The Last Sunday Stitching for 2021

 Here we are the day after Christmas and the last Slow Sunday Stitching in 2021. I am happy to say I had time yesterday evening to get some stitching in and pleased to present the last Goddess of the Month hand embroidery for 2021, Airmid (also known as Airmed, Airmeith or Airmedh) is the Irish Goddess associated with healing, and particularly herbal healing. She is also associated with gardening, nature, family and loyalty.

I completed the stitching late last night, washed off the stitch and wash product and hung her up to dry, this morning I snapped her photo wrinkled fabric and all.   Here is a close up of the foraging bag at her hip.

This is one of my favorite images of Airmid by Jane Brideson, she does some of the most beautiful pieces of Art I especially love her Cailleach pieces. This is the link to her website take a look http://theeverlivingones.blogspot.com/

On her website she has a list/map of flowers and plants used in the Airmid image. I haven't decided if I am going to do a new monthly challenge for 2022.  I may just continue on with goddesses. Currently I am in the midst of creating a new Greenman piece and I'm also planning to put together a quilt this year using this lovely goddess fabric I purchased from Spoonflower for a shop Magic in Your Living Room, there is also an Etsy shop of the same name.

There are 2 different fabric panels, one surrounded by a yellow border and one with out a border.  I

am planning to use all of the squares to make a quilt, then I had an idea to alternate each block with a hand embroidered block using a basic goddess shape.  Nothing is set in stone so I will let my ideas brew until I have a final decision.

Here is a look at all 12 Goddesses I hand embroidered during 2021

All these pieces have to be trim to the same size if I decide to make them into a quilt, if not just trimmed and finished possible ideas prayer flags, framed or mounted and made into a book.

Well there is time to decide.  This week I have a few things I want to finish up and things to get done before the start of a brand new year. But for now I need to toss something in the oven my sister and her family are coming later today.

I am linking my post today at Kathy's Quilts for Slow Sunday Stitching. https://kathysquilts.blogspot.com/2021/12/slow-sunday-stitching_0245668423.html

I hope you all had a wonderful Holiday season, whether it was Christmas, Hanukah, Diwali, Kwanza, Yule or Festivus. And I hope you all have some time to stitch.

 

Christmas Eve 2021

 Well I made it to Christmas Eve 2021 and despite several set backs this year I am feeling pretty good. 

The online shops are closed for the remainder of 2021 I'm not sorry to have packed the last items, I will deliver them to the post office today and then sit back with a cup of tea and breathe for a while and enjoy the short break.

I decided to pass on putting up a Christmas tree this year, I had it pulled out of the box, spread out the branches and left it for a day or two, when I opened the box of ornaments I realized I just didn't feel like decorating a tree this year.  So I boxed up the tree, put away the ornaments and decided this arrangement would work perfectly for me this year.

My arrangement of silk flowers, pinecones, berries and greenery was all I needed this year, oh and my vintage Yule log which has been packed in a box since 2011, I was planning to remove the plastic decorations and remake it but decided to leave it.  I think it fits in with the vintage table cloth.

This is my $5.00 bargain I picked up at Walmart the other day while I was browsing the garden center.

It's just an assortment of evergreens and a few faux berries all stuck into florist foam, it smells divine and marked down from $39.95 to $5.00 I grabbed one.  It's turning a bit brown so I have to trim it each morning. It sits on my table in the kitchen and all those boxes around the table are now gone.

I plan to get in some stitching this week, I'm close to completing the last goddess for my Goddess of the Month challenge. I still haven't decided on a subject or if I will do another monthly challenge for 2022 but I  have ideas roaming around my head.

I have several friends and followers that want me to continue with the Goddess theme, I also thought of a Witch a month, then while paging through my sketchbook I came across several old Greenman sketches as well as mermaids and Hamsa hands.  

Today when I return from the post office I need to hang a new bird feeder in the backyard.  A few days ago I put one it front of the house and the next day it rained all day then yesterday on my way to my car there were birds at the feeder, and a half dozen cardinals in the tree along my driveway.  I was so thrilled to see these beautiful, elusive birds.  There is also a woodpecker that loves to peck my sons car window and the palm tree in front of my house.  I have yet to get a photo though my daughter in law manage to get one.  So I bought a woodpecker seed block to hang by the palm tree.

Since moving here 2 years ago I hadn't replaced the bird feeders that were broken in the move and with knee injuries and illness, heart surgery I forgot all about them.  One of the best things about regaining my health is all those little forgotten things that always brings pleasure are surfacing again. My number one goal for 2022 is regaining 100% of my health or as near to that as I can get.

Later today between chores and stitching I'm going to sit down and read through the latest issue of Beachcombing magazine before the new issue arrives.  The subscription was a thoughtful gift from a dear friend I lost this year.  

She knew how much I love the beach and sea glass and one day an issue arrived in the mail for my birthday.  I knew who sent it right away right before I became ill in 2020 we had been walking the beach and I was lamenting how finding sea glass on the beaches in Florida is rare, well for me anyway and that I was planning to visit a few of the beaches where finding it wasn't as difficult but not without a challenge.  A few weeks later the magazine arrived, I didn't even know such a magazine existed.  Perhaps this year I will make it to a few of those beach glass beaches.

Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas and the happiest New Year yet!

 

Happy St. Nicholas Day

 

Slow Sunday Stitching and Spools of Floss.

 The hand embroidery for the November goddess of the month is complete, she has been washed and dried but still needs to be ironed.

I love how she turned out and the expression on her face is just perfect for Baba Yaga.  I need to choose which goddess will be for December.  

About two weeks ago while scrolling through one of the hand embroidery Facebook Groups I found out that Anchor embroidery Floss was available on spools and was being sold at Joann Fabrics so you know I had to make a trip over to my local store to see if it was available, it was so I happily chose 20 spools.

These are 6 strand floss with 10.9 yards of floss selling for .75 cents per spool. Well this weekend Joann's is having the Doorbuster sale and the spools are on sale at 5 spools for $2.00 or .40 cents each  so off I went to Joann's first thing this morning and bought 55 more spools.

I originally tried to buy them online Friday night however you have to buy a minimum of 2 of each color you choose which I didn't want.  Now you might think ugh plastic spools, and them eventually in the landfill but I use empty spools for other crafting projects and haven't thrown away an empty spool in years.

I also picked up another skein of Lion Brands Skin Tone yarn for a project I have in the making.  

I bought the color in Cedarwood, below are all 12 colors in the collection, they are on sale at Joanns too.

I'm linking my post today at Kathy's Quilts https://kathysquilts.blogspot.com/2021/11/slow-sunday-stitching_0702395746.html

Happy Thanksgiving

 

November and the Stitching is Good

 November is moving through the days so quick my head is spinning.  Thanksgiving is on the horizon and then straight on decking the halls for the Christmas and winter holiday season.  

Running a home based business for 5 online shops is crazy busy this time of year, usually things get hectic in the last week of October straight on to the New Year, this year however with delays in unloading cargo ships things have picked up at the end of September and has kept at a steady pace.  

As busy as I have been I have had time to get in some stitching, the hand embroidery for my October goddess Elen of the Ways is complete:

I am currently working on the November goddess, Baba Yaga:

If you aren't familiar with Baba Yaga here are some interesting bits on Baba Yaga the ‘old woman’ of autumn was called Baba by the Slavic inhabitants of eastern Europe, Boba by the Lithuanians. This seasonal divinity lived in the last sheaf of grain harvested in a year, and the woman who bound it would bear a child that year. Baba passed into Russian folk legend as the awesome Baba Yaga, a witchlike woman who rowed through the air in a mortar, using a pestle for Her oar, sweeping the traces of Her flight from the air with a broom

Here is a image I like the heavily costumed Baba Yaga below with all those lovely charms hanging from her shawls.

My Baba Yaga reminds me of this image below by Rima Staines not elaborately dress though which would have been fun to stitch.  

I did draw a second image of Baba Yaga in her flying mortar and pestle but the proportions didn't look right so I nixed it.  

Back in June of 2016 I took part in a Goddess a Week challenge and created this Baba Yaga for week 2.

She was hand embroidered and crayon tinted on white on white print cotton fabric. I am linking my post here at Kathy Quilts for Slow Sunday Stitching https://kathysquilts.blogspot.com/2021/11/slow-sunday-stitching_01273866207.html

When I'm not stitching I have been reading Goddess Bless by Sirona Knight and will start Gateway to the Modern Crone by Jude Downes this week.

I will leave you with a bit of humor

The Early Days of November

The first week of November has been a mixed bag of weather with heavy rain falling Thursday and continuing through much of the weekend. It has brought much cooler temps with the low last night at 48 degrees, due to the rain and overcast skies it's quite chilly here in north central Florida, but it feels great.

When the weather is filled with the scent of wood smoke, and there is a frigid breeze blowing I long for snow flurries, warm gloves and hot cocoa after my morning walk.  While I don't have the snow flurries, I do have gloves and hot cocoa in my cup and memories of long gone days of brightly colored leaves and November snow storms.  We would be lost without our memories.

While I won't be walking among leaves of gold, red and orange, my heart remembers those days when I would take long walks hearing the leaves crunch beneath my feet, the aroma of damp wet leaves filling my nostrils, inhaling the crisp air deep into my soul.  

If everything comes together with my health I am planning to head north this month to catch the last of the autumn leaves, I say if because my health has been a roller coaster ride for nearly 2 years and I don't want to jeopardize my progress. So it will be a spontaneous trip if all goes well, and if not I have photos and memories to rely on for another autumn and hope for next year.

The stitching on the goddess a month project is going along nicely for the October goddess I chose Elen of the Ways, I didn't take many progress photos I just wanted to complete the stitching this is the last progress photo.

I have just washed the stitch and wash away product off and the finished piece is drying, I will post the completed piece once it's dry. So for today I will post at Kathy's Quilt https://kathysquilts.blogspot.com/2021/11/slow-sunday-stitching.html

November goddess will be started later today for Slow Sunday Stitching, I have the designs ready I'm trying to decide between Baba Yaga or Freya.

Speaking of Baba Yaga, I would love to have this bench that showed up in my Facebook feed yesterday, I find it amazing how a chainsaw artist can get those details.  The was a man a few streets away that did some chainsaw art pieces I always stopped when I had time to admire his work.

Did you remember to set your clocks back an hour, I love having an 'extra' hour when I wait till I wake up, silly as it seems the day does feel longer.

Slow Sunday Stitching and Happy Halloween

 

Time has just flown by so fast my head is nearly spinning.  The weather here in central Florida has cooled in the evenings and early mornings making for very pleasant autumn days.

I didn't make any autumn stitchery pieces this year most of the year was spent working on the goddess a month project.  I do have a few pieces I have stitched in the past. On October 31st 2016 block 10 of the Hocuspocusville Quilt was completed, the 12 blocks are still waiting for me to put them together.

This goddess 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. I wanted the effect of the wind blowing her dress into autumn leaves. 

She remains one of my favorite Goddess pieces I have done so far, she was done June 3, 2016. 

The two pieces below were free patterns for autumn I think I did them last year or the year before.

Currently I am working on finishing the October Goddess of the month, Elen of the Ways. 

If you aren't familiar with Elen of the Ways here is one of my favorite images of her

I am linking up to Kathy's Quilts https://kathysquilts.blogspot.com/2021/10/slow-sunday-stitching_0864130145.html

This is the last Slow Sunday Stitching for October, click the link to see what other bloggers are slow stitching.