~Thoughts Captured on a Magic Cloth~Butterflies~Bees~and a Talking Stick~

Our camera in six years old now, and has had an incredible amount of use. 

The photo of the butterfly was taken with auto focus!!! 

I am selling my treatment couch and buying a new camera!

 My first day of butterfly sightings this year. I saw one flying rapidly, with the assistance of a brisk breeze, in the bootsale this morning, and when we came home this Peacock was beating a tattoo on my shed window ~ ready ~ like all of us ~ to be out in the warmth of the sun. It made my day by pausing for a count of five on my hand before flying away.

I am continuing with the idea, as I wrote over on sew, of ~

a year, in a nine-patch design, with most likely the moon in the centre, and the eight celebrations around it :~ samhain, winter solstice,  imbolc, vernal equinox, beltane, midsummer, lammas and autumnal equinox. 
I am finding that I am making each one as a separate small cloth....

.......Winter Solstice........

Captured Thoughts

As I sew ~ applique ~ the oak leaves around the sun, the needle picks up the first layer

of skin on my middle finger, and I literally become a part of my Magic Cloth.

I find myself holding my breath, wondering if this next stitch will be a 'good' one,

and having to remind myself to breath ~ for that too becomes part of the cloth

~ in and out ~ like the needle, like the stitches.

The 'ghost' oak leaves inside the sun ring ~ green thread? ~ to represent what they 

will become in summer? ~ grey thread? ~ more representative of ghost leaves?

Winter Solstice Cloth ~ the oak leaves are placed in a spiral pattern around the cloth as:

1. They chase the holly leaf away

2. The spiral represents the high 

winds we invariably get on the 

solstices ~ and equinoxes ~ 

The inner spiral of leaves ~ not ghost leaves ~ do them in green, for they are a dream,

~dream leaves ~ dreaming of what is going to become.

Still lots of stitching to do, and the holly leaf to make.

I have long loved the story of the oak and the holly kings

 battling for supremacy on the summer solstice and again on the winter solstice. 

......Vernal Equinox....

this is supposed to be a hare for Eostre. 

My drawing skills are really poor, so this looks more like a donkey gone wrong! I don't want to rip it out yet though, but try Jude's trick of filling in with stitch, the same colour as the cloth, to see if I can get it more hare-like. We'll see. If successful, it will be the centre panel of the small cloth representing the Vernal Equinox. 

The brown patch, is a piece of silk I had tried to paint on and did not like, so it went into the acorn dye pot. It is gorgeous.....almost a bronze sheen to it.

Two years ago, my walking friend...another Jude.....gave me a most beautiful gift, knowing that I love such things.

a bumble bee nest she found while gardening.

Isn't it an architectural work of art. All those little 

'cells' look like acorns or hazelnuts, but they build 

them using wax secreted by their abdomens and 

mixed with pollen

  It has kept me company in my shed for these last eighteen months,

but nature reclaims her own, so this week....

this is all that is left.

Something I made ten months ago....and I could not believe it was so long ago, when I found the date...

My Talking Stick

: :

driftwood, leather, copper wire, clay beads, holey stone 
and welsh crystal wand

~ Keep Going ~

Slow progress on a slow cloth

This is going to be one of nine sections on a larger cloth.

When I was first training in,and then practicing,massage,
aromatherapy and cranio~sacral therapy, I owned them. They were mine and I did not worry about who else or how many others were also doing it. It was what I was meant to do at that time. I had no fear. 

Since then, since I have stopped doing the therapies, since I have lost the passion I had for doing them, I have also lost myself and I know fear. I think I even fear being good at something again...or allowing myself to be good at something again.

I am finally, after seven months, finding my story in this Magic Cloth. I am finding, as I hoped I would, that I am thinking about it even when I am not working on it. I am becoming immersed in it; it is talking to me and maybe I am opening up to owning myself again. 

This is what I hoped for when I started doing Jude's classes. My instincts told me it was important for me to invest in this and I am so glad I listened.

One of the most precious gifts Jude has given me are two little words that she tells us all ~ keep going ~  Those two words have indeed kept me going, one step, one idea, one stitch at a time and before I know it, that one step has become a mile, that one idea has blossomed into a hundred ideas, and that one stitch is slowly becoming a whole quilt.....I am grateful.