Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Midsummer Geisha

She's finished! The darling little geisha is finished and she is so cute!
Her name is Uzume (oo-zoo-may) and here she is in all her cuteness...


Now to return you to your regularly scheduled Spartans. Hopefully I will have one for you next week.




We have just passed the Summer Solstice (June 21) I was going to talk about it last week but didn't get to because of things outside my control. So you get a piece on it today! *grin*
The Summer Solstice (also known as Midsummer and Litha) marks the astronomical beginning of Summer and being in an apartment, Matt and I decided to forgo the bonfire (Apartment complexes tend to frown on that) and we decided to make a few God's Eyes instead.
"Midsummer focuses on the Sun God and the sun itself. God's Eyes are probably the most well known craft associated with Midsummer. South American in origin, they were made by the natives for both protection and decoration. They are actually decorative amulets made of two sticks placed to form an equilateral cross. Colored yarn or twine is wound around the cross, in alternating colors, to form an ‘eye’, and its four points symbolize the two solstices (summer and winter) and equinoxes (spring and fall)"
Thank you to this website for the info (gotta love copy paste)


We chose a sun like color for ours (I was hoping for variegated yarn, but alas, none was to be found) and got to figuring out how it was supposed to work (seriously, who needs instructions) after a few false starts I got mine finished and added a Buckeye we found in Ireland, attached with copper wire. This first one was all one color, mainly because I didn't have any other colors I could use.



I decided to take pictures of the process the second time around and now I had a second color I could use too.
I started with the orange and then added in the white, alternating the colors every few wraps to get the lovely pattern you see.

 Adding the white in was tedious, if you caught your hand on it it would pull right out and then you'd have to unwrap a little to reset it.



(I know it looks like the Texas Longhorn colors, just ignore that fact please)

Well that is all I have for you today, the link I posted has good instructions on how to make a God's Eye of your own if you like. Have a good week everyone!

2 comments:

  1. She is very cute and the God's eyes are cool. Looking forward to another Spartan. It's been a while. I realize some of that is my fault, though.

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