Enchanted Costuming )O(

Merry meet all,

Beware the Ides of March!  Yes March is like an enigma, it is still winter but spring wants to have her way too. 

The besom I ordered from Etsy and that flew in from the Ukraine is truly magickal. The besom is still standing up on end perfectly straight. Wow. The besom named Raven is black and beautiful. Well it came from Russia, yeah so, it’s magickal. I love Raven. The besom is just made for this witch’s abode. 

I plan to start my seeds soon. I wanted to get soil today but the freezing cold temperature – minus 21 C% windchill, keeps me indoors. I may go out just to do laundry but that’s all. I guess I will head out tomorrow. It is too cold to leave the house today. 

I ordered the Tauriel Maxi Overdress in black this week. I can’t wait to get to wear it with everything I own almost. Black matches everything. I already can think of several dresses I can wear with the overdress. That’s why I don’t regret buying it. It is better than buying something and then discovering too late nothing matches. Here is the enchanting description of the overdress from Holy Clothing:

1. “Named for the free-spirited elven warrior from The Hobbit, our Tauriel Overdress truly is a magical piece. There’s something really fantastic and awe-inspiring about this hooded overdress, from the falling vines of leaves to her mysterious oversized hood.
2. This overdress is a single piece that is made up of a lace-up bodice, asymmetrical hem skirt, and a hood. It’s also an underbust design, which gives the wearer a lot of looks to play with when they’re deciding which pieces of their closet to add to the outfit they want to create.
3. Tauriel isn’t just a fantasy dress for costume play or LARP. It’s so much more than that. It’s a dress that allows you to bring a spark of magic into your everyday life without being a huge statement piece. This is a dress with a subtle and lovely flare, and one that would look perfect while worn during a Sunday market excursion or donned for a day out in your nearest big city.
4. Live magically. Live romantically.
5. About this overdress:
6. Metallic silver nature-inspired embroidery.
7. Pockets for keeping your favorite shiny rocks safe.
8. Brass eyelets.
9. Bodice designed with two layers of rayon and interfacing.
10. Crepe godets.
11. Double layer of rayon for the hood.
12. Exclusive HolyClothing design.
13. Ethically handmade in India.” Credit to Holy Clothing. 

How can you turn that away? I can’t. I ordered it for a reason. I can’t wait for winter to end so I can strut my stuff. Here is a photo of the overdress  shown below. https://holyclothing.com/collections/overdresses I have included the link if you want to order one for yourself. 

I hope this inspires you to try enchanting your own style! Blessings Spiderwitch

My Dark Avenger- Dante the Doll

My new doll

Merry meet all,

I was gifted a new pair of winter boots. I am so happy and so are my feet. Living in Atlantic Canada, you need a comfortable truly insulating pair of winter boots.  I love them. I recently made myself a new doll. I made the doll, my dark avenger, because I am so tired of the pain and toxicity I encounter. It has been so bad it has changed me. But not for the worse, but rather for the better. It does no good to be naive but it doesn’t have to turn you into someone bitter or hateful, either. 

I love my doll and I have named him Dante. He is all black with two buttons for eyes and a black button for the nose. He has a red mouth, a grey and red cape, and I stuffed with specific herbs. The herbs are meant to protect me. The herbs are sage, wormwood, nettle, pine needles, High John the Conqueror, mandrake, oak bark and Devil’s Claw Root. I stirred the herbs in a bowl with a wooden spoon, empowering the herbs with protective energy to protect me. He smells good! His hair is made from purple yarn. Dante is a dashing little fellow. I created him with care. Dante sports a necklace of skulls and pentacles and he bears a protection rune on the front, on his chest. I want to add horns and a tail to Dante too. 

I just love how Dante turned out. He looks great and he makes me feel good each time I hold him or look at him. Dante will always watch over me and guard me. That is the intention I put into him. I found a pattern to make a poppet doll and just enlarged the pattern. Then I sewed him together with care and love. I like to take pride in the things I do. They turn out better and last longer. My other doll, Minerva will get to know Dante too. 

I am tired of the pain and hate and toxicity. I received a flash of inspiration and next thing I knew, since I am happiest when I am creative, I was sewing myself a doll. I am tired of being a sponge for all that. No one needs that. Ever since Covid, everything has gone to pot. I hope the world gets better. The doll will now protect me. He is my little friend who will make sure no one ever hurts me again. This does not mean I won’t have my moments or that I won’t ever encounter anything negative ever again, like I am not a god. I am human but it sure feels good now to have Dante around. 

Penny is a sweet munchkin. She probably tries to protect me too. She is always available for a cuddle, whether I am happy or sad. So let’s love our little avengers- dolls, cats or a dog, whatever you have near you that loves you. We know the world could use a lot more love. Let’s choose love!

Imbolc approaches! 

Blessings, Spiderwitch 

A Dark Inspiration

Merry meet all,

This post will focus on Samhain and my dyeing fabric project using acorns. Are you all excited? I am.

I foraged for a very big mullein stalk yesterday morning. The stalk was about six feet in length. I plan to use the mullein stalk to make hag tapers or torches with. I hope and hope the weather on October 31st will cooperate. I want to have the traditional bonfire. I always have my traditional bonfire. I will  prepare the mullein pieces, cut to size in a double boiler pot with melted beeswax. I will add herbs and oils. I want the beeswax to look black so I will add charcoal. An additive to make beeswax black can affect the way it burns. The charcoal is purely for aesthetic purposes. The popular herbs for Samhain can be used to enhance the beeswax and hag tapers. I would use aromatic herbs like sage, rosemary, wormwood, mugwort and rose. I can’t wait to make the hag tapers.

I’m making the dye bath with the acorns I foraged for earlier. I have treated the muslin cloth in a pot of water with the powdered album. I use the album to make the fabric take to the dye. I used a very large stainless steel pot and added the acorns. I have to ensure the water covers the acorns. I will continue to simmer the acorns for till late tonight and let the acorns soak in the water all night until about midday tomorrow. The longer that the acorns steep, hopefully the darker the color will be.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then I will strain the acorns and pour the dye bath back into the pot. The acorn dye bath has steeped overnight and I’m boiling it on the stove again. The dye has become a lovely dark brown colour. I know the dye will be three times lighter when rinsed and dried. That’s why I am steeping the acorns for so long, to achieve the darkest color possible. I will attempt to dye the fabric tonight and I may do a test patch too. I am excited to see how this turns out. The tannins in the acorns are what make the dye possible. Acorns are rich in tannins. It makes me feel so witchy, stirring a pot of acorns! The scent from the acorns is musky and earthy. 

Now I have to prepare for Samhain! I am sure I am not the only one. I pureed the pumpkin to brew pumpkin bread, perhaps some barmbrack bread and pumpkin soup. I may even try making powdered pumpkin and use my dehydrator. I want to harvest dandelion roots and dry them in my dehydrator. 

Fall is the season of abundance! I am sure the book I am binding will be beautiful. Last night, I worked on it some more. I watched a few videos about people who know how to bind books professionally. They sure knew their stuff. Some of it was a little over the top. I am binding the book to create a book for my horror poetry. I want to write another poetry book. I have a pdf of the Writing in the dark poetry workbook. I am not writing my rough drafts of the poems in that book. Of course the first poem I will put in the book will be the one I wrote and had published, about the cemetery, Encounter with Death. I want to stain the pages with coffee or tea and maybe other herbal infusions. Or dilute essential oils and add that to the pages. I want herbs to have a big role in the creation of this book. The acorns are already adding that energy. I did make three pages of paper. I added a few herbs to the pages too. I will tea stain those pages and add them to the front and back of the book. The covers and spine are cut to size. I cut a small rectangle on the back book cover so I can emboss that section. 

I also plan to include a photo of the headstone where I gathered the acorns by accident. I want to include a small note that I appreciate and respect the spirit for letting me gather the acorns. I’m putting the note in an envelope and storing at the front of the book. I thought of buying a taper logy set ( the decorative paper for making a junk journal) and dyeing the paper and adding it to the book. 

The fabric I’m binding the book with is muslin. I hope the colour will be a deep enough colour of brown for this to work. I want to attach a black velveteen strip to go over the front edges of the book. I also want to add 4 corner protectors. Most of the supplies are available at Michaels. I love that store. I want to also add an adhesive to the muslin once dyed to make the fabric stiffer and more durable. 

I considered making the paper for the book by hand. But I don’t have the fine art of making paper with a mold and deckle down enough. I plan to buy a pack of coloured paper at Staples and then tea staining it and trimming the outer front edges of the paper to add texture. I have a lot of plans with this project. Maybe this will finally make me write that book already! 

Golds, brown and black tones and shades will obviously work here. I originally wanted to use the davy board up. I had some remaining from my other project. I want to decorate the pages with crows, spiders and bats. This is supposed to be about horror after all. I will post more when the book is complete. I can’t wait and I can’t wait for Samhain. 

Blessed be, Spiderwitch

 

Seed starts

Merry meet all,

Today is rainy, snowy and very overcast. Snow lightly covers the ground. Raindrops splatter the windowpanes. It is a sleepy, stay home type of day. The next turn in the Wheel of the year is Imbolc. Before I get started, I just wanted to write here that I know I haven’t posted much. This week, I had to deal with an infected tooth and an abnormal amount of pain. I had to get that under control’s which involved freezing my tooth at the hospital, and a lot of painkillers and an antibiotic to clear up the infected tooth. I am feeling much better now. 

Imbolc is coming soon! My kitty Penny woke up from her long nap. I just gave her a cuddle. Imbolc is exciting to me because it is the first of the three Spring Sabbats. Imbolc is a time of renewed hope, purity and the return of the light. The cold remains but hope and new life stirs beneath the soil. I will post more here about Imbolc. I have a recipe on how to make Imbolc inspired cookies already. I can’t wait to try it!

Imbolc is the perfect time to read seed catalogues and to plan what you want to grow this spring. Or at least to think about which plants you want to start indoors. I plan to get the seed starting kit back from my Mom’s. I have to wait to get soil. Once I do, I plan to start seeds early. It’s my opinion that tomato plants take a long long time to grow, and I believe that they need to be started earlier in order to reach their maximum growth earlier in the year to bear fruit. This has been my observation.

Tomorrow I hope to get the Mastering Herbal Formulations book from the Herbal Academy in the mail. I can really get deep into the course once I have the workbook. I wish they did delivery on weekends but I guess USPS doesn’t work that way. I have read Unit 1 and I get most of the ideas. The calculations look complicated but not impossible. I really need to learn this stuff in order to sell my teas at the local farmers market. That is my goal and part of why I am studying at the Herbal Academy. I want to run a herbal business when I graduate. First, I have a lot to learn. I want to take my time and learn and then I will have a better chance of running my herbal business.

I had reservations about blending two or more herbs in a tincture and other preparations. The Mastering Herbal Formulations course will take away my reservations and give me a renewed confidence. I look forward to reading and learning more in Unit 2-3. The courses at the Herbal Academy are fascinating. I love everything I have learned so far. So to return to the topic of spring seed planting, I have a few new herb seed packets to try this spring. I have many packets of seeds. However, this spring, I have motherwort seeds and I can’t wait to start that from seed. There are too many for me to count here that I want to get started. That will have to be in a future post. 

If you ask me, time is speeding up. I can’t believe how fast time goes now. It seems like I was holding a bonfire in my back yard and now I want to pore over seed catalogues. Does anyone feel like time is speeding up? To what purpose? It’s hard to say. I will just ride the crest of this ‘wave’ as best I can. The possibility of the return of spring cheers me greatly. 

 

Blessings, Spiderwitch