Yup, it's been a while.. again!  Hopefully I can get down to posting a bit more regularly soon.  I've been doing alot of embroidery at present and adding photos to my site.. Obviously they will be upgraded once I can organise another time with dodgyhoodoo to take some more brilliant photos of my products.  My camera died a while back.. so I'm borrowing l0stmarbles  camera to take photos of everything I'm making at present..

Last time I talked about a rune cloth.. well the design I think has been improved.  It's got larger too!  Now it's 18" x 18" approx with the runes hand embroidered with cotton thread round 3 of the edges of the cloth.. The thought behind this was that this would enable the person doing the reading with the runes to have a clear, unblocked section in front of them.. So far people seem to like it.. - the comments from those who have seen it are positive.  I do need to make another, once  I free up my cutting table in the kitchen! Here it is -



And a Close up of the embroidery -

I've decided to offer the cloth in two styles, one with just the runes round the edge and the other with the option of an additional piece of embroidery in the centre of the cloth..   I've managed to put these two pictures up on my site but will definately be discussing how I can get some 'prettier' pictures up..

Then I went all 'seasonal'.. Decided I had to make some Brighid Cross Tarot bags (picture of one in light green) by my name and I also did one in gold.  Thought that they'd be a nice addition to the Brighid's Flame Tarot bags and in plenty of time for the coming Sabbat of Imbolg.  As usual all hand embroidered in metallic threads - yes, I must be mad!

And lastly in a nod to upcoming February and also because I thought I needed to do another Greek/Roman deity related design, one for Aphrodite or Venus.. -

Phew!  So amongst boring life stuff that's pretty much what I've been doing.. !  Oh and tecchy stuff - trying to do things linked to my website.  For someone who doesn't 'do' tecchy or websites in general, I'm slowly learning how to manage more and more bits... Though I'm always a bit scared when pressing the 'save' button!  The other night I managed to delete 3 of my products and without pressing any delete button!  Eeep!

My other venture into things 'tecchy' is to start thinking about possibly creating a 'blog' for my bags and stuff what I make.. The blogs I've seen about seem rather polished and I wonder if I can do things as good as those.  Also I wonder how good they are for generating sales too.  Hmmm.. I've also heard of a place which is free to create 'websites' to sell stuff through 'BT Tradespace.  It's apparently mega easy to do.. Though I wonder how easy it'll be for the woman who managed to break her website twice?

Must now stop procrastinating and get down to doing 'stuffs'! - Belated Happy New Year to everyone!

Well finally.

I've done two new items to add to my list of 'stuff what I sell'. :o)

Two Rune Cloths completed and ideas on how to improve them are already flying about in my head - must pin them down before they go astray.  As the cloths are on white fabric I'm thinking of adding a few more items on white fabric soon.  But it's not going to be as wide a choice as the items on black or bottle green.

Currently I'm sewing away trying to get some Kabbalistic Tree of Life bags embroidered as well as a new design for those of a more 'Ceremonial' liking.  There are two events that I'll be attending at the end of this month - Occulture in London which looks very interesting and the one day conference there is in Ludlow.



So there's a corner of the rune cloth!  If you want to know more about my stuff just ask. :o)

Darn - now where will I store more fabric?

Sadly on Monday Inana our stroppy Iguana died.. :o(

Then we found out that the magazine designer has died too... he was only 49.. :(

Just waiting to see what the rest of the week brings....

did this test.....!  Hmm maybe in the mists of time I was that skinny...

Your result for The Steampunk Style Test... The Aristocrat  57% Elegant,  17% Technological,  50% Historical,  40% Adventurous and  29% Playful!



You are the Aristocrat, the embodiment of steampunk elegance and poise.  For you, dressing steampunk is first and foremost about simply looking good, with accessories and details to follow.  However, this does not mean that you ignore the demands of creating a “steampunk look.” Your outfits weave together a balance between technology and style, and between period accuracy and beautiful anachronism.  While your fashion inspiration may come from anywhere across the Victorian social spectrum, you always find a way to make your outfit beautiful.  You will probably be found in the clothes of the steam age elite simply because of the greater elegance available to them.  Chances are you dress this way because you like it, and you would still dress in this manner even if steampunk was not a popular interest.

Try our other Steampunk test here.Take The Steampunk Style Test at HelloQuizzy

Well, I have been working on some new bag designs again (when aren't I?).. in a way I see it as an offering or closely related to an aspect of Athene - the picture on my livejournal is a section of a statue in the States which has been made.  I've finally made an Anubis bag to replace the first one I made which I felt never quite made him justice.  But I have always had a few problems with his nose!  I'm hoping that now that I have been successful with him that getting round to doing one to Set/Seth may happen (either that or I might ask some help from weaselbitch !)

Here are some pictures of my 3 most recent offerings - any comments welcome!

       Yes, the white markings are my chalk marks as I haven't cleaned it up yet for the next stage in making the bag.

         

Not brilliant photos but this is the Hathor bag.  The design comes from Hatshepsut's Temple in Egypt.  The two bottom bits of her necklace have beads added, which I think don't come up too well in my photo...   I am thinking of doing another design to her with her in profile like the rest of the Egyptian diety bags..  Here's a picture of the Hathor at Hatshepsut's Temple



My third latest design is a more symbolic image.  Although I have a bag with Brighid's cross on it, I have been wanting to do one with a flame to represent the Hearth.. When I finally ended up with this image, I decided to name it Hestia's / Vesta's Flame...

      

I think that it has come out ok on both fabrics...

On other news, met up with weaselbitch yesterday as with l0stmarbles and Sam and Tim in Camden.  l0stmarbles , Sam and Tim were off to a gig before going back to Sam's for heading this morning to Sutton Hoo.  Having chatted briefly with l0stmarbles this morning, sounds like everyone had a brilliant time! 

On a down note, coming back after leaving the other lot going into the gig at 7pm, I got on a 29 bus, reasonably full - no-one offered me a seat even seeing my stick and looking at me in the eye...  I don't worry if I'm feeling ok and the bus driver is reasonable .. As the norm, this one jerked and stopped the bus and I nearly fell over twice, yanking my shoulder whilst the two people in the seats in front of me glanced at me from time to time... GRRRRR!  I got off grumbling and cursing inwardly and then got on the next emptier one... People just have NO manners!!! I have got up for elderly people myself on a bus because someone won't move their little darling from a seat or won't move themselves although they're perfectly capable of standing!  No wonder many disabled people only use buses and other public transport as a last resort!

This week will be mainly getting a commission bag made ready to see the person at the end of the week to give it to them as well as preparing for Pentacle Lammas Camp!  (That's Lammas NOT Llamas!)...  It is going to be interesting as we have a few new people coming due to changes over the last year or so..  Hopefully we may get more takers next year..

Well, sent l0stmarbles off a'lepering again this weekend but with a new pair of trousers - this time in a nice brown-copper colour.  Instead of sewing the whole thing by hand I 'cheated' a bit and machined the seams and even used for the first time my lovely new overlocker which I got as a birthday gift from the coven a while ago...  There were the usual tantrums getting myself used to a new machine or as I view it - techology!   But, hopefully with practice this is going to be a really useful tool when making things. 

I have now got a few new designs going and am working on more.  I would put up some photos of my new green bags (or a link) but I haven't got them on the website yet - I wonder if I can upload here a photo of them at an event...

                        

Hurrah - done two!  Though I don't know if they're 'that' visible..!  Anyway, you can see in the top of the hanging bags a Greek stylised Horse's head and I've even done a design of Shiva's trident (thinking of working on one for Poseidon / Neptune). 

The cap hanging there isn't by me, but was a lovely idea of l0stmarbles to have as a 'gift' for the Pentacle Slaves - a green cap with 'Pentacle Slaves' on it - it was a brilliant idea!   Anyway, for the right hand image (if you can see any of the images reasonably ok) I've got an Aesclepius Staff as well as next to it a Hermes one.  One of the 'problems' I'm encountering is making sure that the designs which have worked well on the black fabric work equally as well on the bottle green.  Yesterday I went to the Bead Shop and bought some more bone hare beads for attaching to the Moon Gazing Hare design (haven't done any on the green fabric yet) and also some seed beads which I'm thinking of adding to some of the Egyptian Deity bags.  I have also been trying to work out a design of a slightly open Pomegranate and maybe doing the seeds in the beads...!

Ahh well - Must do some work now!

Well, started it on Monday.  Found a pattern which would work for l0stmarbles Anglo Saxon Leper costume... well actually it's his 'talking to people' outfit or 'smart' one.  Initially we understood the information for it was to do it by hand.  So, from Monday to this morning I hand-stitched this outfit.  Trousers with proper hem and drawstring bit.. and a top even with a little straight stitching round the neck!  My fingers were hurting - well I haven't managed to master thimbles yet though I've heard of some leather finger cuff type things which might work for me - that'll be one to put on my to-buy list.  It will be interesting to hear feedback for this after this weekend.  l0stmarbles has gone and will be in Sutton Hoo tomorrow with Sam and a load of others.  The thing is that I found out about mid-week after I'd started on the top and trousers that  any hidden stitches didn't need to be done by hand, but by that point I thought - I've started... so I'll finish!  Keeping my fingers crossed that Pete and the others this weekend like the work I did.  I hope someone gets a picture of the outfit so I can add it to my 'commissions' page on my website which I will have added when l0stmarbles has some time to spare.  I may even join them next year (I'd take the year to make my outfits) and look at researching throughout the year Anglo Saxon textiles, dyeing, perfecting my spinning technique and also my lucet using, embroidery and maybe even finding out about weaving, though I'm not going the tablet weaving route as I think it's one of those just not meant for me..

Hopefully I can sort out some time to meet up with weaselbitch and dodgyhoodoo and they can do some photos of my bags... maybe I should re-stock and do some of the new designs first...  And I do have to at least make one or two Altar cloths and runner type things..  The to-do list gets ever longer.. but at least now I have a nice bottle green fabric to add to the black fabric to choose from..

Errm.. well here I am.. having met up yesterday with weaselbitch and listening to a prod, I have joined this tecchy world!  Haven't a clue what I'm doing - yes, I can hear l0stmarbles saying 'you never do, dear!'

Well... I'm here now.. watch out - I'm looking for people I know!  Either that or I'm going back to playing with designs for my embroidered bags and stuffs before settling down later for Dr. Who.

Now to hope that I've actually done this right without having asked for help!