Spoken Into Being

My Handcraft: Garb, Embroidery, and Wood

Hand Sewing • Hand Embroidery • Woodcraft & Pyrography • Custom Design

There is a particular pleasure in putting on something that was made for a body... cut for it, fitted to it, sewn by a hand that considered where the seam would fall. It is different from pulling on a garment that was made for no one in particular, and most people who have experienced both know the difference the moment the cloth settles. The same holds for a thing made for a place... an object built by a hand that thought about where it would stand, and what might come to keep it company.

I work as both a fiber artist and a textile artist, and now increasingly in wood; I have never been able to keep to a single material or medium for long.

I make Viking Age hats, Medieval coifs, tunics, hoods, handbags, and am expanding into other garments and handcrafts. The cloth I choose is honest... linen, wool, and some cotton... materials that have clothed people through hard winters and long festivals. I sew by both hand and machine.

The embroidery is perhaps inevitable... a good piece of cloth has never once tempted me to leave it plain. I work across a range of historical traditions, Viking, Celtic, Sámi, medieval, Anglo-Saxon... and also what I can only call Folkwitch; old Slavic and Scandinavian motifs pulled toward the magical and the thornwise. If you would like something particular... a Viking knot, an herb you love, a symbol you keep close, a creature that finds you in the quiet hours... tell me, and I will find a way to put it in thread, on a garment of your choosing.

Then there is the woodwork, which began with pyrography... Elder Futhark runes and Nordic and Celtic lines burned slow into the grain... and has grown into built things that hold a story in them. This Baba Yaga Birdhouse is one such piece. It stands, as her hut always has, upon a pair of fowl's legs, as though it might turn to face you or wander off among the trees the moment your back is turned. Its roof lies thick with moss and lichen, a small broom waits at the threshold for whatever sweeping the night requires, lanterns hang at either hand, and a fence of pale skulls keeps its watch along the front. It is a house for a bird and a shrine to the old woman of the forest at once... a welcome, I like to think, for whatever Landvættir might choose to nest there.

Pricing is straightforward: the cost of good materials and the cost of my time, taken at the minimum wage of this region. You are paying for materials and the many hours a piece like this requires. No mystery to it.

If you would like something made for you, whether in cloth or perhaps a Baba Yaga Birdhouse, I am glad to hear what you are looking for.

For Custom Orders: Contact