Magickal Threads
The way magick works in sewing, crafting or needlework is not new. Women since the beginning have understood the energy that gets woven and tied into the stitches and knotting of needlework.
I first experienced the magick of needlework from watching my grandmother do her crafts. She turned plastic dolls with fake hair glued to their heads, a roll of toilet paper and a skein of yarn into beautiful bathroom dolls that amazed me to no end. I watched her sew together long strips of braided wool with heavy brown thread using expert stitches that seemed like no work at all. The rugs coiled and grew with each stitch until they laid on the floor where people could walk on them for years without a stitch coming loose.
When I was nine she taught me how to crochet where the magick unfolded before me with each new knot I made. Although I have learned how to use dozens of other thread mediums since then crocheting remains my first love. I never pick up a hook without remembering my grandmother's hands, old and twisted fingers that used that hook as if it were merely part of her.
For all the beauty of designer clothes and the ease of buying manufactured curtains, sheets and blankets there is still nothing like having something made by hand. The love, care and intent of the crafter can be felt.
Just yesterday a friend of my daughters came to show me some simple flannel pajama bottoms that her grandmother made her for Christmas. She was all aglow showing them off. "My grandmother made these and they 'feel' so good."
The quilts that our grandmothers and great-grandmother's made all those years ago have value for strangers that reach into the hundreds and thousands of dollars. It's more than the fact that they are old. It's the magick, the love, the dedication, the hours, the fact that the blankets were made for necessity, yet hundreds of tiny decorative stitches adorn many of the tops.
When you watch a woman knitting a quilt for the expected birth of her grandchild you can feel the glow around her when she looks up and says, "A blanket for the new baby, due in October." You know that with each stitch she is thinking of that baby, the babies mother, the coming birth, the crib where that baby will lie with it's new blanket. You know she is thinking of the baby being warm, safe and protected with each loop and knot.
When we keep an awareness of this as we stitch, we can intensify the energy we craft into the knotted threads of any project we do. We can set out to weave and tie intent such as protection, comfort and joy to the threads as we go. We can use focused thought or chant to the crafting then bless or charge the item as you would a tool to go forth and work it's magick in the life of the user.
The links below are to some of my needlework projects that have been crafted with this kind of purposeful intent and energy from beginning to end.
In Love and Light
-Betsy-
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