~ Winter Solstice Cloth ~

I started this cloth in 2011 in Jude's class ~ Magic Diaries 1.

 I wasn't happy with the centre piece....

....so, thinking of Jude's courage when she cut Magic Cloth 2, with heart-in-mouth, I cut it out....

and replaced it with a very dark purple silk velvet.

  

I left it for months after this....

...until a few weeks ago, when I started again, with Jude's reindeer and Cernunos as inspiration. 

The reindeer also fit in with a story I was excited to come across as I was working on the cloth, of 'Elen of the Ways', a Welsh and Scottish antlered goddess. I was fascinated to learn that female reindeer are antlered, the only female deer to be so, and I loved that Elen is the Welsh version of my name. I wonder why, seeing as the language we spoke in our house was Welsh, my parents didn't choose Elen instead of Helen....

Elen means fawn or doe and is said to shine like the sun, which was perfect for what I was doing here. It just felt so right for me to be stitching her as a female. 

I enjoyed working with this Horned Goddess and the Sun on this year's Winter Solstice, though my heart was in my mouth again a lot of the time, as I did not draw the antlers on and did them by eye. I was so pleased with the effect of the 'magic-thread', and a single strand 'split backstitch' was so fine to 'draw' the face.
 

I took away the moon on the right, as it did not fit in with the sun. I am not sure what to put there yet, though I have drawn in some acorns.  It needs balance....a pulling together, and I don't know what that is....so, I will just look for a while....

The centre spiral will be changed. The outer spiral took me a few days to accept, as it was off course....but I've promised myself not to get caught up in the idea of perfection any more,(as you can see from the shape of my leaves!), and now I love its elliptical path.

I fell in love with thread beads when I did the snowy field....it's the first time I've really used them for effect like this, and I was grinning in my heart as I worked.

This was supposed to be posted on the day of the Solstice, but I was too busy stitching, and time ran away with me.....so now I have had time to add a tree in that top right corner. I am waiting for the centre to tell me what it needs, and then with a few finishing touches I think this will finally be finished....it might just take until this year's Winter Solstice! Goodness I work even more slowly than I thought.

Cariad Mawr

H x