Starting New Projects

I finished the dragon yesterday. I was torn between taking time off and immediately working on other things. As it happened, I didn't get a chance to work on anything else. My daughter needed to go to the doctor, then my husband decided we were going to take care of a chore I couldn't do because my helpers kept bailing out, and in the middle of that, my oldest son's truck threw a rod. I left at 2:30, got home 5 hours later, and at that point didn't have the mindset to make any kind of stitch. Things have been rather hectic. I'm going to show you our latest episode of full throttle life, then I'll talk about the foxes.

We finally got rid of the old house. There is nothing left. Every bit of the foundation has been busted up and hauled away. Bricks and rocks have been separated into neat piles. The ground is clear and flat. We are in awe of our yard. Everyone, even the younger children, wander around this new space. I decided when I looked at our house on Google and the picture showed a normal house that we were done. I think we are almost there. At the very least, Google won't show an odd collection of random structures placed at bizarre angles.

This morning when my mom came to pick up my daughter she brought figs, which I had for breakfast. I have noticed when I eat fresh, non-processed food I feel better.  I eat less, the food seems more filling, and I think I sleep better, too. I'm trying very hard to eat something fresh each day. This is not a complete diet change. We still eat processed, pre-packaged food. I'm just saying one fresh food in one meal makes a drastic difference, even if it was just fresh tomatoes added to the lasagna. I'm thinking I might celebrate Lammas by making bread.

This is the window where the foxes will be. I'm planning on doing a post about this in my Witches & Magick series because this year I'm doing all Stitch Witch spells.  All of the posts will be things I have made. This is a very ambitious series. Already I have asked myself why I insist on biting off more than I can chew.

Because I want to do another post with the foxes, I don't want to repeat the same information. I'll tell you how we ended up with foxes.

I decided I hate the curtains that came with the house. My husband thinks there's nothing wrong with them. In our old house curtains were a little hard to come by because most of the windows were door sized. Curtains that long are expensive.  We had at least 2 windows in every room. Our living room had 4 and the kitchen, the only room with normal sized windows, had 5. I made curtains for the bedroom and appliquéd bears along the edges. Bear is my husband's totem.

Because he likes the current curtains, we struck a compromise- I'd leave the curtains in the bedroom alone. The bear curtains didn't really work for the living room because the window is too wide. And I thought we should have a totem to represent the family as a whole. My husband is the only bear. I'm a dragon. Our daughter is a horse.

I asked second son what animal we were as a family. That was a mistake because he made a joke out of it. "Beaver." "What?" "We can be a bunch of damn beavers living in a damn dam." "You're not helping, Z." And he shrugged because Z isn't concerned with art, magick, or family unity.

I stared at the window, mind racing with possibilities. I tried to think of what we needed, who we are, and could I make that fit in with the decor while still keeping my animal representation fairly realistic?

"Fox."

And Z nodded, finally realizing this might be a bit important. "Yes," he said. "We can be foxes."

Foxes have very clean dens. They actually keep several dens and will move if one den becomes infected with fleas. They are good parents. They are good hunters, they use the resources available to them, and they are highly intelligent. Yes, I would love it if my family adopted some fox qualities.

This is a crochet pattern. It will work for plastic canvas. But I need to figure out how many holes are in the grid so I know which size canvas to use. I have lots of 7 mesh. I hope that will work because I don't want to go buy smaller mesh. Step one is to number my pattern grid.

My pattern is 51 holes across which makes my 7 mesh plastic canvas roughly 7 inches wide. Yes! I don't have to go shopping!  Even better, I have yarn that will make fine foxes yet still complement the couch. Also a plus- I won't need to make a bunch of these. I hate making the same thing over and over. Now I just need to decide if all my foxes will be the same. Right now I think half light backgrounds and half light.

The next step after setting design issues, is magick. I could write down what foxes mean to me and/or what this spell is for. We don't need any kind of curtain because we have blinds. Is this a spell to be renewed? How often- as needed, yearly, by moon phase? Am I presenting the family as a whole or each individual working together? Will I burn a candle before I begin or will I keep a candle burning as I sew? Should I smudge everything with incense? Use crystals? Leave an offering to my local foxes?

I  don't have answers right now. I'm trying to show you how  I decide what spells to do.  I spend a lot of time planning. Mostly it works out.  Sometimes I have to make changes midway through. I want to show you how I do things and hopefully it encourages you to try magick yourself. There's probably better ways to do this, or easier ways. I wish you well as you find your own way.