Solstice Stone
Working with wool and stones has a healing effect for me. I've spent the last few weeks in the evenings embroidering felted stones. (Check out my Flickr page for more photos of what I'm calling the Crewel Stones.) This handwork helps me work out the normal, everyday stresses that otherwise would build up into big anxiety for me. My mind flows to different places, mulls over a problem from my day without needing to solve it, while my hands are solving their own design problems.
I use thrifted crewel wool in a random assortment of colors, and the colors I have on hand guide my designs. The shape of the rocks and the loft of the felted wool inspire the stitches. Katherine Shaughnessy's The New Crewel: Exquisite Designs in Contemporary Embroidery has helped me explore some new-to-me stitches, and I've approached each stone as a sort of mini-sampler.
The matryoshka stones have been especially healing to create. They were inspired in large part by SnippetyGibbet's lovely handmade matryoshka cards, available at her new Etsy shop. I chanced upon The Art of the Russian Matryoshka, by Rett Ertl and Rick Hibberd, at the library, and was tickled to learn that the matryoshka were likely insipired by the import of Japanese nesting dolls to the city of Sergiev Posad in 1899. The book is beautifully photographed and shows artisans making the nesting dolls at every stage in the process.
While sewing late into the quiet night, my mind often turns to how much I have learned from reading craft blogs and having my own blog. I've gotten lots of inspiration and expanded my repertoire of techniques, and I've also learned to approach each project I take on as an excellent opportunity to solve problems, both creative and practical.
An integral part of this process is you: my friends, my readers, my co-conspirators in craft obssession. As a thank you to all of the kind, generous, and inspiring readers of Zen Crafting, I'd like to offer a little Solstice Giveaway. Please leave a comment by noon (Eastern Standard Time) on December 21, and I will select a winner from among them to receive the red Solstice Stone shown at the top of the page.
Happy Solstice, and have a wonderful holiday season and New Year.
27 comments:
Your stones are so beautiful! I would be happy to own one of them... ;)
Your stones are gorgeous! I get very contemplative when I stitch too, I think it is one of the reasons that I love embroidery so much :)
I find stones to be very healing too and just fun to hold. I marvel at the life and stories they hold. I would love to be considered for your giveaway. Thank you. : )
And thank you for always inspiring me.
I think these are so beautiful, both in design and for the serenity they've offered you in their creation. I'd be thrilled to have one here with me.
you've done a wonderful job. they are gorgeous!
I learned about matroschkas when posting this :
http://www.flickr.com/photos/30216510@N07/4041470291/sizes/l/
I thought the bottom doll looked like these:
http://julieadore.blogspot.com/2009/10/culbuto-russe.html
happy holidays!
A very blessed Solstice to you, too! Those stones are beautiful.
They are all so fantastic!
I feel the same way when I knit. But I'd like to try new techniques that have the same effect on me... I don't know how to felt, yet.
Thanks for sharing, Pat!
Oh my gosh, Patricia!!!!!! I absolutely adore these!!!! These are so wonderful. I hope you don't mind, but I'm going to borrow a photo and post it on my blog to lead people here. jan
What a delightful surprise to see what you've been up to. Your stones are beautiful--so colorful and textural. I am also looking forward to finding that book on matroyshkas.
I found my way to your blog from Snippety's blog, so hello from Australia! I love your stones... I make felt and do crafty things at a Steiner Waldorf school over here where my daughter is in Class 3 now, and I can totally empathise with the joy of felting and embroidery. This time last year I was making little birds and flowers, but I hadn't thought about embroidering felt stones. I hope you won't mind if I take the idea back to our craft group? We sell our things to raise money for the school, and yours is such a beautiful idea. It's summer solstice here, but I wish you a very merry and peaceful end of year. Best wishes, Sara
Lovely. I've done felting over randomly shaped soap but never with such intricate designs. Glad Jan at Snippety Gibbet posted about this. Lovely and different.
I love these, as you knew I would. My, you've been busy stitching away. I've been really wanting to dive into handwork for all of the reasons you've been enjoying it. I have several knitting patterns I keep taking out and setting aside. They haven't been doing it for me, though. Seeing these beauties has woken me up out of a fog... I've been quite busy teaching little ones (and big ones) to embroider in the last few weeks. Why didn't I think about it for me? I needed a gorgeous Solstice crewel stone to knock me in the head!Please enter me in this wonderful give-away! xox
Hi there, thanks for your lovely comment on my blog! I just wanted to say that our school craft group is a really informal affair: we meet on Tuesday mornings after we've dropped off our kids, and we sit in a breezeway and talk, drink coffee, eat cake and make things as we feel like! Some weeks there's more cake eating than making going on, sometimes we're amazingly productive. Members bring skills and experience from elsewhere so recently a friend taught us to make beautiful stars out of fishing line, beads and a needle, and last year I ran workshops on bookbinding and papermaking. Some of the money we raise is kept to fund future projects, so we're reserving the funds from the Christmas craft stall for our project for next year: we're going to involve the whole school in making a felt yurt to help celebrate our 21st anniversary! Some of our other projects are to be found in my http://doubleelephant.blogspot.com blog, buried in there somewhere... I'll look forward to stopping by again soon! Sara
Lovely stones <3
Happy new year in advance :]
How very interesting. I've never seen anything done quite this way. Except with felting a bar of soap. And that didn't have the beautiful stitchery. Do you embroider the wool and cut from old feltings and then re-felt it to form around the rock? I wish I could win one!
Beautiful stones and beautiful blog! I just started reading your blog this year and am so glad I did. I find so much inspiration in your words and crafting. I've been crocheting stones lately a la Margie and I, too, find it so meditative and calming.
Your combination of colors, texture and the idea of the heft of the stone within...all very appealing and inspiring. We too are getting ready for Solstice. Gathering in for a night of light, warmth, good food and home-made music.
Happy Solstice!
It is just pure unadulterated greed that makes me comment to this post! Your stones are really amazing! I love Jan's cards too!
Happy Solstice!! Your stones are lovely!!
Hello!
Your stones are wonderful - there is a calming peacefulness about them. I would gladly nurture one if you would consider me in your drawing - thansk! xo
I am glad to have come across your blog via flickr. These stones are just lovely and I can't wait to explore the rest of your crafts.
I love the Solstice; it makes dream of gardens, marshmellows on the fire, and wine after drumming! Your stones are scrumptious..I promise I will adore it & keep it happy here in Ohio!
The stones are absolutely lovely! Matryoshka dolls are so inspirational to me. I've started collecting the sets that are missing pieces--like little orphans! (I'm notacosmicmuffin at hotmail.)
What a wonderful idea. It is like a talisman - - to remind us all that there is "light" following a dark time. Janet
Happy Solstice to you! Having one of your stones would be a joy. They're very beautifully done.
i love these!! we celebrate solstice here and would consider it an honor to have your stone to commemorate the occasion. thanks for the opportunity! ;)
with everyone else here I feel so lucky to have found your oh so interesting blog. Your embroidered soltice stones are beautiful (I embroidered lots some years back and then found cardmaking, stamping, paper-cutting, quilling took over). You've inspired me to look back to manipulating with a needle and threads sometime soon.
Thankyou for sharing; blogs are such a wonderful source to us who love creating, and you're so right, doesn't it take us places when we create?
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