Seasons Greetings!

Happy Yule Tide Everyone!

 

This year I am grateful for Dolly Parton and Taylor Swift.

I think these two smart, capable, talented women are, single handedly, saving the countries sanity.

I'm pushing 60 and whilst 60 hasn't started pushing back too hard yet, I look at Dolly.                       Who at 80 is still going strong. I look at what she has accomplished in her long glorious career and marvel at her energy. The people she has helped, lifted up or just brought a little joy to, with her charities, her music, her movies and TV shows and Dollywood which revitalized her home town and brought overdue jobs to the area so her people could lift their own selves up.  

If that doesn't inspire you There's Taylor.                                                                                                She is herself everyday and shows her fans by example, how to navigate in a world not made for women, to be strong in and they love her for it.                                                                                            I love her determination to be herself in front of the world, which is cruel to it's icons, doesn't accept imperfections and usually tears them to shreds for the slightest mistakes. Taylor has been open and honest about her struggles, she shows her fans the "warts and all". Who in spite of her labels betrayal of selling her masters out from under her, got the best revenge, in the history of revenge and looks classy doing it.  At 33 she is very smart, the savvy way in which she is navigating the world has been a joy to watch, her fresh face, creating anticipation and community for her fans, having fun doing it and she is just getting started.

This is what two very strong willed smart, talented women are able to accomplish, in spite of the social system they grew up in. None of their accomplishments were handed to them either, they fought hard for the right to be themselves in an industry that likes to exploit their talent for the biggest payday, then toss them aside bent and broken, instead of nurturing it. 

Now imagine a world where everyone got the support they needed to accomplish their joy, not in spite of their surrounding society but because of it? If we gave every one the support they needed to succeed, what couldn't we accomplish?

 Personally Fame looks exhausting to me, all the running around to do and promote and get yourself in front of ears and eyes and attention spans the size of a goldfish. It's the kindness with which these women do what they do, that I see. The kindness to their fans and the people around them, it's not "part of the act" They are genuinely themselves, thoughtful and kind.

Our nation needs them so much right now, I need their bright shiny goodness to go out in the world as an anodyne to the hate trying to tear it apart. It's a bit much to put on their head alone, we need our bright shiny people, To show us a better way. Let us protect them so they can continue to be shiny.

Goldwork froggie

 Here's the Finish

Well almost

Hes not to lumpy

Front view

Top view

He will be a pin someday

of frogs and felt

This is a felt form for goldwork

can you guess what it will be?

Well yeah, just testing.

So this will be my first fore into my own design based on Clara Worschauer' s cleaver tiny frogs, which I ordered the kit for but was too impatient to wait to get, so I started my own.

This is BTW the way most of my adventures start.

I see something I really like, draw a sketch of it for later, then it morphs from there, whether I understand the technique or not I just wade right in and go for it!

Which is why The finished project, 

if it is ever finished,

Is usually lumpy, misshapen, some odd color

Because I didn't like the ones available,

Bigger or smaller than the original,

And generally serves as my mock up.

So anyway I learn as I go.

No instructions    No pattern

Just have an Idea aaaand .....GO!

Sometimes it works out

This might be one of those times where

It's a process

I mean he does't look thA bad so far, right?

 

Chatelaine Purse

Here is the whole thing in it's last few stages.                                                                                                                                        The Design is Ann Beck embroidery's.                                    I fell in love with that little bird and cribbed it from her web     page and boy what a page! Go look!                                                                                                                                                       I used a sticky side embroidery transfer page for the design                                                                                                               I don't know if I recommend them or not                                     The pro's are; You can trace the design easy-peasy                  peel and stick, and re-stick a couple of times.                         if you screw it up the first time, even then it hangs on well to the fabric.                                                                                          The cons are;  it also stickies up your needle as it goes through the fabric, making it a bit of a challenge if that fabric is a all slubby or thick like this one is.                                                                                                                                                    I used this stuff on silk and velvet with cotton floss and didn't have as much of an issue with it as I did here, using all silks both fabric and thread, so keep that in mind.                                                                                                                                          

SO!                                                                                                                                                                                                            All the embroidery is done,                                                                                                                                                                     I loosely back stitched all around the final shape I wan't it to have                                                                                                                                                                                                     all it needs now is the lining and a bit of machine work

              

I sewed the lining and main fabric all around the top, since it has a specific shape to fit the purse frame                                                                        Which has to be sewn into it by hand                                                                                               before, very awkwardly, sewing the right sides together at the bottom, leaving a space for turning then sewing it closed by hand                                                                                                                    < As you see here, I took care to knot each hole                                                                                        So that if one frays the whole thing doesn't fall off the frame, how embarrassing!

 And here she is all together!

Chatelaine Purse

I found myself a chatelaine last year                                                                                                            I have a few things in my collection on it already                                                                                    The design is from Ann Beck Embroidery                     if you haven't looked at her site                         whotin'ell  ya'doin here?  

but it needed something                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                A little pop of color                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  This green silk has been in my scraps for a while                                                                                                    It is just the right size                                                                                                                                             and this is the perfect project for it 

On being societaly un-productive

 Despite being an atheist I can not seem to get rid of my judeo-christian work ethic, which demands I make money from something before I can enjoy it. Why am I like this??? 

I love my hobbies, every, single, one. has brought me the joy of creation, learning, expanding, extreme time loss, beauty, knowledge, whether I am any good at it or not.

What precipitated this little bout of unhelpful self-reflection? 

why my credit card bill, of course. duh

I am determined to kill my JDC work ethic, to death. It's throwing off my groove.

Ace of Swords

I forgot the intervening steps, 

                       again

Oh well

We can't always be diligent and organized

I did a bit of gold and silver work on this one for the crown and the sword, there is a garnet bead in the pommel also

 

Ace of Swords Manifesting your thoughts into action

The meanings don't always have to be deep

as a matter of fact the more vague they are the better

This is so, I have always thought, when reading the cards for a someone who wants to know

They can imbue the meaning for themselves and plug that meaning, into where ever they need it for themselves

And the strength card

Don't they all look nice together on their shelf?

I also finished the Strength card

She's a fun one.

Her meaning is the gentile application of  help or persuasion

She is so calm, in the face of the pointy murder floof

Who is also so calm. This is his person, whom he trusts for pets and corrections. He is allowing her to what?

is she opening or closing the lions mouth?

if closing did she just give him a pill?

he's just a good kitty.

So that's all done for now

I have started a new thing,

 

Don't you just love that yummy green woven silk? 

Now that I have finally found something to do with the last little scrap I have of it

which will eventually become a small purse for my victorian chatelaine

 The victorians may have ruined a lot of things being all proper and colonial but my goodness were they an innovative bunch.

Addendum:

Several of you have asked where you could obtain a template for these, I did not use one, I drafted mine from the cards themselves, having several decks. 

The book Tarot made easy by Nancy Garen has line drawings in it of all 78 cards in the rider deck if you want to try that.

Thon Lizard

Whilst visiting BlueBerry Beads my favorite bead store in downtown Bothell,

I ran across this marvelous little bracelet on display made all of green a white duos

and I thought, as one does, it would make a wonderful lizard, so I did!

Unfortunately I didn't use the right thickness of thread so it kept breaking apart in odd places.

The silly thing is, I was trying to put this fellow together before renfair 

so I could wear it as part of my costume 

aaaaaand didn't re string the whole thing 

so

parts kept falling off. 

And I would redo thAt part.

Renfair appropriate to have a lizard leaper, no?

No, I didn't think so.

upshot is the head fell off, after living on my purse, just fine as it was BTW for a couple of months, 

so yes now I must re make it. 

 A lizard barely alive. We can rebuild them. We have the technology. We can make the better than thon was. Better, stronger, faster, than before ..................cue the music

Ace of Pentacles

Hmmm

From drawing to done in one simple step! woo!

Not really I just forgot to take progress pictures.

I do that a lot sometimes.

This time I decided to make the hedgerow out of french knots

ten million tiny little french knots.

What was I thinking?

I'm not crazy yet, so that's something but this took for f*#%ing ever

Looks good though

The Pentacle is made from a piece of appliqued gold lame and gold thread  

Ace of Pentacles new beginnings will manifest your potential from a place of security

Happy Thanksgiving

 

Gobble, gobble

Ace of Wands

So wands are next

I have gathered all my stuff

even though blogger appears to be behaving itself this go round

I will be brief

There is only so much explaining satin stitch one can do before it becomes repetitive and frankly boring

I thought i would use a different color for the under stitching on the clouds  since clouds refract light in some truly glorious ways lets see how that comes out

The meaning of this card for me is,  the practical application of knowledge in the world.

Wingardium leveosA!

 Here it is on the shelf

Have a Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

I did a thing

A Very silly thing

It could be the mess that is still outside my window throwing off my groove.

and the studio that continues not to be built 

because the yard hAs to be clEaned up fiRst    -.-

So It started as a standard boring straw hat,                             that I have had in the closet for decades and haven't worn in at least that long. Why do I keep things like this?

I don't know, may as well ask why I bought knitting needles, I never use them either!

I wanted a wicker witch hat so I bought another straw hat and disassembled it.

Then spent two days re rolling it into the aesthetically pleasing rumpled witches conical hat you see complete with rolling pointy tip.

But it looked lonely and barren, so I added some flowers and foliage and a couple of beaded bees

Which looked good bUUt................

...........................it needed more cowbell.

hence the geese.

they came in a package of 3, so

I had to use all three right?

One day I will be a real faerie godmother and now I have the hat!

I need to start thinking about wings........................

An Embroidery adventure

The worst part of starting something new is deciding what to do This time I have 78 cards to choose from,                                                                                                                                             if I want to do the whole set that is.                                                                                                                                                         So I have started with one of my favorite cards in the deck      the ace of cups                                                                                                                                                                                       I start out with the fabric and my idea drawn out in water soluble marker,                                                                                                                                                                                         I am  going to sew it all in satin stitch and dmc  threads to keep it simple                                                                                                                                                                                                         I chose this white satin which I have a small ton of                       from a wedding dress I made for a friend ten million years ago                                                                                         

 You might notice I outline everything with chain stitch first,                                                                 this is to keep my satin stitch fairly even all the way through the piece.                                                         and to give me the embroidery a little bit of lift                                                                                        Why Tarot cards you may ask.                              First off, the amount of art that goes into a deck of cards is astonishing.                                            There are 78 of them and they represent not just the 52 basic playing cards we all know                            it adds 26 major arcana cards to represent the journey of  the soul through life. Yes, for some people it's very woo-woo                                                                                                                                I have been fascinated with the Tarot cards since I was a child                                                            back then (In the dark ages) we only had two or three decks to look at and only one that was commercially available, 

  at you'r local hippy-dippy one stop herbal remedy and spiritual  awakening shop.                                                                                                                                                              Which was the venerable Rider Wait Tarot. Though there were several decks before this one, the French Marseilles deck and the Italian Visconte deck have been used since the early 1400's as playing cards.  These were probably based on the Mamuluk deck from Egypt and Persia which have been around since the pyramids, and possibly the "leaf game" which was all the rage in the 860' Tang dynasty China.                                                                                                                                                        It's not until the occultists who in the 1880's got a hold of them for divination, did the cards themselves attain their veneer of spirituality/devil worship, and managed to ruin everything. Thank you Victorians.                                                                    And now that you know way more about playing card than you ever thought to, I return you to this embroidery already in progress.

Anyway they're pretty that's why                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                Those clouds are looking good                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                And since blogger's formatting is being a poo today despite a refresh and turning it off and back on i'm going to show you the progress and finished card at the bottom

Since each card has symbolism and meanings baked into them from the afore mentioned occultists and I  have used them as guides from time to time when feeling out of control and stressed                                                                                                           regardless of the fact that is is just hokum and woo-woo                                                                                                                          the meaning of this card for me is Love rules our lives not power. The act of giving of yourself, peacefully to the world, it fills not only your cup but the world around you.

              I had fun with this card so much so I will be doing at least a few more. hopefully bloggers attitude will be better in forthcoming posts or the explanations are going to be short and may contain swear words