Hejsa!
Happy Samhain! Also known as the witches new year. I don’t think of myself as witch, though! Witch curious, perhaps? Although I am too lazy to do rituals and such…
I’d rather be stitching! Whether that’s hand or machine stitching. :-)
My Samhain pages for my Wheel of The Year project are almost finished, I just need to add a few more lines of the poem.
I just realised that making the pages is getting easier. Both because I have made several pages at this point, so I know that I can do it, and because I have more practice in turning the idea of the plant, that is in my head, into a fabric version. It is a really nice thing, to realise that you are getting better at something. This project is teaching me many things…
Some close ups… One thing I am learning is that it is ok to leave empty spaces. Like on the left hand side of the oak leaf page. I could probably have crammed something in there, but I resisted the temptation. Nature abhors a vacuum and apparently so do I. But this time I left the space!
I am itching to start sewing the pages together but I'm going to wait. Because I haven't decided where to start the book. As I said, Samhain is known as the new year in the Wheel so it would make sense to start the book with that, or maybe with Yule/winter solstice since that would then be the first festival in the new year. Or maybe I just start the book with Imbolc, the first festival after new year in the regular calendar, and the pages I made first... any suggestions?
I will soon be ready to start sewing my hexagons together (woohoo!) and since I don’t have space for a design wall, I made myself a design board instead. It’s not rocket science but maybe you can use the idea too? I made a little video about it which you can watch right here.
I’ll leave you with that and go relax with a book. It’s been a somewhat exhausting week; Blake had an operation on his eye last Friday so we’re spending a significant amount of time giving him two types of eye drops, various medications etc. Blake does not like the eye drops or the medication so you can probably imagine how much fun that has been! Hopefully we can reduce the amount of eye drops after his check up next week, fingers crossed. :-)
I hope you have a lovely weekend!
x Carina
Some Things I Am Enjoying
Book: A Bigger Message: Conversations with David Hockney* by Martin Gayford. To say that Hockney is a genius is not hyperbole I don’t think!
Watching: Ludwig. “While seeking to unravel the mystery of his twin brother's disappearance, reclusive puzzle-designer John 'Ludwig' Taylor takes on his twin brother James's identity as DCI on Cambridge's major crimes squad.” We like it! And David Mitchell is perfect in the role. I am also slightly obsessed with the typeface used for the title of the show. But so far I have not been able to figure out the name of it. If you know the name of the typeface, please let me know! :-)
Music: The October playlist! An eclectic indie pop/singer-songwriter mix. I hope you enjoy it too. :-)
*bookshop.org affiliate link.
Stunning work! So beautiful!
Love the book pages, what a fun project! I love creating fabric "pages" and include in books as well, and I need to finish my current one (started 2-3 years ago or so?) so I can start a new one/new project. I was thinking about a "memory book" with little textile snippets that I want to document. Maybe. :-)
Happy to have found you on Substack as well!