the procession

This was the first year we celebrated St. Lucy's Day. The last few years, we kept meaning to find a church celebrating. We have even considered traveling to Sweden to visit my friend and celebrate St. Lucy's Day there. But this year, after felting the crown, we decided to do our own celebration. Yesterday, after I dropped Beezus off at school, I drove to the coffeeshop to pick up some beans, and Thor fell asleep, so I bought my sister and I some coffee and transferred Thor into her couch, and we sat and had a cuppa. Except I mentioned St. Lucy's Day and my sister offered to make her a robe from an old sheet. So, in a few minutes, we had a dress, and I invited my sister and her kids over to celebrate.

I had read about St. Lucy's Day in Sweden. The eldest daughter wears the crown of candles, a white dress, a red sash, and carries a tray of Lucia Pepparkakor and Lussekatt, or St. Lucia buns. I am a little embarrassed to admit that I have never made bread from yeast except in a bread machine. So, I thought what the hell, I am giving it a shot. I didn't make the Pepparkakor because it is a ginger snap and only I really like ginger snaps in my house. Here is the thing, I can't really eat wheat or gluten because I react in a way that in unlike Rheumatoid Arthritis. My joints swell. I can't bend over. I feel horrible. I followed the linked recipe above. I have to say there was something deeply soul-satisfying to cover the bread in a damp tea towel, and put it next to the woodstove, which is the only warm place in the house right now. Or sufficiently warm for bread.

In the meantime, I made Mexican Wedding Cookies, because all of our family likes them and mini-chocolate chip cookies, which turned out only fair to middling.

The Lussekatt turned out so very good. WOW. I might bake bread far more often then before, like maybe once a year, rather than never.

So, I baked the bread, made some cookies, made an outfit for Beezus. Now what? Yeah. I served dinner. Like I said, what I read about St. Lucy's Day is that the eldest daughter dresses like St. Lucy and wakes her family with Lussekatt and cookies. At night, there is a procession through town with the others dressed in white with cones on their head and holding candles, singing the Santa Lucia song. Well, we adapted it to two four year old girls, a six year old boy, a nine year old boy, a twenty month old and three adults who have not a lick of Swedish in them.

First, my sister dressed Beezus like St. Lucy, while I prepared the candles for the children.

Funnily, my niece Audrey-girl wore a little dress with red wings and said she was the Red Cardinal of Winter which followed St. Lucy around. I thought that was so gorgeous. I love the way children think, and she is a particularly fancy thinker.

Then, I gathered the children. We turned off all the lights in the house besides the Christmas tree and surrounding lights. And one by one, we lit the candles as they stood in line. Audrey-girl refused to light a candle because birds are afraid of fire. (She really is the best.) I told them that this marks the darkest time of the year, so St. Lucy brings the light to the world.

Then we decided on some Christmas songs, of which none of us knew all the words. It was awesome. And we had a procession through the house and then the yard. All of us. In the dark and cold. It was so much fun.

This is a very weird picture because I tried the outside at night setting on my camera, which apparently sucks.

After our procession, the kids ate cookies and we ate the Lussekatt and drank coffee. Here is one more picture of my girl and I in the cold. Happy St. Lucia Day!

St. Lucy's crown

Today is the Feast Day of St. Lucy.

This day marks the beginning of our solstice days--the days of mourning and activity leading up to Winter Solstice and Lucia's death and birthdays. December 13 to the 22nd is a sacred time for our family. We use this time, each year it has gotten a little more extensive, to bring our family together with crafts, foods, activities and storytelling about solstice. Winter solstice is the time when the Earth Mother gives birth to the Sun. We balance our daughter Lucia's stillbirth against this idea--we hold of birth and darkness and light. In this way, I suppose, this time is one we look forward to as a family, while we also find it somewhat solemn and important. It is a celebration and an acknowledgment of the balance of nature and light and dark. 

I will be sharing some of the crafts we are doing--every day we are planning something to lead up until solstice.  I will try to do tutorials for most of the activities I have prepared.

Yesterday, marked the St. Lucy activity, which is to make a St. Lucy crown.

The traditional St. Lucy crown contains actual candles and is decorated with greens and lingonberries. The base looks like this. But the ladies dressed like Santka Lucia look like this:

I took this pictures from Answers.com

Obviously, I am not going to let my four year old wear lit candles on her head, so I started a felt St. Lucia crown. I decided to try to felt the entire thing, as in, no sewing, all felting. Michaels and A.C. Moore both sell needlefelting supplies. Michaels just started this year. I always bought my supplies off of a website like Living Felt. Last year, my neighbor who wet felts came over and we taught each other our felting knowledge over some coffee, which was awesome. I have wet felted a few times, but the truth is I found it easier this time to just buy the wool felt base.

My pictures were much lousier than I thought they were on the little screen. Mama needs a SLR camera. Santa, help a sistah out.

Alright, so here is the beginning part of the crown part. I cut a piece of 12"x12" wool felt diagonally, making it three inches wide.

I then took the remaining sections of the square, as well as one piece of 29 cent recycled craft felt and cut out some greenery.

I basically laid these out on the crown and began felting them together. Felting is a process of rapid movement with a very very sharp needle. The process kind of sews the fibers together. Generally, it is a little more difficult, though not at all difficult, to felt two previously felted pieces together. Just because they are harder and their fibers sewn, if you want to use that terminology. So, I used red roving to make ligonberries to help felt the entire crown. In this picture, you can see the roving, or raw uncarded wool, and the needle. The needle is extremely sharp, and I would recommend being an older kid before giving needlefelting as a hobby. I poke myself all the time and draw blood.

After the entire crown was felted and the leaves and ligonberries were not going anywhere, it was time to make the candles. In this picture, at about 10/11 o'clock you can see the multi-needle tool, which helps you felt a larger area. Basically, you are sculpting while you are punching, the roving, which is as light and airy as it looks, becomes dense and hard.

I am sharing this video, because when I felt, this is what Thor does next to me, like I am dancing. But it is a good representation of what is happening.

Now, I needed to start the candles. I decided to make three. Again, I started with white wool felt. I decided to roll it.

After felting an inside roll, I wanted to add the flame.

I pulled yellow, red and orange roving and carded it together.

I did a very minimal needle felt, which is like a few punches just to give it some structure, but I did want it to look like a wild flame.

I added the "flame" to the inside of the candle, then rolled it, punched the outside of the candle, and eh, voila.

Then, I had to felt them to the crown. Since the pictures from yesterday got progressively worse, I took some this morning on the floor of my studio. (Staying classy!) This is the back of the crown and where you felt the candles onto the base. You can also see what the back of felt looks like.

The semi-finished crown looks like this.

I have yet to go buy some ribbon to tie the crown on in the back, because Beezus cried in the car in the parking lot of Joann's afterschool. She was thirsty, so I went home instead. But I forced her to balance it on her head for a picture. (Ignore the studio mess.)

I will take some pictures of Beezus dressed up in the full outfit tonight.