Happy Yule to all

Happy Yule to everyone. The winter solstice is here again, and so much faster than last year (I must be getting old). This year we decided to break with tradition and go on a coven excursion to the Lismore Lantern Parade for the solstice. There was a Viking recreation village set up in a convenient park to visit and a hunting party drifting around town (looking for boar and elk no doubt).
We started the celebration with lunch and an exchange of Yule gifts then went off to tour the Viking village where we felt right at home. I gathered lots of ideas for building and making things and admired the leather bound warriors who drifted by occasionally or could be seen sitting beside their fires making socks and sharpening axes. Finally we found ourselves a prime spot beside the road to watch the parade go by once night fell (we took thousands of really blurry photos but I have included the best ones below).

Yule gifts

More Yule gifts

Even more Yule gifts

A Viking tent with straw under the canvas floor, what a good idea.

Warriors beside the fire making things with a pole lathe. The seated warrior is naalbinding a pair of socks (more on that later)

Sleeping skins in a tent

A game of chess (sort of) set up to play when the women are finished cooking.

A pegged bed (no nails) I loved this tent, so neat and tidy. The shield by the door tells everyone who's tent it is.

Some traditional Viking tools: nallbinding needles, sewing needles, card looms, needle holders, spindles and the essential drinking horn.

An old friend who used to come to circle as a child, who knew there was a Viking lurking in there.

Some of the beautiful lanterns at the parade.

The Viking ship sailed by accompanied by a crowd of fur and leather dressed villagers. The smell of leather and wood smoke in the air and the sound of a marching chant and drums just made me goosebumps all over.

Where the wild things are is one of my favourite books.

Gaia in person

The Green Mand was there to welcome the sun back.

A better shot of the long boat.

I have decided to try naalbinding this year as it looks amazingly complicated. I watched several people making socks and pouches at the Viking village. Apparently the Vikings didn't know how to knit, they made woollen clothing using a sort of macrame with a needle: naalbinding. Check out the video below for a quick explanation and a demonstration...

Look out for a post about naalbinding in the future.

Exploring crystals and gems

I've been quiet for a while, mostly because I use this blog to chart new things I'm doing or learning and I haven't been doing anything new. Instead there has been a lot of knitting, crochet, spinning, book making, underwear sewing, etc going on, but nothing new.

A cardigan knitted and embroidered for a niece (home spun alpaca yarn)

Some little cloth covered journals for my Etsy shop

A little memory book for a gift

Some envelope note books made from recycled materials

Inside the note books. I'm selling these too.

An itty bitty cardigan for a new baby in the family.

Except for my new interest in crystals and gems...

My optical calcite necklace

The quartz piece in a pouch for one of the dogs, who tends to get into trouble (protection)

A beautiful turquoise necklace for a daughter

A Herkimer diamond for my Kabbalah collection

It all began with my Kabbalah learning; I have been exploring the correspondences of each Sephiroth (points on the Tree of Life), each Sephiroth has one or two crystals associated with it, so I have been slowly collecting examples (mostly from this shop) of each one and meditating with them to 'get to know' them.

In the process I learned to make pendants for my daughters (and one for the dog) as little presents.

One daughter wanted help with study (I can so relate to that) and she noticed that I had an optical calcite necklace which I wear when I study, so I went and found one for her. Then I had to figure out how to make it into a wearable item. Good old You Tube came to the rescue again with this clip...

Making these little pendants proved to be so easy that I now have a little pile of crochet covered stones in bowls around the house, oh and I made one for my daughter too.

The necklace I made for my daughter

A little lump of orange calcite

My interest in crystals is still new and I don't know very much about them. Do you have anything to share about crystals? What has been your experience with them?

The wheel of the year - everything goes around and around

In our home life we use the pagan 'Wheel of the year' as a calendar to plan work and play on and off our property. I find that using sabbats as a guide for farm work is efficient and just makes sense.

What is the Wheel of the year?

Image from http://www.celticai.com.au/2014/01/moon-phases-and-skywatching-2014/

The Wheel of the year (hereafter known as the Wheel) originated in the northern hemisphere, in the Celtic world (and probably many other cultures too). This means that the traditional festivals and feast days that mark the turning of the seasons (Christmas, Easter, Halloween, Candlemas, etc) just don't apply to us here in the southern hemisphere. We all know that when it is summer here it is winter in the UK and US, don't we? Because of the tilt and spin of our planet we have endlessly varied seasons and climates. This also means that pagans need to recalculate their sabbats so as to be in line with the natural world, fortunately this is easy; we just 'spin' the Wheel forward by six months.

As most pagan religions arose from rural farming societies and worship Nature in her many forms, the sabbats and rituals which are common to them have a practical side. I know that when the snowdrops and hardenbergia flower at Imbolc (beginning of spring) that the sheep will soon be giving birth. I know that when I bless the beans, squash and corn seeds on our Ostara (spring equinox) altar it is time to plant them in the garden. I know that when I pick a pumpkin to make a Samhain (beginning of winter) jack-o-lantern it is time to bring in the whole pumpkin crop because frosts are imminent and that when I let the house fire die at Yule (winter solstice) and bring home a candle or a living coal from the Yule fire to relight it I have cleaned out the fire box of all it's accumulated ash just before the deep bone chill of winter sets in.


I have been making myself a graphic organiser showing all the jobs around the humpy that relate to the Wheel. What do you think?

Of course it doesn't show all the work of the year yet. It's a work in progress, like so many other things here at the humpy. 

Happy Lammas to all

Lammas is the sabbat of first harvest; the time of year when we pick the last of the summer fruits from the garden and preserving for the winter is in full swing. At this time of year the animals are usually fat and healthy, the young ones have grown into that awkward teenage phase and the harvesting of staples like wheat, corn and potatoes begins.

Lammas is also known as 'loaf-mass' as this is the time when the first bread is made from the newly harvested grain. The Corn Lord gives up his life for the ripening of the grain at this sabbat and to celebrate this we eat newly baked bread and honey.

This year we had a quiet, gentle ritual with a few examples of our harvests on the altar and feasted in the evening by the light of an almost full moon.

A very fruitful Lammas to you all. May all your harvests be huge.

Making a refillable traveler's journal

As most of you already know; I am a witch. I celebrate the Wheel of the Year, I follow the basic commandment of 'An it harm ye none, do what thou wilt', I believe in the three-fold law and I collect information. Being a witch is (for me) about learning new things and exploring new ways of looking at life. Being a crafty witch, I make my own tools.

One of the most important tools a witch has is her (or his) books, they hold the tiny crumbs of wisdom and knowledge we manage to gain in our life and can be passed on to another witch to use once we die. I make my own books; one for every new 'subject' (although they all interlock in some way); I made a massive, red leather, hard covered, parchment filled tome for my Book of Shadows (tools, correspondences and rituals); I made a cute little upholstery fabric covered book to record my life changing journey through the Sacred Cord (sort of like a rosary that takes two and a half years to complete); I made a black suede, hard covered slim lined book to record my divinations and dreams (Tarot, runes, iChing, scrying, etc); I made a decorated hardwood, post bound tome for my Tarot learnings (meanings, correspondences, Kabbalah and, layouts, etc) and now I have made a versatile, refillable, black leather traveller's journal for my Kabbalah learnings.

My first Book of Shadows

My Sacred Cord book

My divination book

The cover of my Tarot book

Inside my Tarot book

Because I used what I could find about the house, my journal is a rough item, but I am fairly pleased with it. The first thing I did was; make a cup of coffee (essential to the creative juices), then I got down to business. I wanted the pages to look old and worn so I found a ream of photocopy paper, carefully folded each page in half (not the whole ream, only about 32 pages), dipped each one individually in strong instant coffee and laid them out on a towel to dry. This makes the pages unpredictably brownish yellow with blotches (perfect for that aged look).

My instant coffee bath

Some of the pages laid out to dry

You can see the difference in colour between the new paper on the left and the coffee stained stuff on the right.

While the pages dried, I dug out an old leather skirt (it was the eighties OK) and cut a piece that was  2 cm or so higher than the folded A4 paper (A5 size page) and 6 cm or so wider than an open sheet of A4 paper (A4 size page). The leather was fairly thin and would have been too floppy for a book cover on its own so I also cut a piece of heavy duty interfacing and some pretty orange material the same size as my leather.

Old leather skirt

Heavy duty interfacing on top of the material square

These three sheets were glued together with the interfacing in the middle, clamped and hung to dry for a while.

My cover drying in the breeze.

While the cover dried I began making the note book to go inside this cover. I followed the clip below to the letter, but my finished print block was much messier than hers. Undeterred, I decided it added to the antique-y charm of the project and used it anyway. Unfortunately I didn't take photos of this step (I got lost in the process and forgot what I was doing).

I then trimmed the outside edges and punched some holes in my cover and threaded hat elastic through them in the sequence described in the clip below.

Here is the inside of my cover with the elastic in place.

Next I simply threaded my text block into the elastic holders and it was finished.

Spot the dog loved it; a leather paw rest, how innovative.

Then I started filling it up with collected bits of understandings and knowledge.

The three elastic bits mean I can add another two text blocks as I fill the original one up.

I loved making this project, I think I will make some more soon.

Somewhere down the track, I have plans of making my two daughters a book each and fill them with little snippets of information I think they may need, the sort of thing you ring your mum for...like;
'How do I unplug the bathroom drain..without putting my fingers in there?'
'How do I make pancakes?'
'Is it better to close the windows in a wind storm or leave them open?'
'Where do I go to register to vote?'
'How do I make soap?'
'What herbs are good for a cold?'

and many others.

Maybe one of these journals would be appropriate for that, new books can be added as more questions arise.

What do you think of this project?
Do you like the old and battered look for books and journals?