So, some crafty updates! I’m wonderfully close to being done with the stole - but there’s no use in taking more pictures yet, so no pics there. I’m about 12 rows from being through with Clue 5, and then it’s on to a single round of Clue 6 and the edging, and I’m all done! I expect another 6-10 days of work… at work. So, by November 7th, I should be darned close to finished, if not already there, except for blocking and such! :) Here’s hoping, anyway.

But here’s something I can give a picture of - it’s my 2006 Advent Calendar! For those of you who don’t know me, I adore advent calendars. Especially ones that are unique in some way, or else give prizes! I picked this up at Quilt With Class last month, and am now getting around to sewing it all up! It’s more work than it looks, but is altogether rather easy. All the little numbered spots will be made into pockets, all ornaments (see all the outside ornaments dangling from the tree - those are finished pockets. The red ones inside the tree are what I have left to do.)

Shouldn’t take me long to do - just have to buckle down and get to it. The pockets are a pain in the ass - I should’ve gone the easy route and pinked all the edges - easier than folding them all in and stitching all the edges down. Ah well. Too late now!

This Thursday, I’d like to post some interesting tidbits about Samhain!

Thirteen Interesting Things About Samhain

1. Secular Halloween’s customs of costumes, tricks and treats, jack o lanterns and ghosts all stem from an ancient pagan, mostly Celtic holiday called Samhain. Samhain was considered the end of the year - the crops were virtually all harvested at this point, and winter was setting in, and it was, to them, the end of one year, and the beginning of the next. It was also strongly affiliated with the death, and was considered a time to remember the dead.
2. Samhain is pronounced in half a dozen ways, but you’ll find that most people consider SOW-en (sow as in female pig, not as in sow your seeds) to be the ‘correct’ pronunciation. However, this varies as well, as Gaelic has many dialects and influences. Scots would not pronounce it the same as the Irish, nor the Welsh, etc.
3. Samhain is not - and was never - the name of any Celtic god, contrary to popular belief. It’s derived from a Gaelic word meaning ’summer’s end’.
4. The Church attempted to Christianize the holiday by forming All Saint’s Day, to remember dead saints. It obviously never really caught on…
5. Jack o lanterns were originally carved out of gourds and were used to frighten away evil spirits. Pumpkins were not used for jack o lanterns until American colonists discovered the pumpkin! Today’s gourds wait patiently on the sidelines while their fat, orange counterparts bask in candlelit glory.
6. Samhain is not always celebrated on October 31st, or November first as ‘tradition’ stands. Some modern pagans like to use the actual cross-quarter date (the exact middle date between the autumn equinox and the winter solstice) for their Samhain festival. This year, that would be November 7th. (On an unrelated note, that’s Election day where I live… I can sense a real need for some banishing spells here… *grin* Kidding, kidding… mostly…)
7. Modern pagans often hold the Samhain as the time between times, or the thinning of the veil, as ancient pagans did. This refers to the invisible veil between this world and the spirit world - or, in some cases, this world and /all/ other worlds. When this veil thins, it is easier to ‘cross over’ so to speak, and come in contact with those on other planes - the dead.
8. It’s also considered to be a prime time for divination, because during this time, as the time between times, /time/ does not function normally - and thus, you can easily see into the past and the future with much more clarity than usual. Think of it like taking a deck of cards and shuffling them and stacking them. This is time - one card flipped over every day, whatever. During Samhain, however, it’s as if the cards were thrown up in the air and scattered about, and you can see many of them at once.
9. Apples are one traditional divination tool. Unattached ladies - try this: on Samhain Eve (Oct 31st), peel an apple in one long spiraled piece, and toss it over your shoulder. When you turn around, it should form the first initial of the name of your husband to be. ;-)
10. Leaving food out for the spirits is another important tradition. Milk and bread are always good - but so is grain, soul cakes, or just anything.
11. Many modern pagans hold Dumb Suppers on Samhain or Samhain Eve. This is a supper served entirely in silence, usually with a plate set for the dead. The supper is in silence so to revere those passed, and also, to be able to hear and feel them when they join the table.
12. Sex on Samhain Eve/ Samhain can result in reincarnations, according to lore.
13. Looking for some witchy correspondences? Here’s a list:
    Colors: orange, black, brown (and personally, I like purple)
    Herbs: acorn, oak, apple, corn, hazel, nightshade, mugwort, allspice, sage, catnip, gourds
    Offerings & Food: apples, pumpkin pie beets, turnips, hazelnuts, corn, gingerbread, pomegranates, cider, herbal tea, pork.
    Gods/Goddesses: Hecate, Anubis, Isis, Osiris, Hel, Arawn, Don, Merlin, Morrigan, Idunna, Cailliach

Links to other Thursday Thirteens!

I thought I’d post a tarot spread I like to use on the dark (new) moons, like the one we had last night.

It’s a good, helpful spread to focus on what energies are going to present for the next moon. :) I like to do this spread in the dark in full candlelight.

I finished my gingerbread man apron! Huzzah! And here it is, in shining glory. Ignore the headless body - that would be me, in all my shapeless glory… I swear, it’s the apron that makes me look like that, but I’m no supermodel in real life. As for headless… well, you would’ve chopped it off, too, upon seeing just how bad the photo was to begin with.

And here, a closeup of the apron fabric, which is sooooo cute.

Moving on, I’ve also taken some pictures of my quilt blocks. I’ll consider this sort of a WIP Friday deal, since it’s now after midnight, and thus, Friday. And it is indeed a work in progress, though the progress might be slow, and I’m 2 blocks behind schedule. It’s for a quilt block of the month class dealie, using the gorgeous, if pastel, fairy frost fabrics. Enjoy.

And one last photo - this is of a quilt my mother just ‘finished’. Okay, so she’s not actually finished yet, but she’s not going to do the actual quilting of the thing herself - it’s her first quilt, and she wants to be sure it’s done right, so she’s taking it to someone to get the thing quilted together. This is the before-it’s-quilted-together photo. I love it, by the way. I’m begging for it for Christmas, but I’m not sure she’ll cave. ;-)

So this week, I thought I’d give you a peek into my mind and have a look at some of the other people who live there. Yes, people who live in my mind. I’m a writer, albeit unpublished, and I have loads of people lurking around in my brain. They’re as real to me as my “real” friends are, so let me introduce you to a few of them! You may notice that they’re all guys. What can I say, I like writing about men!

Thirteen Imaginary Friends

1. Robin Chain is my oldest surviving character. He lives in an imaginary metropolis and enjoys the high life due to a lifetime of selling drugs and reaping all the rewards of having minions. He’s really the head of the Santine mob, though he wouldn’t call it that. He’s a family guy, with a bucketload of kids who all have problems, a handful of close friends who love to fight among themselves, and a near-multiple personality called G.
2. Deliverance is an assassin. He lives in a fictional Phoenix, sometime in the future where all the young anarchists teenagers and young adults are banding together to form independent clans. D’s very kickass, and has even less morals than Robin, except he, unlike Robin, doesn’t stand for adultry when it comes to his gay lover and best friend, Harlequin.
3. Julian Frost is a military cop. Though in the world he lives in, the military is god, and that makes him a bit more than just a military cop. He’s in the RMF, and is known for being a hardass, and for getting the job done. Though a loner, he’s taken two young recruits under his wing, and the three of them can maybe even be called ‘friends’.
4. Dayton Thorne made his millions doing shady things, but he’s giving back to the community now - by opening up a refuge for troubled boys needing a home. At his side is his lovely lawyer wife and a ‘retired’ assassin, Keenan, who works to provide security for the premises. Thorne’s biggest achievement was discovering that he’d somehow taken in his own son from an affair long ago, and then turning him from a hard criminal to a productive, hardworking citizen and loving son.
5. Banner Chain is the son of Robin Chain. He’s also joined the military, and is now working in an elite squadron and is in command of his own small team. He has a bit of a love-hate relationship with his job, which typically involves work other teams can’t or won’t do, which typically means bigtime trouble and maybe nightmares for life, but he wouldn’t give it up for anything.
6. Jimmy Monterey is in Banner’s squad. He’s also Banner’s best friend, and Banner’s sister’s boyfriend. He’s a charming guy who doesn’t seem at all to be as dangerously trained as he is, and virtually everyone gets along with him eventually. And… he cannot remember anything of his life before joining the military. Not even his real name.
7. Zues is a villian - Deliverance’s brother, in fact, and a very sick and twisted individual. He’s also *obsessed* with Harlequin, and often fancies himself as Harlequin’s soul mate.
8. Keaton O’Connor is one of Robin Chain’s best friends. He’s a former thief, an alcoholic by night, and a sharp-minded businessman by day. His spends most of his attention on one business in particular - the O’Connor Art Institute - because art has always been his passion.
9. Fyren Lothlorian is a fantasy character. He’s a wicked-cool mage, top notch swordsman, and ineffective parent to a son he’s scarcely known. He works with dangerous magic, and is perhaps the most powerful mage in the the land. Despite this, he travels and acts much like a commonor, and if any such fanciful thoughts go to his head, his tempermental wife is sure to beat it out of him right quick enough.
10. Micah is Deliverance’s son. He’s a tragic sort of character, who believes he’s cursed to outlive every lover he’s ever taken. You see, they’ve all died horrible deaths, typically at the hands of psychopathic killers. He’s also just a touch telekinetic.
11. Roshan (The Gypsy) lives in a ‘modern’ fantasy world where slavery is big business. He’s an assassin who leaves calling cards engraved with ‘The Gypsy’ at the scene of all his victims. He’s also got a very complicated love life.
12. Corran comes from another modernized (even futuristic) fantasy world where he and his people (Rakvorians) are in conflict with another species (Lequahns) whom they have enslaved. Corran is a bit of a peacemaking diplomat and knows far more about the Lequahn way of life than your average Rakvorian… but at the same time, he’s quite in love with having them as slaves.
13. Arian is a prince in another fantasy world, looking for an opportunity to overthrow his father, the king, who has been growing more and more insane with each passing day. He’s continually busy just trying to keep his own supporters safe from the king’s wrath until he seizes his opportunity to strike.

The holidays are fast approaching! Samhain is nearly here, and after that passes, it’s only a short skip to Yule and Christmas, and I have a LOT that needs to be done! So let me list them out - partly for your amusement, but mostly because I need to write it down somewhere that won’t get lost in the shuffle.

Sewing
1. Gingerbread Man Apron - this one’s half done!
2. Autumn Pillowcases
3. Brown/Sunflower Messenger Bag
4. Advent Calendar - it’s cut out!
5. Winter flannel pillowcases
6. Santa Claus table runner
7. Other winter pillowcases
8. 3 quilt blocks (I’m behind by two)
9. Finish purple/yellow quilt

Knitting

10. Mom’s Stole
11. Pair of socks
12. Autumn Colors Hat
13. Blue/White Hat

How’s that for a mess? Gugh. We’ll see what I can manage to finish… We’ll see.

How time flies… it seems only a few short weeks ago that I was counting the days until midsummer, watching the days grow longer and longer. It seems just yesterday that the sun rose at five a.m, and here it is, 7:15 in the morning, and it’s black as midnight with no sign that morning’s to come.

It’s no wonder the ancients feared the sun was disappearing into the night as winter fell. It almost feels that way to me, too, and I know the science behind it. And the darkness isn’t finished. We’re two months from Yule - two months before the sun god is born again, until the days will begin to grow longer once more.

This year has sped by like lightning, and I can’t help but miss it. As a child, every day feels long as a week, and every week like a year, and every year an eternity. As an adult, I can barely keep track of the days, let alone months, and years? Has it really ben ten months since 2006 began? It doesn’t seem possible.

I miss the sunlight more working nights. The flourescent lighting in the office aids my biological clock, but it won’t be long before I walk home as the sun peeks over the horizon, and awaken after it has set. It won’t be long before I never see it at all.

Perhaps I ought to splurge on one of those sun lamps that people use for SAD. I don’t even have flourescents in my house any longer (and boy, can I tell… it seems so dark… even with five lamps lit up in the room!), and I fear that I may need a bit of sunshine, even if it is artificial, to weather out these long nights ahead.

I got some better pictures of the stole up at last! Reminds me that I really need to set up a photo album here, but… ach well… eventually.

Here’s the new stole pics, anyway:

That’s a crooked photo, as you can tell, but it should be better to see! It’s quite long - four feet or so unblocked? Something like that. And below here is a closeup of the edging, which I swore the entire way through would just not work the way it was supposed to. I was convinced it was all messed up and mistakey and everything else, but guess what? It was fine. A little irritating to knit, if you ask me, but gorgeous just the same. Aside from the center medallion, the edging is my favorite part of the stole.

Moving on, Secret Pal 9 has officially begun! I’ve been in contact with both spoiler and spoilee, which is great! Heh. Even sent my spoiler a coupon for $5 off to Adagio on request. :) I’d send one to my spoilee as well, as she drinks tea, but I’m sort of afraid that my name will show up on it as something other than Secret Pal, and it’s really much too early to ruin that surprise! So… actual tea it will be. ;-) I’ll give her a coupon to buy her own at the END of the swap, perhaps. [PS: if anyone reading this wants a coupon for some Adagio tea - $5 off your order - just drop me a line in the comments and I’ll email you one.]

My spoiler and spoilee both sound very friendly! I’ve exchanged several emails with the latter, and while it doesn’t seem we have a lot in common on the surface aside from a love of knitting, I hope to learn much more about her. And I hope to learn much more about my spoiler, as well. :)

There is an incredible number of people taking part in this swap. There’s no way I could possibly go through and look at everyone’s blog, so I’m afraid I won’t even try. But I do slip over to the participants list to check out one or two every now and then at work, just to read something new! :)

In other news… not much. I fear I’ve got a cold (thanks A…) and have been reading Nora Roberts’ new trilogy (The Circle Trilogy), which is good, and of course, I’ve been working. Went to quilt class Friday. Took A with me and Mom, but she was sick (again, thanks A) so she spent the whole night out of it. Quilting was good, though. The class sucked, but then, it’s not much of a class so much as a “pick up your block” club deal. I should take pictures of my finished blocks and post them, I suppose. *muses* Yes… But I got some gorgeous flannels for wintery pillowcases, and a Halloween quilt pattern that I just LOVE (need fabric, need fabric…) and… some stuff I needed at Pamida (the dinkiest store on the planet), and some groceries.

And somehow, I still have no food. Imagine that.

This week’s Thirteen is all about things on my wishlist right now!

Thirteen Things I Want Real Bad!

1. A 16″ circular needle, size US 9 (5.5 mm). Bamboo preferred, but anything shall do.
2. 1-2 skeins Blue Sky Apalacas Alpaca Silk, ecru or ice + 16″ circular, size US 6 (4 mm).
3. This mortar and pestle.
4. 1 skein Fiesta La Boheme - in wild oak, vanilla, taos, moraccan, iris, glacier mist, or pretty much anything else, too. *lol*
5. A yarn winder. Or swift.
6. Some of Paula’s Soap. Blackberry Swirl, Gardener’s Soap, Aloe & Jojoba, Almond & Oatmeal… One of their little gift sets with a soap dish would be nice.
7. Winter Procession (framed print).
8. 4oz of almond or strawberry tea from Adagio.
9. A Denise Needle Kit. Everyone says they rock.
10. 1 lb whole cloves from Mountain Rose Herbs.
11. Electric Tea Kettle. A nifty one that heats water to multiple temperatures.
12. Gourmet Hot Cocoa.
13. Books, books, and more books from Amazon.

Links to other Thursday Thirteens!

1. Brony
2. Barb
3. Mrs. Lifecruiser
4. Michelle
5. Mallory
6. Les
7. PixiePincessMom
8. InterstellarLass
9. Melissa
10. Caylynn
11. Tink
12. Debby
13. Amy
14. Shoshana

First snowfall of the year, a good dusting, too. Coming down light, and it probably won’t last the day, but it’s snowing.

*stares out the window in shock*

Autumn around here, I should say, comes fast, and goes even faster…