Tarot Talk: It’s looking Swordsy

I did a little informal intention setting for the new year that I wanted to get serious about doing my daily card drawings and I’ve been doing pretty well.  I got myself another Fools Dog ap which helps because sometimes lately, digital is all I’ve got the energy for.  The two decks I use most in Ap form are the Ostara Tarot and the Tarot of the Hidden Realm.  I also have both of them in physical format as well.

And MAN, all this week SWORDS.  I use yellow in my tarot journal to indicate swords/air and the whole week is yellow.

I had the seven of swords twice in a row this week, from different decks even.  And then this morning I drew the Ten of swords.  Yikes.  I’m pretty sure the ten came up expressing my frustration around an incident where an “Ally” acted like an uneducated person and I was pretty much on the spot to speak up for all queer people (which happens a lot).  I felt a little 10 of swordsy.  Literally wrote in my notebook:  “TFW when you gotta educate the “Allies”.  Fucking Tired.”  This was around trans issues and I’m a cis person.  I can’t even imagine how frustrated and tired my trans friends must feel around this crap.  Sending so much love.

In other, more fun news. I’ve been holing up in my studio and Quilting All The Things!  Tarot card mats have come off the machine recently.  Last year I took an online class in watercolor quilting and I’ve finally gotten around to trying out the new skill.

You can see the pretty watercolors in the background of today’s 10 of Swords draw.  You paint the fabric with this fabric paint/dye and after it dries you use free motion quilting to outline the color shapes.  I’m crazy into it right now.  I have a few more squares of fabric to paint up and then I’ll probably have a few more mats to show you.

I got inspired by another reader on IG and I made a simple three card layout mat as well.  I took a bunch of more ‘curated’ photos of it and then I decided to share this long shot with you.  Fighting that, everything must look perfect vibe.  I did light a pretty candle here, but in the background you can see my hexie paper punch, my wife is painting with water colors over on the left, and the leftovers from a D&D gaming session cover the far end of the table.  Is it Instagram Perfect Beautiful?  Nope, but does it work?  Sure does.  Sometimes you just have to work with what you’ve got.  And sometimes that’s a messy dining room table or a sink full of dishes because I spent more time at the sewing machine than I did with a sponge.  #RealLife 🙂

Love to you all in the new year.  May your 2018 be Beautiful and Creative.

Weekly Readings

I’m coming at you on the tail end of working two back to back 12.5 hour shifts so these links could be a little squirrelly.  And don’t ask me how many attempts it took to correctly write these two sentences, because it’s a little embarrassing.

I’ve been all about the quilting lately, the bug bit me and it hasn’t let go yet.  I’m a quilting machine when I’m not eating or sleeping.  I want to try making some new more fancy zippered tarot pouches but I’m not sure what I want them to look like.

What do you look for in a tarot pouch?  Room for just the cards?  Cards and some crystals?  A notebook pocket?  Let me know.

But you NEED to see these Resistance Quilts by Completely Cauchy.  The one made in Honor of Eric Garner is a punch in the gut.  As it should be.  Also her Give a Fuck quilt block series is damn cool.

 Not your spirit animal: Cultural appropriation, misinformation, and the Internet.

Like most things on the internet, however, this is not only wrong but extremely offensive. The culturally-appropriative way that the term “spirit animal” is used in everyday speech is extremely harmful and so casual that most people don’t even think twice about it.

The reason why the term spirit animal has risen to popularity on the Internet is because it’s so easily understood. What people are saying is that they like this thing a lot and that makes them happy. It’s that simple. Using “spirit animal” is a short hand that shows how into something they are.

The problem is that the continued use of the phrase is a part of the cultural appropriation of Indigenous culture that seeks to commodify and erase the realities of Indigenous people.

—

Nosy Witch Questions: Wheel of Fortune and Justice

Wheel of Fortune: Do you practice palmistry?

Nope.  So here’s another question.

Justice: Do you work with plants and herbs?

I do.  I’d love to find more ways to include green witchcraft into my practice.  I used to always think that I had a black thumb and would kill plants, but over the years I’ve gotten greener.  It sort of helps that we have a house with yard space now so we’re not trying to grow plants in the darkness or on a tiny porch filled with wasps (who built a nest in our heating vent and caused the heat and air to stop working) while living above the asshole downstairs.  Seriously, in our last apartment there was this guy downstairs who used to scream at neighborhood children and once came upstairs late at night and banged on our door after we had gone to bed to shout at us about making too much noise.  Seriously, bitch, we were ASLEEP.  I made the apartment complex install a door chain after that.

But all that’s behind us.  We have a pretty house with a little bit of green space and we’re slowly starting to learn how to increase the plants around our house.  We’ve rejuvenated two beds right in front of our house, built a bed beside our driveway, one around a big tree in our backyard, and we still have some beds that I want to transform.  I need to get a little bit better at long range gardening planning, at the moment we sort of just plonk things down into open spaces and see what happens.

But I LOVE IT!  And we’re learning so much!

 

Buy a Tarot Bag and Help Fix my Pipes

I was home yesterday while our pipes were being replaced so I had some sewing time!  I added six new bags to the shop and they’re all ready to ship right now if you’re looking for a classy way to carry your decks around with you look no further.  Wooly Witchy has you covered!

Each of my bags are fully lined with a coordinating color drawstring closure.  There are no exposed seams to catch on your cards .  They’re made with high quality cotton and have room to carry a standard sized tarot deck with a little extra room for crystals, a reading cloth, or a small notebook.  You can order yours now or request something custom made!

 

Wooly Wednesday

You guys, I have been SO SICK for the last few weeks!  It’s been just a cold, but I have asthma so for me, just a cold turns into this interminable coughing jag that lasts forever!  Poor me 😉

But what that means is that I’ve been out of work a handful of days and I’ve spent those days making things!  I picked up quilting and I just cannot stop making quilts!!

My gramma, who passed away January of last year, was an avid and accomplished quilter.  She made so many quilted things in her life.  I have a quilt that she made for me when I went to college and so do my brothers.  And while she was alive, I liked her quilts, thought that they were beautiful, but I had no real interest in making one myself.

I inherited a bunch of her fabric and her quilting books after she passed last year and I’ve just suddenly got the quilting bug.  My gramma, when she was alive, could be a little bit difficult at times, and towards the end when she was struggling with Alzheimer’s and dementia it was tough.  For me, this sudden surge in QUILT ALL THE THINGS, is giving me a way to remember her with more fondness and less difficulty.  It feels rather like an inheritance in and of itself.  As though she’s given me this ability, passing it on to me even after she’s passed.

After all, I have her books and some of her fabric.

I’m having so much fun making things.  So, thanks, gramma.

Buy a Wooly Witchy Tarot Bag

I did a bunch of witchy crafting yesterday and after some testing and a few too small prototypes I’ve got the perfect Tarot pouches ready to ship.  I’d love to make one for you!

Take a peek at the ordering page and let me know if you’re interested.

Help me pay the plumber: book a reading!

Over the last weekend my wife and I have been dealing with some not so fun plumbing issues and now we’ve got a plumber scheduled to replace a whole lot of pipes… which lands us with a not insubstantial bill we really weren’t expecting.  So if you’d been considering booking a reading I’d love to entice you to go for it!

I offer readings in a range of price points; you can get a simple one card check in for just $5, and it’s a great way to get a sample of my reading style if you’re uncertain.

I’m also thinking about offering some custom-made quilted tarot bags and reading mats. So if you’ve seen the flurry of quilting I’ve been doing on my Instagram and you like what you see, I’m interested in working with you to make an awesome fabric tarot accessory.  I have a range of drawstring pouches ready to ship right now.  A fully lined zippered tarot pouch will probably be around $20 and a quilted mat will range from $20-30 depending on the complexity.  The sunburst (11″x11″) mat would be simpler than the one with the black zig zag (13″x9″ ish).  Each Drop me a line woolywitchy (at) gmail (dot) com and we’ll chat!

 

Get Started Knitting Socks

I read an article this week called 14 Things You Need to Get Started Knitting Socks,
and it’s definitely got some good information in it, but I don’t really think you need fourteen things.  Sure, a lot of those things are useful if you’re building a sock knitting kit, but you don’t need them all just to get started or give it a try.  So I decided I’d give you my little low down on getting started with socks.

I avoided knitting socks for a long time because I’d heard that socks were Hard®!  And I was scared away from them.  But I’m here to tell you that if you can already knit in the round, you’ve got the hardest part conquered.

Okay so here’s what you really need: a set of sock needles, a tapestry needle for weaving in your ends, and some yarn.  And I’ll talk a little bit more about each of these things now.

Needles: There’s a lot of debate over what needles to use for your sock knitting.  I’m a DPN girl, myself, but there are lots of other options.  You can use a single circular needle for magic loop, two circulars, or even a tiny 9″ circular to jut knit that sucker in the round.  No one way is better than the others, it’s entirely up to personal preference.  For me, that’s DPNs 🙂  You should get a size needle that suits the yarn that you want to use for your socks, more on that below.

Tapestry Needle: This is just a larger than average sewing needle.  You can get them in plastic, metal, and other kinds of materials if you want to get fancy.  Any will work.  Choose one that you can be threaded with the yarn you’re planning to use.  Too tiny and you can’t get the yarn through the eye, too big and you’ll stretch out your stitches as you weave in ends.  This article shows some images of different types.  Those clover needles would work for most of our needs.

Yarn: Okay, this is arguably the best part, choosing your yarn.  I often suggest that a first timer who is nervous should knit their first pair of socks in worsted weight yarn.  This makes a pair of socks that is a bit more like slipper socks, thick and squishy and easy to finish quickly.  But if you really want to, there is no reason not to knit with fingering weight yarn, which is what most sock knitters prefer.

I would encourage a wool and nylon blend for your yarn for a few reasons: wool is delightful, it’s warm, it has memory (which means that it can bounce back after being stretched out), it keeps you warm even when it’s wet, and then nylon because of it’s toughness.  A little nylon blended in helps a sock to stop from wearing out so quickly.

As for the color of your yarn, here is where I echo my advice on choosing your tarot decks.  Find something that delights you, something that you can’t stop thinking about, something that makes you smile every time you see it.  Because you’re going to be making a lot of stitches with it!  Some options: Knit Picks Hawthorne Kettle Dye, Speckle Paint, Madeline Tosh sock yarn, Opal sock yarn, and Cascade Heritage. And there are about a thousand more from indie dyers all over the internet.  Have a wander through Etsy and search for sock yarn and you’ll find yarn in ever hue and blend you could have ever imagined.

Okay, now Patterns: For your first sock you definitely want a pattern.  Once you’ve knit a bunch you can probably start riffing on them and making some things up as you go.  But for your first sock stick with a well written pattern that can walk you through the steps.

Here are some of my suggestions:

Susan B Anderson’s fingering weight socks
Susan B Anderson’s worsted weight socks

I also really like this one:  The Humble Sock because of that awesome diagram labeling all the parts of the sock.

Things I Wish I Had Known Before I Knit my First Pair of Socks:

The Heel Flap – when you get to this point, yes, you really are going to knit this weird rectangle section back and forth on two needles.  No, really.  I know it looks insane, but when you hit the heel on a sock it’s time to take a deep breath, relax, and just go ahead and do exactly what the pattern says when when it looks crazy.

Picking Up Stitches – This is way easier than people make it out to be,  You’re just going to look at the edges of that weird rectangle and slide your needle into a handful of edge stitches to create loops you can knit into.  There are as many ways to pick up stitches as there are knitters, try out a few and find one that you like the best and just go with it.  The manner in which you pick up your heel flap stitches won’t have a huge impact on your sock, so try not to sweat it and just go for it!

Finishing the Toe: Kitchener Stitch is a beautiful thing.  It can be a little fiddly the first handful of times you use it, but it more than makes up for its fiddly-ness with the simple beauty of those finished grafted toes.  Here’s a lovely tutorial with great pictures to give you confidence that you can graft your sock toes!

So that’s it.  All you need to know to get started on your first pair of socks.  So get knitting!   And then show me 🙂  Because you might not have noticed, but I am crazy about knitting!  Mine, yours, anyone’s.

A Wooly How To: Dye a silk tarot cloth

It’s arts and crafts day at Wooly Witchy!  I’m going to teach you guys how to create your own Tarot cloths.  You don’t need any crafting experience to make this cloth and it’s pretty inexpensive too!  It’s really the perfect beginners project.  There are infinite ways to decorate your cloth.

Make your own DIY Silk Tarot Cloth

Ready to try it yourself?  Here’s what you’ll need.

Materials:
Silk scarf – I got mine from Dharma Trading Company.  And I recommend the 21×21 size for a Tarot cloth, but you could also use a 35×35 cloth depending on what your reading/working space can hold.   Cost for these depends on what size you get, but it’s $3 – $6 per scarf.
Spectra Art Tissue in colors that you like.  Again, I got mine from Dharma and it cost me $4.35 for a package of tissue which is plenty for lots of cloths.  Again, you need to make sure that the tissue paper you get is specifically made to bleed the dye out of the paper.  A lot of the papers you see in the wrapping paper sections are made so they won’t bleed onto other things when they get wet.  We need to make sure ours does.
Spray bottles – really anything inexpensive will work.  I think I found mine at Target for a dollar or two each.
White vinegar – It doesn’t matter even a little bit what brand you get.  Get it at your local grocery store for as cheap as possible.
Plastic table cloth to protect your work space from getting stained with dye from the tissue paper.  You can absolutely use a garbage bag for this if you prefer.
Optional:
rubber gloves to keep the dye off your hands and fingers
piece of cardboard to make card templates.

Instructions

Step 01: First thing you want to pour about an inch of vinegar into your spray bottle and then fill it the rest of the way with tap water.  The exact ratio isn’t super important, but make sure you don’t leave out the vinegar because it’s what helps the color set into the silk.

Step 02: Prepare your work space by putting down the plastic table cloth to protect the
tabletop.  I’ve got one old cheap dollar store one that I use over and over for messy craft projects.  It’s covered in paint from a set of painted wings we made.

Step 03: I recommend that you iron your silk first.  Make sure that you select the silk
setting on your iron so you don’t burn it.  Once it’s wrinkle free, we’re ready to add color!

Step 04: Since I was specifically designing this cloth to use with my favorite three card spreads I wanted three rectangles for the cards.  I created a card template from a piece of cardboard by tracing around my Wild Unknown deck box.  I added a little bit of width and height so it would show around the edges of my cards when I laid them out.  I used the cardboard to cut out three rectangles from my Spectra tissue paper.  I picked black for this cloth since I wanted a nice dark background for the cards themselves.

Step 05: Choose the placement of your “cards”.  For this cloth I wanted a simple three card spread layout, but you can absolutely choose any layout that will fit on your cloth.  You could lay out any spread you like, celtic cross, bridge spreads, your imagination is the limit here.  You can also opt to skip the card spots if you don’t want one with a pre-determined card layout.

Step 06:  Grab your spray bottle!  Put on your gloves at this point to protect your hands from getting stained with dye.  If it does get on your skin don’t worry, it will wash off.  If you get some on your clothing I recommend treating the stain with a stain treatment and washing in cold water right away.
Spray your tissue paper, be careful with the first few sprays since the water can push your tissue paper out of place.  The amount of water and vinegar mix you spray onto your tissue paper determines how much the colors will bleed out into the fabric.  More water = more color bleeding, less water = less bleeding.  An important thing to keep in mind as you’re choosing your colors is that you can always add a dark color over a light color but you cannot put a light color over a dark one.  For example: the black card squares are as dark as they’re going to be.

Once your squares are sprayed and held in place you can start building the rest of your cloth.  I decided to line each of my card spaces with a teal color.  Just tear pieces of tissue paper (or cut them if you prefer a little more precision), lay them on your cloth, and spray them.  Repeat ad nauseum until you’ve got everything where you’d like.

Step 07: Here’s the step I always find hardest.  Just wait.  You need to give the paper time to transfer the dye to the silk.  Exact timing varies depending on the color and how intense you want the color to be on your cloth.  You can check the color by peeling up a corner of the paper and checking your color.  Once you’re happy with the color under your tissue paper you can start peeling up the pieces.  Have a bowl or a trashcan ready at this point because the tissue paper will drip and get dye EVERYWHERE if you’re not careful.

Step 08: Now you need to let your cloth dry.  I laid mine on a laundry drying rack with an old towel underneath it to catch any dye drips.  I don’t usually have trouble with dye dripping off once the paper is removed, but better safe than sorry.  Silk cloths dry much more quickly than other fabrics.

Step 09: The last step for your cloths is to heat set your dye.  Put your cloth into the dryer on high for ten minutes.  You don’t want to leave your cloths in too long because it can make the silk get dull.

Step 10: Use your new awesome cloth!  Make more cloths!  You can give these as gifts, use them to wrap your own decks, the possibilities are almost endless.

If you make cloths I would love to see them!  Please feel free to share your projects in the comments!

Wooly Wednesday

Pretty soon I’ll be able to share with you all the holiday gift knitting I’ve been making over the last two months, but not quite yet!  Spoilers, you know.

Today I want to babble at you about these amulet bags I made.  They’re SO EASY.  If you know how to knit even a little bit I’ve got a pattern I’m going to link that You Can Make yourself!  These would make excellent holiday gifts for your witchy friends and family.

 This one I’m showing here was knit in the round and then closed at the bottom with a three needle bind off.  And even that is way more complicated than the pattern I’m sharing here.

It’s called Daisy, Daffodil, and Tiger Lily: an amulet pouch three ways.  That link takes you to Ravelry where you can download the pattern for free and make one of these cute little bags yourself!

These little bags can be made as a tiny amulets to wear around your neck or as a pouch to carry stones, herbs, or any other small ritual components. Choose colors of yarn that have special significance in your practice or make you feel good.  You can use any yarn that you like, just match your needle size to the ball band and you should be fine.  The bigger the yarn you use, the bigger the pouch you’ll end up with.

For this project I have included 3 options for working the amulet bag for varying levels of knitting ability. The first is an easy version. The only skills you need will be cast on, knitting, binding off, and some simple sewing. The intermediate version requires casting on, knitting in the round, and decreasing. The advanced version requires casting on, knitting in the round, decreasing, yarn overs with paired decreases.

I’d love to see your knitting if you give these a try, feel free to share pictures on Ravelry or here in the comments!

Happy knitting!