Merry Christmas

I've been doing some Christmas crochet this week, and here's the result.

It's a Christmas Angel. It's not my own pattern, I found it in a well known women's magazine and couldn't resist having a go at crocheting her.

This is how she started out, a simple circle of yarn.

Then she turned into a disembodied head! 😉😊

Her body arrived though, so she was ok after that. 😁

Not long after, her wings came fluttering along.

She was put together to make a lovely angel as you saw in the first photo. Here she is with a bit of Christmassy sparkle.

I brought in some holly and ivy yesterday to provide some natural decoration along with all the rest of the tinsel. In folklore the nature spirits are meant to be in the greenery and reside in the home during the coldest month if the year to be safe and warm. They're let out again in the new year on twelfth night when you put the foliage outside.

I wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. If you don't celebrate Christmas, I wish you a peaceful winter. 😊🎄🎅🎉🎊🎍

Christmas Textiles

I found some lovely Christmassy fabric, so obviously, I had to do something with it! 😃

Here's the fabric:

I love the snowflakes, the hearts and reindeer. As if I haven't got enough Christmas decorations, I decided to make Christmassy bunting.
  

Here's more of a close up.

It was fairly easy to make and is now up on the wall. I've got some fabric left over so now I'm wondering what to do with it but I don't know if I'll have enough time before Christmas to make anything else.

I hope you're not too cold and you're enjoying the run up to Christmas. Don't get too stressed! Just enjoy the lights and the colour. 😊🎄🎅 

Supermoon & Mythology

I took some photos of the supermoon at the weekend. I know it was a few days ago, but I wanted to give you a bit more than just images of it. I wanted to give you something you might find interesting, so that’s why I haven’t written about it till now.

The moon was associated with Arianrhod in Celtic mythology. She was a moon goddess and appears in the Mabinogion as the mother of Lleu Llaw Gyffes. Her name means “Silver Wheel” and although this has obvious connotations with the moon, it has also been suggested that Arianrhod was connected with the Milky Way, as it is seen as a wide arch curving over the night sky.

Her fort, Caer Sidi, is thought to be either in the Milky Way, the Aurora Borealis or an island off North Wales, depending on what you read.

I’ve read that Cerridwen, another Welsh mythological woman and Celtic goddess associated with knowledge, is also connected with the moon, but that was the waning crescent moon, whereas Arianrhod is associated with the full moon.

Apparently, her festival is on 2^nd December, so the supermoon occurred on the right date!

The moon is associated with female energy and for the Celts, the new day began with nightfall rather than at midnight as we now reckon days. The dark always came before the light. They also measured their months, and therefore their calendar, by the moon and the full moon in the month we now call December was apparently called the Cold Moon by the Celts. (It was called Snow Moon by the Cherokees and Oak Moon in Medieval England. There are more names for it in different cultures.)

As I’ve written before, I love the moon. Looking at her silver light shining from the depths of the deep blue sky with clouds skirting over her gives me a sense of mystery, magic and the smallness of the Earth in an enormous universe.

A lot of other people seem to have felt the magic of the moon because there are so many creatures and myths connected with the moon and the night. Werewolves, witches, cats, owls, ghosts, vampires; the stories and folklore go back thousands of years.