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