Now that Christmas is over I can post pictures of some of the gifts I made for Christmas. Here are a couple of little flower faeries, all made with naturally dyed wool. I also made a Japanese indigo little being but forgot to take her picture.
And a little gnome.
An eco-dyed bag with cards inside.
And the eco-dyed cards.
Some years ago I needle felted a family of mushrooms and put them in our Sunshine Coast Spinners and Weavers Guild’s Christmas sale. They sold, and while I felt happy that they went out into the world, I was also a bit sad to see them go.
A couple of weeks ago a friend of mine was in the Thrift store and saw a family of needle felted mushrooms in the display case. She took a closer look and saw my Ruby Slippers Creations card. She sweetly bought them for me and presented them to me at our Guild meeting. I was delighted!
This is very magical. Where have the mushrooms been all these years and what have they seen? So far they've been very tight lipped.
Deep in the forest
the Path Keeper walks
shining her light,
frightening dark things,
showing the way
to those who are lost.
Every year I go to the Waldorf School's Winter Festival to enjoy the magic and watch the children have fun. This year I decided to have some fun myself making a gnome garden and dipping a beeswax candle.
Along with the children I chose a wooden slab, a felted gnome and three special treasures. Then I went to a little table and sat on a very, very little chair (happily soon finding a slightly larger chair which was considerably easier to get up and down from!) We shared glue guns and treasures such as moss, sticks, shells, acorns, bark, berries and such. It was SO much fun. I think I see more gnome gardens in my future!
The candle dipping room was magical. The windows were covered and the dark room was lit with white fairy lights and flickering candles. In the center and around the sides were gnomes, fairies, crystals, geodes, shells and all manner of treasures.
Each of us was given a very skinny beeswax candle on the end of a string. We walked slowly and quietly around the room and when we reached the pot of beeswax we carefully dipped our candle in. Around the room once more and by the time we reached the pot again the wax had dried and the candle was ready to dip. When the candle was as thick as our thumb it was wrapped in tissue paper with a little poem slipped inside.
A Candle's but a simple thing,
it starts with just a bit of string.
Yet dipped and dipped with patient hand,
it gathers wax upon the strand until,
complete and snowy white,
it gives at last a lovely light.
At one of our Guild's stash days I picked up a small bag of soft brown fibre. When I opened it last week I found it contained lovely soft dog fur. I spun it up and had just enough to make a very small bag. I stuffed the bag with nature treasures and made a little Treasure Keeper to guard the treasures. There are many Treasure Keepers, the best known being dragons. This little Treasure Keeper is much smaller and more gentle. But just don't try to mess with her treasures...
I love making little beings and creatures. Years ago I had a powerful dream where I witnessed a group of nomadic people travelling through a snowy forest on their magnificent horses. They stopped to carry out a ceremony enacting a ritual birth. At the end of the ceremony they stood in a line and passed a doll between their legs. When the ceremony was completed an old woman, the elder of the tribe, carved a pattern in her leather saddle and coloured it in to record the enacting of this ritual birth.
The dream was very powerful and I wanted to do something to mark it and decided to make a dream bringing doll - the first little being I had made. I looked among my fabrics and found one with stars to make her gown. Amazingly, I also found some fabric with the same pattern that the woman had marked on her saddle. I made it into a dream-bringing bag and filled it with gold stars and chamomile, hops and mugwort from my garden.
After the dream I wondered why they'd passed a doll through their legs and not a real baby. It was only years later that I realized that this dream marked the beginning of a new joy in my life - making little beings and creatures. For a few of the ones I've made you can check out my Flicker set of Little Beings and Creatures.