Latest Batch of Yarn

 

Here is my latest batch of yarn. As soon as I can get nice pictures and figure out names for them, I'll be listing them on etsy, in the Celebrations store. If you'd like to speed up the process, you can suggest some names :) What cities do those colors remind you of?

My attempt at daily posting really fell apart, and I missed like 10 days. All I can say is that it was a rather busy 10 days.

Remember the serger research I mentioned? Well, I went to the dealer to check out their Black Friday preview sale, and found the one I had decided on 55% off, so needless to say, I now have a serger. All I need to do now is figure out how to use the thing! Surprisingly enough, I have never used one, in all the time I've been sewing.

Last Saturday evening, I went to a friend's full moon gathering and housewarming party. Colorful kitchen towels and/or dishcloths had been requested to break up the beige a bit, so I brought these 2 towels for a housewarming gift.

 

 I made this floursack towel in the same batch of dyeing, and I think it's going to end up being an embroidered altar cloth.

I had some good knitting fun this week, too. Finished up the scarf, and started working on the matching hat. The hat went super fast! And then, I was left with no knitting to work on. My hands did not like the sitting still that entailed. So, I made plans to go to the local yarn shop and get myself another project. I am not a big Black Friday shopper, and never have been. I do like to go out to a few selected places, though.

Once we got to the yarn store and started poking around, my husband picked up some yarn and said that he liked the color, and that it felt nice, and that if I wanted to make a scarf for him, he would wear that. So, while another scarf had not necessarily been on my list of near future projects, I jumped on the opportunity to make something  for him. He doesn't generally actually want me to make anything for him! Because he likes plain, simple things, and doesn't like to make anyone go to extra effort on his behalf, even if it is fun effort.

I love it when it starts getting into cold weather. Winter squash, and soup, and other good, hearty winter food is SO nice. I got to make one of my favorites the other night--kielbasa, pierogies, and onions. So simple, and so good. Basically, you just slice up some onions and sautee them in some butter. Add some sliced up kielbasa, and then a few minutes later, throw in the pierogies. (I like potato and cheese) sautee everything until the pierogies are nice and golden. Add a little bit of beer while it's all cooking (or use water if you must.) Then, have the beer that's left to drink with your delicious meal!

Hand dyed!

When I say that something in my shop is hand-dyed, I really mean it. See?


I worked on a few different dyeing projects today. Most exciting, I managed a good black dye job on some towels and a shirt, and I'm just delighted. Black is really hard to get right. I'll take some more pictures after I wash things out tomorrow.

I promised to tell you about my new tarot deck earlier. It's the Shadowscapes tarot with art by Stephanie Pui-Mun Law, and I just love it. It has faeries, foxes, fish, swans, and a bunch of other creatures, and the art is absolutely amazing. Here is a handy affiliate link if you feel like taking a look. :)



You'll have to remind me to do a post about my tarot collection sometime. I am not sure off-hand how many decks I have, but I think it's in the 25-30 range. Tarot is a good tool, but each deck is also a nice little collection of art, and they can be really nice for studying various mythologies, too.

Who likes coupons?

I am taking a short break from attempting to turn my kitchen many shades of most colors (AKA dyeing stuff) to find something to eat and share something happy-making.

Etsy has finally come out with a coupon codes feature! So, I have set up coupon CODE10 in both of my shops, good for a 10% discount on your purchase through the weekend.

http://rainsews.etsy.com
http://rainfeather13/etsy.com

I also have a new tarot deck I'd like to talk about, but the washer just stopped so I need to get back to work for right now. I'll come back later this evening. :)

Gloomy Day

It's been so gloomy the last couple of days, all I really want to do is curl up in bed with a snuggly cat and a book or some knitting. Alas, I have been much more virtuous than that, filling orders and getting things ready to dye.

The towels I embroider come sewn with polyester thread, so they're not great to dye. Every once in a while, though, I'll come across one that is really crooked, and I can't use it without taking out the hems and cutting it straighter. I generally set these aside, and after I take them apart and cut them straighter, I sew them back together with cotton thread so that they'll dye well. I have an order for the wonderland designs on a rainbow of colored towels, so it's time to fix up the stack of (now formerly) crooked ones.

I have yarn, towels, and cloak linings to dye for sure, and if at all possible, I'd like to get in some fringed silk shawls, a dye painted dress, and some dye painted altar cloths.

On the knitting front, I have learned to do ribbing, and my scarf is officially over halfway done. So, half a scarf and a hat to go, and then I need a new knitting project. Sighhhhhh... you people are going to make me join ravelry, aren't you?

In which there is a cute cat, and a trip to a yarn store

I thought it might be nice to start with a picture of my cat being cute. I got a thread order in yesterday, and they packed the box with crumply brown paper. As you can see, crumply brown paper is snuggly and comfortable.

I missed blogging yesterday because by the time I finished up at the PaganPacks faire, my hands were very tired of typing, and my head was starting to hurt again/still, so the best thing to do was go to bed. The faire went well, though, and I managed to get many new listings up in both etsy stores. I actually have every tarot bag that I have in stock listed now, which may have happened once before, years ago, but I think this is actually the first time it's happened. I also got all of the winter/yule/christmas/hanukkah towels listed in the celebrations shop. I have more planned, but there's a nice bunch there.

Today was a busy day of running errands, as is usual for a Saturday. The Red Cross would have really liked for us to give blood today, but I decided this morning that I couldn't truthfully answer "Are you feeling well and healthy today?" with "Yes." Oh well. They will still want blood next week.

I finally decided what fabric to line the kids' cloaks with, and went to JoAnn to get it. It's going to be tie-dyed! I am getting really excited to see how they turn out. Got some Yule shopping done while we were there, too, which is good.

Had my first visit to a yarn store this afternoon. Didn't buy anything, but only because I want to finish my scarf and hat and decide if I still like knitting, before I start building a stash. Yeah....I'm pretty sure I'll be going back and buying yarn, but at least I have an excuse not to for the moment.

Speaking of knitting, here's the progress I've made on the scarf. Not bad at all, considering that I have not been devoting much time to it.

Let's hear it for prosperity magic!

It seems that the prosperity magic I mentioned on Tuesday was effective. Now with a little bit of luck, I will be crazy busy from now until Yule :)

My favorite prosperity magic, and what I have found to be most effective, is to find something good to spend some money on, and do so with purpose. No, grocery shopping doesn't usually cut it.

I am sorry that I missed blogging yesterday. I was fighting a migraine for 2 days, and when I sat down to the computer last night, it got bad enough that I just couldn't deal with looking at the monitor. Luckily it was more annoying than debilitating most of the time, because I had to get some product finished up, packed, and shipped.

My plan was to get things together yesterday, and then take a trip downtown today, and then I realized that the post office would not be open today, due to Veteran's Day. So, I figured out which package could wait until this weekend, and got the rest ready to go. I had 2 international packages, so I needed to work with actual people during business hours instead of the APC (automated postal center) whenever I happened to get there. I adore the APC!

While I was downtown, I stopped by The Painted Cupcake (warning: music on website) to get a coconut cupcake and do my part to support local business. Then I realized that cupcakes do not qualify as actual food, and I was HUNGRY, so I headed over to the library and Provence for a 4 cheese panini--white cheddar, muenster, brie, and swiss cheese on pugliese bread--a grown-up, totally decadent version of grilled cheese.

On the knitting front, I learned how to purl, and did stockinette, and a yarn change! Woohoo! (My knitting friends tell me that this is the last time I will ever be excited about stockinette.) By the time I am done with this scarf, I will also learn ribbing, binding off, end weaving, and blocking. Plus I get to do a hat with all of that, plus decreases and seaming. I am happy to find that knitting doesn't kill my wrists and hands the way crocheting does.

Tomorrow is the PaganPacks Oak Seed Moon Online Faire. The faires are a lot of fun, with games, prizes, fun people, good sales, and the opportunity to make new friends and support pagan businesses. If you get a chance, be sure to stop by. It runs from 11 AM to 11 PM EST, in the chat room here: http://paganpacks.com/

Blatant theft in this post.

I did not embroider that cool menorah design. It is the new design for the day at Urban Threads, and I just stole their picture to show it off. That's not to say that I won't be embroidering it, because I totally will! Possibly tomorrow, depending on how quickly I get my orders taken care of. Anyway, there is something you should know about Urban Threads. They are one of my favorite places to get embroidery designs, and I am always happy for an excuse to spend more money there. So, if you ever decide to go browsing around there, and see something that you need to have embroidered on something, let me know!

Today, I stayed busy embroidering Goddess towels, getting some packages ready to mail out, and doing an inventory of my thread so that I could order more thread. I get to mail a package to Australia this week, which is exciting. I always love it when I get to add a new country to my list of places I've sent things!

I pulled out the rest of my fall decorations and put away the specifically Halloween decorations. I think I should be able to find the time to go out and hang up the fall stuff tomorrow. I will see about getting some pictures to share.

As proud of my knitting as I was yesterday, that did not stop me from undoing it all. Once I had a better feel for what I was doing, I decided to pull it out and start over, because I would actually like for this scarf to be wearable when I get it done. It looks much better now.

Peer Pressure

Happy Monday everyone :) It has been a good and busy day, including sewing, digitizing, prosperity magic, and plenty of peer pressure.

I woke up this morning to actual SUNLIGHT coming in my window. I am always happy when the time changes for daylight saving time or to go back to standard time. It will definitely take some getting used to the darkness in the evenings, and it will make it a little more difficult to practice driving, but it is SO nice to wake up when it's light outside.

Started out my work day by hosting the Pagan Team's Monday Morning Coffee Chat on etsy. One of my teammates pointed out this beautiful team treasury with a tree theme that I'm in. There was silliness, and fun, and sharing of new creations, as usual! One of the new creations is something that I suggested that NwyvreWeaveWyrks ought to make a few weeks back, and I think that it turned out really cool. Go check out this awesome purple and black chain maille necklace with an ourobouros pentacle!

After the chat, I worked on a bit of digitizing, and then headed downstairs to take care of some machine maintenance and work on some more quilt block piecing. Then, after the mail got here, I succumbed to peer pressure.

I have mentioned my knitty friends before, and how I started dyeing yarn so as to have an excuse to have a yarn stash, even though I don't knit. Well, a couple weeks ago I had to order some yarn for a custom dyeing order. While I was shopping, I saw a learn to knit kit and a basic knitting tool set, and they fell into my cart. (Betcha didn't know that things could fall into a virtual cart. They can.)

When my package arrived, I swore that I would just LOOK at things, and set aside the learning to knit stuff until I got a few things done. I unpacked everything, and petted the yarn, and did not find the knitting tool set. Oh, sad! No knitting for me. Made a phone call, and they promised to send out the missing tool set right away, so sorry!

This time, when I opened the package, I forgot to tell myself I had to finish other things first, and decided to try learning to knit.


Ta-da! That is actual knitting! Rather wobbly and uneven knitting, yes, but KNITTING!

Theoretically, it will become a scarf someday.

Productive weekend

Just wanted to stop in for a short visit while dinner is cooking. We're having chicken tikka masala and spiced okra tonight. It's one of my more time consuming meals, but oh so good.

The chicken has to be cut up and put in to marinate overnight, and then the cooking is a 3 step process. Cook some onions and brown the chicken, then put the chicken in a baking pan and cook the sauce, then add the sauce to the chicken in the baking pan and bake it.

The baking time is perfect, because rice takes half an hour to cook, and the baking takes half an hour, so meal timing is a piece of cake.

I'll be sure to post the recipes sometime soon, along with a link to the company I buy my spices from. They are awesome, and at least once or twice a year, I get a box of spices in the mail that makes my whole house smell good and spicy for days. Makes me wonder what my mail carrier thinks about my spice packages.

Weekends are often spent running errands, and true to form, we didn't spend a whole lot of time home this weekend. At least, not home AND awake--we both slept in late both days, because we both seemed to really need the rest. Got some stuff I need for dyeing, and the first of the Christmas/Yule/Whatever shopping done, plus did the last bit of research I needed to do before deciding what serger I'll be getting. Good, productive weekend!

The garden is cozy for winter

There's my garden, all snuggled in for the winter! The chest in front of the plants usually sits back in front of the window where the plant shelf is now. The quilt on top of the chest is one that I made, with corduroys, denims, flannels, and other good, heavy fabrics. It has several pockets, too.

We're supposed to get a hard freeze tonight, so most of today was spent taking care of the garden. I cut down the tomato vines and everything that is dead. I rearranged the furniture in the living room to make room for a shelf so that I could bring in the plants that are likely to survive the winter.

There are still a few plants out on the balcony. I have some petunias, marigolds, and a few other flowers that are going to die, whether I bring them in or not. Since I have limited room inside, I decided to leave them out. They're still pretty, if nowhere near as lush as they used to be, and it's possible that they'll last a decent while longer.

Now all I need to do is get the cut stuff bundled up and off the balcony, and clean out the bathtub. It's full of dirt and bits of plants, since I gave everyone a nice soaking as they came inside.

Before I go for today, I have one more picture for you. It's my garden, back in July, when it was very lush and jungle-y.

Quilty fun

Oops, missed a day! I'll have to keep trying to post every day anyway.

Today, I have sewing pictures for you. First of all, I told you that I picked up a lot of fabric within the last month. I meant it! Here's a picture of it all, washed and folded. Actually, no, not quite all of it--there's a bundle of scrappy batik pieces that I forgot to put in the picture. Anyway, the purple and green at the top right are corduroy that I'm going to use for a couple of kids' cloaks. The gold brocade at the bottom of that stack will be the lining for a cloak made of dark green velvet. There's a good bunch of black twill there for a simple cloak, too.


This picture is one that I took when I got up from my sewing machine for a minute and thought "oooh, that looks pretty!" What you're looking at here is a whole lot of 1.25 inch fabric squares, sewn to each other on the way to becoming little four-patch quilt blocks.


Once they are four-patch blocks, they will be combined with these triangle pieces to become snail trail quilt blocks.


Like these! 8 down, 262 to go.


I designed the layout for this quilt, bought the fabric, and cut out all the pieces about 3 years ago. Then I got too busy to work on it, and put the carefully stacked pieces away neatly in a cabinet. I've pulled them out a few times since then, decided I was too busy to work on it, and put them all back.

Hopefully, I will soon get too busy to work on it again, but I just felt like the best way to get settled in for a bout of sewing was to put in some work on an old project. At any rate, it's going to be really nice when I get it done, and it will be beautiful and warm on my bed! Even if it does take me another 3 years to finish.

Yep, no doubt, it is definitely November.

I know, right....any idiot can tell it's November. We just turned the calendar page yesterday, so this is not exactly remarkable.

What I really mean, though, is that the whole November thing is pretty obvious, even without the calendar thing. My garden that looked like a lush jungle not too long ago has morphed itself into Halloween decorations. My email inbox is due to be purged of the thousand or so emails that didn't get deleted right away, but also didn't get read over the last couple months. The heat has been turned on.

Long, warm skirts feel so nice, and the sweaters are back in rotation. The laundry hamper gets much fuller much faster, due to the aforementioned warm skirts and sweaters.

And, most tellingly, there is an embarrasingly large stack of fabric sitting in the vicinity of my sewing room, waiting for me to wash it all. I spent a week in Utah, where there are quilt shops in abundance. Plus, I decided to make cloaks/capes this fall & winter, so I bought the babric when the prices were good, regardless of the fact that I knew I wouldn't have much sewing time until November.

And now it IS November! I get to wash the fabric, and start figuring out the details...what do I want to embroider on that green velvet cloak lined with gold dragon brocade? What kinds of appliquees do I want to use on those cute bright kids' cloaks?

I left it later than I intended, but I decided to list my sugar skull pincushions for Dia de los Muertos anyway. I just listed the first one, and I'll be getting more of them up this afternoon.

I need to find more tie-dye printed felt, because the sugar skulls I made with the bit I had were AWESOME and sold out within a day of getting them finished. I have to at least share a picture.


Also, I just found out that I won a prize! I am delighted! Go check out The Year of the Cats blog, where she has links to 10 other awesome blogs today.

Happy November!

Congratulations to DK Spins, who won the witchy towel giveaway. I'll be getting that package mailed out as soon as I can once I get the address.

To everyone who participated in the giveaway: Thank you so much for your input, your sweet comments, and your excitement. I've been having a wonderful time getting to check out some new blogs and shops, and following some new people on twitter.

I have several friends who are positively giddy that November is here, bringing with it an opportunity to try to write an entire novel in one month. I wish all of those crazy people all the luck in the world! I will not be making any attempt at novel writing this month. I am, however, open to the alternative possibility that is NaBloPoMo, wherein someone attempts a blog post every day for a month. Even that seems like a stretch, considering how frequently I have blogged this year. If you have any questions or thoughts about things you'd like for me to blog about this month, feel free to ask your question or suggestion in the comments and I'll see what I can do.

As promised, here is the costume picture! The bottom of the skirt is not showing, which is a bit of a shame. I took several different types of fabric, all black, sheer to some extent, and shiny or glittery, and cut them into long triangular pieces. I sewed a zig-zag stitch along the edges, which made them kind of curly. Then I layered them all up, attached them into a waistband, and had a skirt that really barely qualifies as a skirt. Then I used some tulle and ribbon and made a nice fluffy overskirt. The bodice, as you can see, is made of several different fabrics. You can't see it in the picture, but there is a crescent moon appliqueed on the back. The shirt under the bodice is made of fun sheer metallic spiderweb fabric. You know, that stuff you always pick up and WANT at the fabric store, without being quite sure what to make with it?


Oddly enough, this was the first time I've ever dressed up as a witch for Halloween. I guess it just never seemed necessary :)

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween everyone! Welcome to all the new followers. I'm so glad to have you here.

We went out for a fabulous brunch this morning, including lovely things such as grapefruit & ginger mimosas, elderflower mimosas, duck confit crepes, and shrimp & grits that were so rich and delicious that I couldn't finish.

When we got home, I finally got my halloween decorations up, and picked all the rest of the tomatoes hanging out on the vines. Now I'm contemplating a short nap before it's time to get dressed for the trick-or-treaters (and get the promised pictures taken!)

There is still giveaway fun going on! Today's giveaways are awesome and wonderful. There's a super witchy gift basket from October Farm in Salem here: http://www.confessionsofapagansoccermom.com/2008/10/giveaway-from-october-farm.html

and a full set of the Weiser field guides here: http://www.confessionsofapagansoccermom.com/2008/10/giveaway-from-weiser-books_31.html

PLUS my giveaway is still open until noon tomorrow. Here's the link for that one. http://www.confessionsofapagansoccermom.com/2008/10/giveaway-from-rains-stitchery.html

I hope you all have plenty of treats, and just enough tricks to be fun!

Giveaway Day!

Be sure to go check out Confessions of a Pagan Soccer Mom this afternoon, because my giveaway will be going up! Mrs. B decided to extend yesterday's giveaways a bit, so they're still up right now. She'll be putting today's giveaways up this afternoon, and run them along with the Halloween giveaways until November 1. Because we're all busy anyway, plus we have Halloween AND weekend stuff going on!

If Mrs. B sent you over, Welcome! I hope that you enjoy your visit.


Do you know what all the buttons, dials, and switches on your camera do? I definitely don't know, but I figured out what at least one of them does. Unfortunately, what that one DOES is makes pictures all completely blurry.

I took pictures of my costume and my setup at Moonlight Festival, but unfortunately the camera was on the super blurry setting the whole time. I will have to try to get pictures from some of the other people who were wandering around with cameras last night.

Meanwhile, I have put the camera back to the normal picture setting, and I'll get some pictures of my costume tomorrow night.

Plans for an autumn day

Good morning!

I desperately want to win this giveaway on Mrs. B's blog today. http://www.confessionsofapagansoccermom.com/2008/10/giveaway-from-diary-of-bald-girl.html It is an absolutely stunning garnet and amethyst goddess necklace, plus a scarf. I love garnets. My wedding ring has dragons and a garnet, even!

While I was following links, I came across another fun giveaway, this one for a mini witch hat and Dia de los Muertos bracelet. They are both cool prizes, plus there is a story there about an awful halloween costume experience, which I am sure we can all sympathize with. http://www.yearcats.com/2010/10/25/oh-mom-please-dont-make-me-wear-that-for-halloween/

I had an email this morning telling me that I'm included in this etsy treasury. http://www.etsy.com/treasury/4cca6584e22e8eeff19bd823/flight-of-fancy-filigree-fun-gift-guide Treasuries are great, because I get a chance to see a nice selection of items by various artists. In this case, it's all things with a filigree look or feel.

I think I'm going to go downtown today to mail a package, get myself a cupcake, and get my change fund in order. It's chilly outside, and it feels so perfectly autumnish, it'll be nice to go enjoy it. I may have to stop by Provence and get some soup, too.

Moonlight festival is this evening, so I have to be home in time to get things together, but that shouldn't be a problem. I have enough practice now that packing and loading doesn't take very long.

I've worn the same costume for the last 3 or 4 years. Probably just as well, since I paid plenty for the materials, plus the time to make it, but I am going to wear something different this year. Most of it came out of my costume closet, but I made a new top to go with my bodice--just finished it yesterday. I always wanted to make myself something with sheer metallic spiderweb fabric! I'll be sure to get some pictures, and put them up either tomorrow or Sunday.

Stuff and Things

Time is a very tricky thing--seems like it is constantly moving faster and faster!

First of all, there are 2 giveaways on Confessions of a Pagan Soccer Mom today, and they're both great. You should go enter both of them. If you don't actually want to win, go enter anyway, and you're perfectly welcome to send me the prize!

This one is a Vintage Witches Charm Bracelet by Laughing Vixen Lounge. Go check it out, seriously! http://www.confessionsofapagansoccermom.com/2008/10/giveaway-from-laughing-vixen-lounge_28.html

The second one is a set of photo cards from Judy's Photos. You even get to choose your own photo from her photo blog! She's got some really pretty ones, for sure. http://www.confessionsofapagansoccermom.com/2008/10/giveaway-from-judys-photos.html

So, last week, I managed to post here 2 days in a row. Somehow it has been over a week since then. One of these days, I swear, I will get on here as often as I want.

Over the weekend, I was not online. I was hosting a planning meeting for the WomenSpirit Spring 2011 event. I am the Event Coordinator this time. I am still not entirely sure how that came about, but it seems to be working fine so far :) Anyway, I had 6 fabulous women visiting here in Nashville, and it was a lot of fun to have a chance to show off my town. We went to the Parthenon to visit Athena, and stopped at Calypso for lunch. We had a wonderfully productive planning session, and came up with a theme and some ideas to go along with it that are really exciting.

This weekend, I have some good plans, too. For one thing, I will be having my giveaway on Mrs.B's blog. I'm not going to tell you what the prize is or what day the giveaway will be...just that it's a good prize, and it's obviously one of the 3 remaining days this month. You'll just have to live with the suspense a little while longer.

Friday night is the Moonlight Festival at Center of Symmetry. It's the weekend of Halloween, and the last Moonlight Festival for the year. You should definitely stop by and see me if you get a chance! I'll be set up upstairs.

More Collaborative fun!

Good morning! Yes, this *is* the second blog post in 2 days. I am impressed, too.

There are 2 giveaways on Mrs B's 31 Days of Halloween today that I just love.

Intuitive Goddess is giving away a Samhain reading. You know that if she's going to put that kind of thought and care just into her photographs, that she's also going to but a great deal of thought and energy into her readings. Go here and enter to win one. http://www.confessionsofapagansoccermom.com/2008/10/giveaway-from-intuitive-goddess.html

I would also dearly love to win this Pentacle of the Goddess pendant from Lytha Studios. It's flowery, viney, and pentacley, and just plain beautiful. Here's the link to enter: http://www.confessionsofapagansoccermom.com/2008/10/giveaway-from-lytha-studios.html

Due to peer pressure from my knitty friends, I desperately wanted an excuse to have a yarn stash. Yarn is fun, and pretty, and it feels nice. And I don't knit. It made for a real conundrum, until I decided to dye yarn and sell it. This yarn turned into a great opportunity for collaboration!

I have been lusting after the knitted goddesses that my friend GreenFingers makes for a long time. As I was staring at my lovely pile of yarns, I was struck by inspiration, and approached her with my idea. After a bunch of discussion back and forth, here's what we decided to do:

I put together kits to make goddesses, including my yarn, her pattern, embroidery floss and stone beads.

She put together this beautiful goddess for me to use as a display. Plus, now I have a knitted goddess of my very own!


I also put together some ACEO blanks for her to embroider, and she has the first couple of finished ones for sale.

I also have to show off the gorgeous woodsy goddess that she made with some of the yarn I dyed. Warning: you will want to protect your keyboard from the drool.

There was more collaboration where that yarn was concerned. I realized that I would need names for the yarn to be able to list it in my shop. I asked my husband if he had any suggestions, and he told me that I ought to name it all after places. Several names came to mind immediately, so I concluded that naming it all after places was a great idea. There were several that I was still stuck on, though, so it was time for more collaboration! This time, I took the problem to my fans on facebook. Soon enough, the yarn was all named.

Collaboration is fun!

I have been doing all kinds of fun collaborative work lately, and it's been adding some really interesting dimensions to my shops and my life in general.

Let me start with the most time sensitive. Mrs B. from Confessions of a Pagan Soccer Mom has an annual event called The 31 Days of Halloween. There are daily giveaways, guest bloggers, and a haunted blog tour. It is tons of spooky fun. You will want to check back the rest of this month, because among all the fabulous giveaways, there will be one from me. It's a nice one, if I say so myself.

Today, one of the giveaways is a set of Carnelian Runes from Kadiera's Cauldron. They are beautiful, and I am hoping to win them, so I am decreasing my chances by telling you to go enter!
http://www.confessionsofapagansoccermom.com/2008/10/giveaway-from-kadieras-cauldron.html

My very, very favorite recent collaboration is my new website. Same URL as it ever was, but it's been expanded and prettified. http://rainsews.com The new Gallery is especially cool! A million thanks to my husband for his work there.


The collaboration that has been in the works the longest is the set of sabbat tea towels that I am in the process of digitizing and embroidering. Liz Staley did the artwork for me. So far, I have Lammas, Mabon and Samhain. The rest will be coming soon.

I have more collaborations I'd like to tell you about, but I think they'll need to wait until tomorrow. See you then!

Busy Busy!

What you're looking at is a table full of my projects in progress. Not all my projects in progress, just a table full. You can see here the phoenix wallhanging I've been working on for a couple weeks, and will be finishing up within the next few days, a tote dyed in harvest/tree colors that is asking for an autumn leaf applique of some sort, and some embroidered pieces that are going to be pieces n some patchwork tarot bags.

Now, I nearly always have at least a table full of projects in progress. A couple times a year, though, I push myself and my machines as hard as possible, getting things ready for big shows/events. It's very satisfying to see how much I can get done in a fairly short period of time!

In addition to the things on the table, I'll be working on a gorgeous set of sabbat towels in the next day or 2. I have some 4 seasons towels and 4 seasons goddess towels I finished up last week, which I will show you as soon as I can get pictures together.

One last thing for today: I have custom fabric for sale! Only one design so far, but I'll get a second one put up within the next week. Rainbow Pentacles

Hummingbirds

I like to tell people that I grow birds in my garden. Since I moved into this apartment with its perfect for gardening balcony, I have had at least one nest of birds out there every year. This year, I've had a nest of Carolina wrens, and 2 nests of mourning doves. There is a great bird tree right by the balcony, too. I see wrens, various finches, blue jays, doves, robins, cardinals and chickadees out there regularly. I've also seen crows or ravens a few times, and one morning I woke up to see a hawk out there, hoping to have blue jays for breakfast.

The last couple of weeks, I have seen a hummingbird out in my garden, sipping nectar from the flowers. I've only seen one at any time, so I have no way of knowing if it's the same one, or several.

I was talking to a friend the other day, who mentioned that a lot of people had been having encounters with Hummingbird as a totem recently. Hummingbirds have a unique ability to fly backwards. Thus, they teach us that sometimes it is necessary to go backwards in order to progress. They also teach us to stop and delight in flowers, sweetness, bright colors, and being shiny. Nearly everyone can benefit from being shiny now and then.

Between my hummingbird encounters and the fact that we're a little over a week into mercury retrograde, it definitely makes sense to take a step back, reevaluate old patterns, and picking up some old, neglected, or stagnant projects to look at them with fresh eyes. I've been enjoying the process, and it is definitely leading to some new shininess!

Today's new shininess comes in the form of a new hummingbird related listing in each of my etsy stores.

Hummingbird Lavender Silk Pouch at Rain's Obsessive Stitchery

Floral Hummingbird Tea Towel at Rain's Obsessive Stitchery: Celebrations

Nashville Flooding

First of all, I am safe and dry at home, so I'm in a much better situation than many, and I appreciate how very blessed I am.

Now that the rain has stopped and we've had a chance to figure out what the situation is, it is apparent that the situation is BAD. Really bad. The affected area is incredibly widespread. Temporary shelters are at capacity. There are people missing and unaccounted for. Homes have been destroyed. One of 2 water treatment plants in Nashville is under water, so we have got to conserve as much water as possible.

Nashville's treasures: historical buildings, greenways, museums, entertainment venues, sports arenas, hotels, and so on are flooded. Many of them are without power to pump out the water, and will remain that way until maybe Friday. Aside from the obvious reasons why this is bad consider the fact that Tennessee does not have a state income tax. The tax revenues generated by these businesses are utterly crucial parts of our economy.

I will say that it has been really wonderful seeing people band together as a community to help each other out in this situation. People with boats have been out rescuing their neighbors. Others have gotten together to help with sandbagging.

There are quite a few ways to help, whether you're local or not. Here's a list of what I know of.

Hands on Nashville ( http://www.hon.org ) is organizing local volunteer efforts. Recovery is going to take some real time, so even if you're not immediately available, there will be opportunities later.

Red Cross ( http://www.nashvilleredcross.org ) You can donate through the website or by calling (615) 250-4300. You can also text 'REDCROSS' to 90999 to donate $10 to disaster relief. Please note that the text method sends money to the Red Cross as a whole, not necessarily Nashville. Of course they're going to do good things with it, but it may or may not be here.

Second Harvest Food Bank ( http://www.secondharvestmidtn.org ) Donations of money can be made through the website.

The Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee ( http://www.cfmt.org/floodrelief ) is accepting donations to support flood relief, restoration and clean up online at or by calling (615) 321-4939.

Nashville Humane Association ( http://www.nashvillehumane.org ) is the place to send your donations if you'd like to help out pets who have been affected.

One of the people who was killed in the flooding is Joshua Landtroop. He was a father of 2 young boys, Heath and Tristan, and a friend to many. If you'd like to contribute to the memorial trust fund for his sons, you can send via paypal here http://landtroop.com or send a check to Joshua Landtroop Trust Fund at Family Advantage Federal Credit Union, PO Box 39, Spring Hill, TN 37174

Happy Anniversary to me!

My husband and I got married 5 years ago today, and I still feel incredibly lucky. I guarantee that Rain's Obsessive Stitchery would not exist if I didn't have the support of a wonderful partner. Also, I can make pretty things, but it's his fault that they look pretty on the internet, and that my website, blog, banners and avatars look good.

So, because I know you've all been waiting impatiently to hear, I decided to work on altar cloths first. But only the spring and summer ones--I can't bear the thought of working on fall and winter things just yet. Right this minute, my embroidery machine is stitching away on a Green Man at the center of a Litha altar cloth.

That's all I really have to say for now. I'm working on putting up new listings over in my Celebrations store. I think that the next one should be this Wonderland towel set. Embroidery designs by Urban Threads.

Spring is coming!

Spring is coming! I keep telling myself this. It seems that Winter is going to have to be dragged out, kicking and screaminig the entire way, but that's OK. Spring will be here soon. The equinox is only a couple weeks away.

I've been doing what I can to bring on Spring. I have a whole stack of towels here with birds, flowers, and butterflies embroidered on them. I've been working on some suncatchers, and I have a bright new banner that'll be going up at http://paganpacks.com/ sometime soon.

Here's a picture of one of the new towels. I'll be listing them for sale very soon.

I've picked up a couple of new events recently. There is a craft fair at Two Roads Cafe once a month, which is a great way to support local business and art. Pagan Packs has regular online faires, which are great opportunities to meet new people, play games to win prizes, and to support pagan businesses. Here is a list of upcoming events. The Pagan Coffee House is a social event only, and I'll have my wares available at all the others. Let me know if you need any more information about any of them.

Nashville Pagan Coffee House
March 13 12pm-3pm
Cafe Coco, Nashville TN

Two Roads Cafe Arts and Crafts Fair
March 20 12pm-5pm
Two Roads Cafe, Lebanon TN

Pagan Packs Online Faire - Waking the Willows
March 26 10am-10pm central

Full Moon Gathering
March 27
Chelsea's House

Full Moon Gathering
April 24
Chelsea's House

Pagan Unity Fest
May 13-16
Montgomery Bell State Park, TN

Now I just need to figure out whether I want to work on tarot bags, altar cloths, bibs, or T-shirts next. Any suggestions?