Bye Bye 2017

As the year comes to a close there is always a whirlwind of madness to contend with. There are the obligatory nativity performances, parties to provide for, holidays to close down and prepare for…

Still December is also the month that I sit back and take stock of a year’s worth of blogging and try to find inspiration for the year ahead.

Pagan Parenting

If there’s one thing I am disappointed about this year is that I fell off the blogging wagon when it came to Pagan Parenting. It wasn’t intentional. It’s been an intense year magically speaking, all of it off blog, and between that and my operation I have been swamped. The briefs are written I just simply haven’t found time to turn them into posts.

One of the plans was to do one oversized post regarding the Wheel of the Year and seasonal celebration but it has never materialised. Now the plan is to break it up into eight smaller posts which treat each celebration separately addressing both the beginner and the pagan parent. They will be a great addition to the Defining My Craft (link) which I suspect appeals to the Internet trawling seeker.

Planning Ahead

One thing I always think I am struggling for is inspiration. Each December I plumb the depths of the Internet and Pintrest for something akin to the Pagan Blog Project that I first bought into back in the beginning of Knot Magic. Unfortunately the project no longer exists, and it appears as though the website has been compromised, but there are a number of 30 Day Challenges which are either expressly Pagan or open enough to be incorporated.

Usually I sit down with a spreadsheet, prefilled with dates, and try and work out a schedule which by the Summer Solstice has been side tracked one ways or another. This year I intend to do thigs a little differently and be more organised at the same time.

Gone are the (expensive) attempts to commit myself to some form of diary / filofax planner. They are just too big and bulky in my bag which by necessity is small and light. This year I have plumped for an A5 planner from PippaCrafts which only contains monthly calendars for quick and simple planning. And I am being uber organised by making sure that all my Witchy and Crafty dates, along with birthdays and weddings, are in there in advance.

When it comes to the blog I have noted the days I intend to post but the schedule is far less fixed than previous years. I have tied up Sabats with their closest Saturday and have added reminders everywhere so there will have no excuse to miss the dates. I have also added quick guide lists to the front and back of the planner with check boxes to ensure I a) don’t forget an inspiration and b) don’t accidentally duplicate something.

The lists are very mich inspired by Bullet Journaling. Also called BoJo, this system of note making and information gathering is very clear and concise, which is why it appeals to me. It seems to inspire a lot of people, and there is a lot of information on the world wide web providing bullet journalling inspiration for Book of Shadows and personal Grimoires. They are very pretty, and whilst I would live to commit to doing some highlights like it on paper and sharing it here I am hesitant to sully pristine white paper with my paltry art skills. That being said you can purchase and make your own inserts to print so I may start a tarot journal at some point in the next year *if* we get a new printer.

We will see how far I get with this. I am hoping that between the halfway house in my planner and a mood tracker / diary on my phone. If I manage too keep it going for the year you may start seeing some tarot posts in 2019.

Whats Coming in 2018

Whilst I will intersperse the blog with hot topics, things relevant or inspired by Hekate, event reviews and my general musings I have decided to try and take the blog down a lifestyle route. Everything will still be either Pagan or yarn craft related but some of the general lifestyle blog ideas will twist quite nicely to my purposes. That means there will be the occasional book review and maybe even product reviews amongst sneaky peaks into my weirdness and practice which may not have come through in previous posts.

There will also be more crochet this year. I know I say that every year but I promise this time. I am going to be taking part in the Attic24 Woodland CAL from January and if nothing else there will be a ta-da post showing off my finished blanket. I will also try and make sure people don’t snaffle finished projects before I can snap a photo or two, which is what has let me down in the past.

2017 was the year to Be Weird, or Wyrd if you prefer. Although I haven’t blogged about it so much I can confirm that this was indeed achieved but I know I can do better. I might not be able to get out to too many events in the next year but there is lots of scope to exercise my witchy ways so the theme for 2018 is “get organised, get journaling and be even wyrd-er!”

Stitching For Hekate

This week there is a break in our regular transmission because I have already covered the topics on Knives in Witchcraft before and at this time I don’t really have anything to add. So I thought I would blog a little about the other focus of this blog, crafting of the haberdashering kind.

I used to do a lot of counted cross stitch, way back before I had babies. I found it really rewarding and loved seeing the pictures build up and up as I worked through the pattern. But tiny sharp needles and small children do not mix and I shoved all my equipment into deep storage in the final days of my first pregnancy. The recent ‘heatwave’ in the UK recently encouraged me to not start a new crochet blanket after finishing some smaller projects and I decided to pick up my needle and thread.

Buying a magazine and kit reminded me of two things. Firstly that I hate evenweave. Counting both stitches and holes is a PITA. Secondly that I am too hard on myself when I make mistakes. I lost a lot of sleep insisting that anything I unpick must me restitched, which is not a compulsion I have with crochet.

I was all set to put it all away in disgust when this beautiful picture from Eliza Gauger appeared in my timeline.

Hecate – Problem Glyphs

Eliza makes absolutely stunning glyphs and using a very interesting mirroring method in some art software with a mirroring function and kindly has written a ‘ how to’ guide. I’d like to try it but the process requires an artist ability that I lack so it is fortunate that Eliza allows quite open use of her designs. Although each design is unique to a problem she allows readers of her Tumbler to use the images for their own purposes, with credit. Predominantly I think her users turn her designs into tattoos, which look awesome, but Hecate screamed cross stitch which then set me looking for a free program or website which would allow me to convert an image into a cross stitch pattern.

One upon a time you could purchase computer software which could do this kind of thing, now a days there are websites that will do the same thing. My Photo Stitch is one such website. I don’t know what it’s like for converting colour photos but for converting black and white images like Eliza’s problem glyphs into a greyscale pattern it is fantastic. The site uses DMC threads, a popular brand which you can find just above anywhere, and I set the parameters to a five shade greyscale rather than anything more detailed and it worked pretty well.

Hecate Cross Stitch

Download Hecate Cross Stitch Pattern

Pattern Size – 10.7″ x 8.5″ on  14 count aida

Thread – DMC

• 310
• 318
• 535
• 762

As you can see once I got to the end of the Hecate pattern I added a Strophalos to the pattern to round it out. The measurements above don’t take that addition into account at this time.

Touch Me and Be Damned

Now Hecate is finished I am moving on to a glyph called “Touch Me and Be Damned”.

The great thing about Eliza’s glyphs is that even though she makes them in response to specific requests and situation it is possible to use them for other purposes according to how they speak to us. This screams apotropaic witchcraft to me and I read it more as “Touch US and Be Damned”. You can never over do apotropaic work when you have kids.

I have a couple of other patterns planned, including a larger and more complex Strophalos. They will make a nice and dark addition to my Witchy Living Room.

Edit 5/8/16

I have uploaded .pdf copies of the patterns referred to in this blog into the text of this blog. The patterns are free to use and should not be sold on for profit although you are of course welcome to sell of finished products. Please be sure to credit Eliza Gauger for the artwork and to refer to the website used to create the pattern so they get some through traffic as well.

Images

Hecate – Problem Glyphs
Touch Me and Be Damned