Picture Post

Peppermint, cut right after the storm last weekend, holding the amazing energy of the first thunder of autumn.

Another year, another Mirabilis Jalapa root harvested – this one is even bigger than last year’s and has two more “arms”. Once dried, it will be made into a talisman as we did with last year’s root.

Beautiful offerings for the Seven African Powers – Lemon Cake from La Cruz Santa (The Holy Cross), a town in the north of the island.

A new kyphi dedicated to Saint Michael – it will be up for sale in a couple of weeks after it cures and dries properly.

Lucky Dumpster Find of the week – a new tin for my collection ( I collect tins and boxes with rose prints). I’ll be making a sewing box from it I think.

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Our First Embroidery Pattern Has Been Listed!

Just in time to start working on Christmas gifts, our first embroidery pattern has been listed at the shop – a lovely Christmas Angel! Please click on any of the pics to be taken directly to the listing.

The file contains:
- A page with the pattern itself;
- A page with a basic outlining in back stitch for beginner embroiderers, that includes the thread colour references for DMC thread;
- A page with a more advanced design (the one you can see in the pictures) with detailed explanations of stitches and techniques used.
- A page with detailed views of the finished work for your inspiration.

Remember that this is not a tutorial, but a pattern – for this one, you are supposed to know how to do Back Stitch for the first part (outlining), and several other stitches for the second part (embellishment) – French Knots, Satin Stitch and Chain Stitch. There are hundreds of wonderful embroidery sites online where you can find tutorials and videos for all those stitches, and they are all very easy.

 

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New Listings Today!

Please click on the pics to be taken directly to the listings!

Spring I – Hand Embroidered Sewing/Altar Box

Virgin Of Guadalupe Necklaces

Deluxe Hamsa Hand Charms

Tetragrammaton Pentagram Charms

Figa Fist + Horseshoe + Evil Eye Charms

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Cross Stitch Fever

The storm alert has passed, as it seems the winds have sent Nadine back into the Atlantic, so no rain for us (BIG SOB) and we’re back to normal.

I managed to finish the cross stitch piece – I am a proud Witch!

I also made a little monogram pincushion with a scrap piece of Aida fabric I had left from cutting the bigger piece. Yes, the crossstitch bug has bitten! I am already envisioning embroidered Christmas ornaments for friends and family.

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Things To Do While Waiting For A Storm

Hurricane Nadine seems to be taking it slowly to arrive, so after the mundane preparations (moving plant pots away from wind, getting batteries/cash/food, charging appliances, washing all clothes in case we lose power), we spent Saturday on more pleasant activities. So, here are the things two Witches do on a slow day – hope it brings some inspiration!

Make a new batch of Kyphi, since the “The Wanderer” batch is almost sold out. Each of our kyphi batches has been a unique recipe, and this one, which we have named “The Portal”, is no different. It will be ready for selling in a week if humidity doesn’t rise too much because of the storm.

Bake the first bread of autumn, and eat it with guavas and plums.

Make an offering of fruit at the altar, and get intoxicated by the fragrance and sensuality it exudes.

Try (for the third time) to make friends with cross stitch, a craft that really tests my patience, and get childishly happy with the results.

Drink lots of black tea with cardamom while falling in love with the new little teapot Fernando purchased (its predecessor fell and was smashed to pieces after almost a decade of hard work).

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The Weekend’s Crafts

Sorry for last week’s complete absence from blogging – after a truly exhausting week, we had a very relaxing weekend full of quality time, cheesy Roger Corman movies, long restoring naps and taking care of our very neglected home. We’re back fully rested and ready to face this week’s work.

My crafty work was focused of hand sewing. Our very magical Cornelius, a doll which was a gift from a customer (thanks once again Heather!) and that has become my craft room companion, needed a new set of clothes – he loves the cats and the cats love him back just as much, so the clothes I made for him were completely covered in cat hair and needed a wash. Those of you who have been reading this blog for a while know that dolls are a very important part of my magical work – and certainly, this work fits into the “work with the Small Ones” category of work that I mentioned in my last post.


As you can see in the pics, I also sewed two new quilted potholders for the kitchen, and a small quilted mat using a lovely piece of owl-themed fabric that our dearest friend and customer Lucy sent me from the UK (thanks once again Lucy!). Two good practices to start making bigger patchwork projects in the near future – as part of my desire to recycle/upcycle my ever growing collection of fabrics. Every now and then, our friends and family bring us bags of clothes and household fabrics “because I’m sure you’ll make something out of this”, and if I don’t start using them all they will take every free space on our little craft room (smile).

This little bowl was crocheted and beaded, to hold my cowrie shell oracle and my coconut Oracle pieces.

I have also made several items to be listed this week – hopefully tomorrow. Five small Witch Dolls for your altar, three unique necklaces and a small army of wax poppets for spellwork/amulets/etc. If you are interested in any of them and want to save me the joy of listing them, please let me know as usual :).

The Witch dolls are perfect for your altar – stuffed with protection and healing herbs and adorned with a lovely deer charm (18$ each)

The wax poppets are perfect for spells – you can carve the spell’s recipient name easily with a pin or nail, and add runes, sigils, etc. (5$ each).

The necklaces have been made with ritual attire in mind – the white one has shell, glass and carved bone beads; the green and brown, glass and ceramic plus the Earth Goddess charm; the yellow and orange, glass and a wonderful vintage snake charm that I have been saving for years. 35$ each.
EDITED – The white shell necklace has been sold.

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Garden Pics

Rue, red clover, guava trees and herb robert:

Tulasi basil:

Pennyroyal, tulasi basil, spearmint and lemon basil:

Okra:

The day’s harvest: wild lettuce and rose geranium leaves, tulasi flowers to make a very special tincture, regular clover for love spells and the first corn cob from Frey’s plants.

And after all the work, a little stitching on the table runner. Not much achieved as it started raining and we had to come downstairs.

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Just Another Day On The Witches’ House

We have quite a busy week of work ahead – lots of candle work and spell work ahead, working on the sketches for the new painting as the future owner asked for some changes, and the usual craziness that inhabits our life during winter, as our herbs require more and more attention.

I’ve been working on and off a new piece of embroidery – as of now, it will be a table runner, completely embroidered with folk motifs from different books, very much as a sampler. I say “as of now”, because you already know that a project can go through many turns until its finished form, and I don’t like to put too much control on that process – a creation has its own life in a way that shouldn’t be controlled, but encouraged to grow. I am enjoying this project more than I could imagine, specially since I got this gorgeous bone-coloured cross stitch fabric from a friend’s mother, and don’t have to go blind over counting threads XD. When finished, the piece will have literally hundreds of hours of love and devotion on it, and will be perfect for the most special altar. I’m afraid, dear readers, that I am completely in love with YET another craft. Insert hopeless love sigh here.

The highlight of the day was receiving this gorgeous box of yarns for our charity project from Robin in USA! She’s probably one of the older readers of this blog (older as in years reading this blog!), and one of the nicest and warmest people I have ever met online. When she read on a previous post that I had found out that online charities didn’t accept items made with acrylic yarn, and that we could not afford other type because wool is rare here, she just offered to send me a box of yarn for the project! I was crying as I read her message.

She also included this GORGEOUS garden ornament – thanks so much dear!!! If you want to get one, you can find them on her Etsy Shop, Goddess Goods!

I know I am repeating myself, but I’m not sorry to do it when it is to say that we have the best customers ever!!!. With this yarn, our project becomes a little bigger reality; Robin, you can’t imagine how thankful we are for helping us help others!

For those who are new readers – our project consists mainly in crocheting/knitting items for people in need, mostly children. As soon as I have a good amount of items, we will donate it immediately to whatever organization accepts it, local or global. We would be very glad to accept any yarn of any type as long as it is not too bulky or novelty yarns. You can see several of those items on our Ravelry page.

As I am the only person doing this, I have no deadlines or specific charities to support – as long as they are not religious or politically involved charities, I don’t mind who gets the items, or even if there are no organizations involved and I can give them directly to a family in need. We live in, and are part of, a very poor community, and see poverty and hopelessness every single day around us; I am very sure that the right recipient will arrive at the right moment. All events will of course be documented here :D.

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The Month Of The Dead – Day 15

Today we took the day off, both from the shop and from the furniture moving :D. I finished the Brujería embroidered ornament – if anyone is interested in purchasing it, just let me know before I list it next week! The backing is from a gorgeous vintage fabric that I’m using only for favourite projects, and of course everything was handstitched from start to finish. I absolutely love it, so I won’t mind keeping it if nobody buys it. There will be more witchy stitching this winter, as I have quite a few inspiring ideas in stock!
ORNAMENT SOLD!

Fernando is working on a new phallic carving for one of our patrons:

It’s still really, really hot here, so gardening was left for dusk. After pruning/transplanting/watering and cleaning, we give ourselves every day one hour of Do Absolutely Nothing But Being. I honestly think that’s the secret of the permanent blooming state of our little garden. I have said this before, but you can’t imagine how dry this area of the island is, and how far away from any kind of nature we live. Houses here do not have nice gardens around, or even a backyard; we all live wall to wall, and since this is an area of poor families, the government considers we have no right to nice parks and green areas and every public space is simply covered in concrete.

Sorry for the rant – I was talking about communing with plants, a subject that has fascinated me for many years, and I think one of my strongest points as a Witch. I am sure I have told before about a magazine called Lo Inexplicado that my mother used to buy when I was maybe 8 – there I read for the first time about scientific experiments about the way plants communicate and react to outside stimulus, and that was the beginning of a life-long relationship with herbs. Since my parents live in a flat and my mother is the kind of person that can kill a cactus, I didn’t get to have much real life experience with herbs until I was in my late teens and started buying herbs at the local farmer market and wildharvesting – and I couldn’t start my own garden until ten years ago when we moved to this house, which was the first real house (not a flat) that I ever lived in.

We speak to our plants, play music to them and meditate with them. We place amulets around them, and bury stones that have some kind of special meaning on the pots. Our dogs and cats eat them freely, but instinctively know not to destroy them, and no surprise – the garden is permanently open to them and they never, ever, play with them or kill them. You should see our 50 pound Siberian Husky, gently pulling off basil or spearmint leaves to eat. As they communicate with us, they communicate with animals. There is truly no secret, just listening – but listening is a word that not many people fully understand, as I have come to realize with time.

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The Month Of The Dead – Day 13

As you already know through a previous post, they are building a house right behind ours – that is, right behind our bedroom wall. Today we decided we’ve had enough of being woken up at dawn by hammers and other building noises and started moving rooms around, exchanging the studio for the bedroom. Our house is in a complete state of chaos right now, not that I like that much – strong Virgo rising needs tidy spaces, but the rest of me needs to sleep in peace :D. We also got another request for a phallus carving, so that will keep Fernando quite busy in the next days, as I am tied here at the computer with appointments and shopkeeping.
There was spellwork for customers as usual:

And even a little stitching time at the roof garden.

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