing remain in balance! I recently took an Oath in my spiritual path, and promised an offering. My oath was very much based on the theme of balance, so I thought my offering ought to be too!

It was a smallish piece, just one hoop's worth of stitching. I started out by divvying up the linen into quarters. I've learned that pencil lines wear off rather quickly, so I used regular sewing thread to baste in marker lines.

I did trees for the four seasons. (This is a favorite of mine!) complete with an appropriate amount of foliage - from little buds to nothing! 

 Next, faces! I had never done faces in stitchery before, if is a very interesting challenge. I have a masculine and feminine face, and I tried to make one old and one young. (They both look a bit old, hazards of hard shadows.) I'm fairly happy with how they turned out, but most importantly, the camera thought it was a person!

The final touches were some weather. Sunshine for the spring and summer, rain and snow for the fall and winter. All the things in their own time. Everything in balance.

We had a good bonfire for midsummer, and offerings were made. Welcome to the warm times! But, the days are now getting shorter, good news to keep us from getting too hot. Also good news for us travelers - I'm writing this in Iceland, the sun only set for about 3 hours last night, and it never got dark. I'm loving it in many ways, but sleep is also good! Here's to Balance!

Works in Progress

 As summer gets into full swing the craft projects are moving along. First there's my second Wheel of the Year embroidery. I have all eight plants laid out, and I'm preparing to add words and the finishing touches.

I finally took the step that I should have done first. Seriously, before everything else. Lesson learned. I kept making marks to outline the work area, and they kept rubbing off while I worked. So I took some sewing thread and basted down a circle that will be easy to remove when I'm done. Doing this made me realize that I was a bit off center, so now I'll be adding more to some of the plants so they extend to the edge. *Sigh*

If I don't start my next project by putting in guide lines someone please shoot me.

 I of course also made a smaller offering piece. This was a bouquet of all the flowers in the wall hanging, scaled down. I finished just in time to run off to the ritual, and didn't get a picture first. That's a strange sinking feeling that must not have plagued our ancestors "Well, it's burning now. No chance to take a photo I guess."

My less flammable project is a granny square blanket. I've used an entire bin of hand-dyed yarns in assorted (read - not matching at all) colors. Each square is a unique mix of colors, and I used nearly every scrap of most of the colors too! I'll be finding a suitable yarn to pull the whole thing together (probably gray, the only thing that might not clash with all these bright colors.)

I'm going to trim each square and sew them together, which should give me a 60" x 30" blanket, perfect for a baby gift.

What are you working on? Let the stash bust continue!

Yarrrgh mateys! T'was a Piraty weekend...

That's right, I spent the weekend talking like a Pirate to all these landlubbers, while spinning in public! Ok, I ran out of piraty ways to explain how the spinning wheel works and had to drop back to modern english...
My sister has custody of the Captain's Hat this year, but I still talked like the captain! Good times in Boulder's City Park.

Spinzilla

Spinzilla... it's a monster! RAWR!

This year's Spinzilla challenge was much tougher than previous years'. No, the objective was still to spin the most yards, but now we had a baseline. Goals were set, records prepared to be shattered. Strategies and preparations were made, we got hyped up. While I was going thru my fiber stash I found this little gem, the first yarn I spun on this wheel! It's random wool that came with the machine, and I still haven't knit with it... (let's not talk about my stash problems.)

Since Team Fancy Tiger won last year, we had the pressure to repeat our victory. There was shit talking, well as much as some nice crafting ladies and gents can do...

 My first bobbin, and about my largest! I discovered that my bulky flyer can hold about 13 oz. of sock weight singles, which is way too much for our counting helpers to handle at once! After this I would give smaller bobbins over to them for winding off...

For the most part I was spinning thru a bunch of alpaca given to me by Mr. Crafty, some Gotland greys from New Zealand, and the mystery wool I bought in Ireland. Thus, that pile of finished objects is pretty plain in color. But I did have a few colorful braids given to me!

My final total was 6756 yards, 7 lbs. of fiber. 7 breeds, 2 species, 3 countries of origin, 5 natural colors. Half of the fiber was hand processed by me. One spinner who is looking forward to knitting for a while...

Team Fancy spun over 171,000 yards, which is almost 100 miles of yarn. We have our work cut out for us next year!