Turtleheart Crafts!

I hosted a Book of Shadows workshop for the Wooden Spoons a couple of weekends ago. Basically, it was an opportunity for us to talk about our BoS, share them if we wanted, spark some creativity, and have a chance to do some work on our BoS.

It turned out to be a wonderful afternoon. I loved seeing all the different approaches each person had for their personal BoS and all the different, lovely books themselves. Everyone was so amazingly creative!

My “working” BoS is a compilation of poetry, prayers, rituals, and spellwork correspondences that I’ve collected over the years, typed up on the computer, printed out and put into a regular 3 ring binder. Now, my goal is to artistically recreate those pages. My current idea is to use stamped letters and images, colored pencils and my calligraphy pens to creatively personalize all the pages in my BoS.

So… here’s what I’ve gotten done so far…

I stamped the images with black ink and have been working on coloring them in with layers of color with my pencils. Most of the images have at least 2 layers of color, some up to four different colors on top of each other. As you can see, I’m still working on ‘em.

The majority of the images are DeNami Design stamps, my favorites. I had quite a few in my collection that seemed appropriate for different sabbats or elements: the leaf for earth, the seashells for water, dragonfly for air, sunflower for Litha or Lughnasadh, tulips for Ostara. The others I chose because their style is similar to DeNami Designs– the sun for sun or fire and the bird for air. Ducks in a Row is the company that designed the bird and the two lovely stamps with the human figures. I thought that the one with the man and woman and all the flowers and vines would be nice for Beltaine and the woman with the sun and moon would be neat to use for the equinoxes.

I’m not sure where I’m going with this project from here. Probably I will begin writing out the pages that I want these images to go on. Then maybe do some framing of the images with a nice contrasting paper color and paste them where they need to go.

I’m just taking it slowly and letting the ideas unfold as I go along. I want this project to be a labor of love. I don’t care how long it takes to complete. The journey will be half the fun.

The second of the 2 commissioned boxes.

This one was quite the challenge, being that I have little experience with dragons. I’ve read very few science-fiction fantasy books that included dragons, I have seen few pictures or statues of them, don’t work with them magically, etc. My knowledge of dragons is pretty much limited to Pete’s Dragon. So, thank you, Christi Friesen for your excellent poly clay sculpture book on them!

Here’s a close-up of the little guy. He’s made with alizarin crimson and red pearl clay, with red glass beads and garnet chips as accents, and black ceramic beads for eyes. I think he looks a little bit pensive…

I’d heard on some of the poly clay boards that there have been changes in the Premo clay (and all poly clays) formula within recent years. One of the biggest complaints with Premo was that some of the colors did not stay true; after baking they became darker. I’d not had any experience with such a problem until my little red dragon. The alizarin crimson clay darkened quite drastically, so unfortunately his color isn’t as rich as I thought it was going to be. It’s still a lovely color, but was quite a shock when I took him out of the oven.

Perhaps he looks a little more Goth now?

Theoretically, I have finished one half of my poncho and am 3/4 of the way done with the other half… however…

… the length is only about 21 inches, and I’ve used less than four skeins of yarn when I should be almost done with six by now.

Yep, despite my striving to “loosen up,” I have once again crocheted too tightly. Which is weird, though, because when I checked my gauge, it appeared to be correct. So I dunno.

This is why I prefer thread crochet over yarn– gauge usually isn’t an issue when you are making lace, ornaments and doilies. Of course, it’s my many years of thread crocheting that have made me such a tight crocheter…

No matter. I have a plan. I shall use the two full skeins I have left to add length to the poncho. Then, if it still isn’t long enough, I have yet another idea: I have my eye on some lovely teal colored chenille yarn that will match the teal in this yarn. I thought I’d get some of that and add a nice scalloped border around the bottom of the poncho and edge of the cowl neck. More work than I planned on doing, but, I think in the end I’ll like it even more than the original design. Problem solved!

This is one of 2 commissioned boxes:

Raw sienna and ecru clays for the bear, shades of green pearl and ultramarine blue for the background, warm pine stain for the box. Just a touch of gold metallic powder, too.

I tried to do something a little different with the background in this one– instead of making completely abstract spirals, I tried to suggest pine trees and clouds. Still pretty abstract, but I like the look.

Close up of details:

I also played around with using some of my clay tools to make interesting patterns. It seemed appropriate to add details to the clay coils used for the background, since the bear had so much texture and detail to him. A different look, but I think it worked.

Ooo look! I’ve already started on my second skein for my poncho project. I’m loving this yarn– it’s self-striping:

I’ve started over twice, partly because I’m a perfectionist and partly because I needed to loosen up the end which will become part of the neck opening. What I’d made seemed like it would make an opening too small to ever fit over my head. Hard to tell for sure, because this is just one half of the poncho, but it sure seemed way too small.

Plus, being used to crocheting mostly with thread, I know I tend to crochet too tightly when it comes to yarn, so it was a good bet that I’d started out smaller than it should have been. I needed to practice loosening my stitches. Took me a couple tries, but I think it’s much better now.

I had some help with measuring my progress this afternoon, too:

Moose loves soft blanket-like objects and things with strings, so of course he had to help out. That’s when he discovered how much fun rulers happen to be.

Moose is pretty sure I’ll need to use a yardstick for measuring next time around.

Here is what I’m currently working on in crochet:

The pattern is called Day to Night poncho– the cowl neck collar unrolls to make a hood so that it looks like a short cloak or capelet; the original pattern concept has each half of the poncho in a different yarn– Incredible ribbon yarn on one half, Homespun on the other. But I’m doing an all Homespun yarn version like this picture, using the color Nouveau.

A little difficulty in the beginning, because the pattern didn’t specify that a CH 3 at the beginning of each row counts as a DC, but now that I have that figured out, it’s been very easy.

No idea how long it will take me to complete, especially since I tend to bop back and forth between craft projects. However, next Saturday is Witches’ Sewing Circle, so I’m sure I’ll make good progress that day!

The lion box is complete!

This box was a special request; the recipient’s power animal is a lion and her partner commissioned this piece to give as her birthday gift. I really enjoyed the challenge of this project; the creative process was so much fun, plus I learned quite a few new techniques along the way.

I used clay colors of gold, ecru, burnt umber, raw sienna, and the teeniest bit of copper for this design. The lion’s head is approximately 3 x 3 inches. The lion’s eyes are round wooden beads and the beaded strands in the mane are tiger’s eye and dark amber-colored glass beads.

I’ve always wanted a pair of sodalite earrings, so today I make some for myself.

Sodalite is a semi-precious stone that aids in meditation, enhances memory, relieves stress, aids sleep, enhances logical thought and stimulates the intellect. It is also associated with the third-eye chakra.

Earrings are not my area of expertise. I have a difficult time coming up with a design that is pleasing to me. I usually have too much going on, too many beads and spacers and then the earrings get way too long. I also have a hard time with bending those headpins! I practiced on at least a half dozen before I was able to make a decent loop.

Great learning experience, though, and I’m pleased with my end result. I see more earring making in my future…

I have a commission this month for a box with a lion on the lid. Practice makes perfect, so here is my practice lion:

Inspired by Christi Friesen.

He is 2 inches long and 1 3/4 inches wide at his widest point. I used mainly ecru, burnt umber and copper colored clays, and blends made with those colors. I used glass “E” sized beads for eyes.

He was so much fun to make! I just love him, I think he turned out great for my first try. The lion for the commissioned piece needs to be twice as large, so I get to keep this one.