Katie: Hey everyone. Today we have another special guest. We have Raechel Henderson, author of_ Sew Witchy Tools, Techniques, and Projects for Sewing Magic, and also the author of the Scent of Lemon and Rosemary Working Domestic Magic with Hestia_.
Raechel is also a professional seamstress and shield maiden. And we are so excited to have her on this week's episode of Knit A Spell! Welcome!
Light From Lantern presents: Knit A Spell. I'm magical maker: Katie Rempe. And I'm the maker of magic: James Divine. Join us as we stitch together the symbiotic relationship between crafting and 'The Craft'.
Raechel: Yay.
Thank you for having me.
Jim: I'm so glad you're here.
I feel like this episode has been in the making since we got this amazing book Sew Witchy, this book is beautiful.
Katie: Yes.
Jim: Gorgeous. It is like the photos, the pictures inside the instructions and how they're laid out. It is, didn't we say like the Martha Stewart of,
Katie: oh yeah.
It looked like a good thing. If you know what I'm saying?
Jim: We were over the moon about this book. A lot of the books that came out during the pandemic or shortly thereafter didn't get their light. So Raechel, I'm so happy to have you on and really talk a lot about Sew Witchy, because it's so cool.
Raechel: Yes.
Katie: Let's start out with hearing a little bit about your background. How did sewing come into it? How did magic enter it? Were they separate? Was it the same?
Raechel: They started off separate. I come from a long family line of crafters and makers and sews. My grandmother would make stuffed animals and doll clothes and everything for all of the grandkids. My mom was into sewing. This is one of her quilts behind me is a quilt that she made for us.
I did a little bit of the sewing. I got into it really after I'd had my daughter, because when you have a baby, after you give birth, you don't go right back to the size you were before. And I had spent the last three months in the same three pairs of sweatpants. And the idea of going back to those just, I was like, no but I didn't wanna go clothes shopping.
So I just went and I picked up a pair a pattern for a pair of just draw stringing pants and I made 'em and they fit. And I was like, you know what? I don't ever have to make my own clothes ever again. I like this. And then the sewing becoming a sewist professionally came from four years after my daughter was born.
I got divorced and I had been out of the job market since she had been born and it was 2008 when everything crashed and there weren't any jobs. So I had just started LARPing, which is Live Action Role Play and all of my friends were like, oh, you can sew? Could you make costumes for us? And I'm like, yeah, I could do that.
They were like, we're going to convention. You should come with us and sell some costuming stuff. And I'm like, okay. So I loaded up my car and I drove out and I sold enough of like little scarves and accessory stuff to not only pay for the convention, but to make some money. And I was like oh, I could do this.
And that way I could stay home with my daughter, cuz she was only four at the time. So I wanted to make sure that I could be home with her at least until she was going full time to school.
Jim: And don't you think there's a little bit of a ven diagram between LARP-ing and witchcraft?
Raechel: Oh yeah.
Yes. Very much. It's a way to externalize, a lot of the internal wanting to see magic in the world sort of thing. So that was that was a sewing and I've been I call myself pagan, I don't really, and a witch.
I grew up in the Baptist church my grandma would take me and I mostly went because my grandma would go. And once I graduated from high school and went out to college and was like, oh, I don't have to get up in Sunday morning, go to church. The questions and stuff that I'd had before just were given room to grow.
And eventually I was like, okay, this is my belief system. This is what aligns to that belief system. Oh, there's a label to it, paganism, witchcraft. And it took a while to get over kind of the internal life ickiness of that word. But by the time I was sewing and off on my own, I was totally okay with it.
Eventually it was like, no, this is the title I'm taking for myself. And that's eventually what led to Sew Witchy is I would incorporate some of my practice into my sewing. So like I would use green headed pins when I was making stuff to sell. I'm like, okay, I wanna get that money, energy in there.
I would make this little lavender spray that I could spray on all of my linens so that I'm like, okay, and now we're gonna have good sleep and stuff like that. And that kind of eventually is what led to Sew Witchy.
Katie: Wow. I love that. Talk about living magical lifestyle.
Raechel: And it's I, okay.
It sounds really really smooth when you're talking about it in retrospect. But it was a very bumpy, very hard ride from there to here. So I don't want people to romanticize cause there was a whole lot of, yeah it's great to be able to sell work for yourself.
But when you're working for yourself every hour you're working and it's not easy. And it leads to a lot of oftentimes financial insecurity. So I don't want people thinking, oh, she was just sewin' and sitting at home and her daughter's playing her feet - not always.
Jim: I really appreciate you saying that. We do like to romanticize, oh, wouldn't it be so nice if we could just do X, Y, and Z and yeah. When you work for yourself, you have certain types of freedom, but often it's not time. It's just where you can put that time. As opposed to punching a clock, but you're working a lot and yeah, I appreciate that you say that .
Katie: And so how did you decide to write this book?
Raechel: I had been keeping basically a, like a sewing book of shadows. Just writing stuff down. Growing up I always wanted to be a writer. And I started off in fantasy and science fiction and I had written a few really horrible novels and sent them out.
And I had, a few really horrible, short stories that I sent out and collected, your file folder of rejections and stuff. And I was like, you know what? I think I want to put this together in a book and I had originally planned to self-publish it. I was like, oh, I'll just, put it together and throw it up on Amazon and see what happens.
And a writer of notes said, look, why don't you just try to get a publisher for, Give it a try at least. And I was like okay. I could give it like six months. I'll, write the pitch and everything, and I'll send out cuz worst case that happens is I get more rejections, which I'm used to they'll go into the file folder and best case scenario somebody says, yeah, we wanna publish it.
And so I went to my bookshelf and I looked at all the publishers in my occult section and I wrote 'em down and did a lot of research and I was like, okay, the most books I have are from Llewelyn and I know 'em, I know the equality of their books. And so Valentine's day I submitted the proposal and then I sat and then I forgot about it.
And a couple months later I got the email from Alicia over it Llewelyn saying, Hey, is this still available? Because we'd like to publish it. But I know that it's taken me a while to get back to you if some other publisher snatched it up by doubt and I'm like, no, forgot about this.
Katie: That's the magic. You put it out and you forget about it because it's working right, Jim.
Jim: That's part of it. I also love how one of the things that we really teach our students in magic is that if you have a lust for results, it will weigh down your magic and it can keep it from coming to fruition.
So you had a, what it sounds like is you had a passionate detachment. Yes. You believed in this project. Yes. It was something you could do. And you had a certain level of letting it go. And you were used to rejection, but in a way you had the right level of attachment. Yes. I can do this.
I'm ready to do it myself and I can put it out there and see what happens and then circle back and publish it myself if I need to.
This is a really great lesson in how to cast spells, how to do magic, energetically, how to work the energy anyway, that you're not reliant or codependent on someone else.
You can do it yourself, but gosh, it would be cool if a publisher were to pick this up and sure enough, after a couple months you got this email from one of the nicest people, by the way, she's a really cool person. I've met her.
Raechel: She is absolutely a great person.
Jim: What a cool story.
Raechel: The reason I was hesitant to send it to a publisher to begin with is I'm like, this is such a weird niche book. It's not gonna be that popular. And I couldn't think that there would be that large of an audience. And I didn't see a publisher going, yeah, we're going to, spend the money to publish this.
On the other hand, I was like, no, but having a publisher means I don't have to do any of the work. I know enough that more books will sell if you're with the publisher than if you're self-publishing.
And at the time I was like, if I'm self-publishing this book on top of having to sew, I'm not gonna have the time to, in the energy to devote to both of 'em because to be a author, you've gotta hustle at the same with any other kind of working for yourself.
It was one of those things where I'm like, again, just, okay, I will give it six months. We'll see what happens. That gives me six months to not think about what I'm gonna do or how I'm gonna do it.
Katie: Healthy.
Jim: I love it. So once you then heard back from the publisher, and just because you referenced this word, maybe not everyone knows what this means.
You said that Sew Witchy or the original concept was basically your book of shadows. So for people who don't know what a book of shadows is, what's your definition, or what would you say to a total newbie? What is a book of shadows?
Raechel: I liken it to a personal bible. There's a lot of emphasis on putting your spell work in there, like keeping track of your spells.
Having information in there, a lot of people will keep track of color or herbal correspondences days of the week correspondence and stuff like that. But also I liken it to a place where you can affirm and hash out what it is you actually believe. So when I was doing this as a book of shadows, it was mostly just me writing down: this is what I'm doing. Occasionally looking at these are the sales I got from this event that happened after I did this, but also where I started writing down kind of my magical theory. I believe that this works, how does this work, like actually approaching it scientifically but also with the 'I believe that this is how magic works, so therefore that's how this would work,' and I think everybody benefits from writing stuff down. Or if you're not into using words arting it, scrapbooking it, however you best deal with information. Partly because it gives you a chance to then look at previous entries and work and see how you've grown or how you've changed, but also we hold onto ideas better when we have some sort of physical manifestation of the ideas in our head.
Jim: I sometimes liken it to a magical journal, but I love how you call it both sort of your dogmatic belief as it's developing along with a journal and a record of things you've done and ideas as they've been developing in your mind. What a cool definition.
And so as you did that, how did working on sew Witchy, the actual book, change you as a witch? Because you had already come so far with your book of shadows. Now you have to actually deliver, so you get the call from the publisher. Okay. Yes. We wanna send you a contract.
We want this book. Was it already written? Did you have to, then obviously you then had to write it or put it together. What did that do? How did that change you as a magical practitioner, as a pagan, as a witch?
Raechel: It was halfway written and I had outlines for the chapters and everything. The hardest scariest part of it was actually committing to putting your beliefs in. Which sounds really funny compared to when it's your book of shadows, your personal and you write stuff down, nobody else has to see that. And so if later you decide that you're wrong or you change your beliefs, there's nobody to look over your shoulder and go wait a second.
But also it is super intimidating to wade into a field where there are all these awesome authors and all these great witches and all these people who have put so much of their time and energy and thoughts into what does witchcraft mean? What does magic mean? What does any of this mean? How does it work and come in and say, okay, like I have certain correspondences in certain ways that I approach magic, it's very personal.
And so I put some of that in the book and there were moments with the editors, they'd be like wait a second. It's always taught this way specifically scissors where I assigned scissors to water. The water elements. And people are like, what? They're like how could it be water element?
And I'm like, okay first of all, this is my own correspondence. And so this is why I'm putting it, but, and other people if it rings true something else, that's fine. But you get that nervousness.
Jim: Most people think scissors would be associated with which element?
Raechel: The comment I got was they would associate it with swords and air. And I'm like, okay. And again, you have this thing where when you take your personal and then you put it out for everybody to see it's terrifying.
I don't read the reviews for any of my books because I have learned that even if they are not negative, if they're just like meh, I internalize it and take it personally.
And I'm like, you don't need to do that to yourself. Just knock it off. Stone Henge would get one star reviews because not enough rocks.
Katie: Cloudy that day.
Raechel: Yeah. So really just, you don't need to put yourself in there.
Jim: Stone Henge: broken. No aliens. Didn't work, one star. Yep.
Raechel: Actually writing it, not a problem because they were all projects that I have made before. The hardest part was like, okay, I need to write this in such a way that a complete newbie will be able to.
And for that, basically just imagine my most non sewing friends and I'm like, okay, I'm gonna tell them how to sew this. That was easy. The photographs were also intimidating, but, that was the worst part was getting over my just terror of codifying and putting out into the world that these are my beliefs.
This is how I think it works. And if you don't agree with me, that's totally fine. Just please don't yell at me.
Jim: So then Raechel, what did that do for you? How did it change you?
Raechel: It made me more confident in my opinions and my magic. Because I came to a point where I'm like, look, if you're gonna be putting this in writing internally you can't be wishy washy about it. Either you stand by this, you've written this and put it out there and either you stand by it or you don't, and if you don't, why would you put that out there? That's you know, a little sus.
I found that I just grew more confident in, no, this is what I'm doing. It wasn't, I believe that this is how this works is it became more I know this works and I know this works cause I have seen it.
I think especially as women in this society, we tend to often have to hedge our opinions, hedge our beliefs, hedge our statements, do how a lot of if that makes sense, that we append on the back just so that we don't fall into that trap of being viewed as being pushy or all the terms that people use that are negative terms for just being confident, right?
Katie: The same that men would get applauded for.
Raechel: Yeah. Yeah. That's how our society works and yeah. That's yeah, the, I haven't, we thought about that before, but yeah. Thank you.
Jim: I get complimented. Oh, he's so confident.
He's so sure himself. He's so intelligent, articulate and wise, and a woman is called a bitch. Yeah. She's so bitchy. She's a little too sure of
Katie: Crazy. Yeah.
Jim: It's so fucked up. So let's all applaud Raechel right now. Cue the applause sound like yay.
Katie: Yay.
Jim: For taking on that patriarchal, bullshit and being confident in where you stand because it does work and scissors can most certainly be a symbol of water.
Katie: Have you ever cut ties with people? That's emotional. Yeah.
Jim: Every tool does have a little bit of every element in it. So why not really look at how water shows up in your scissors? And I'm excited to really lean into that. How freaking cool.
And look at, get a pair of blue handled scissors. Like I have.
Katie: There you go.
Jim: And really get into it.
Katie: Tie it all together. Yeah.
Jim: I'm here for it. I'm here to learn from Raechel.
Katie: Part of the reason I love this book is because so many correspondences and I like people with differing opinions on how they feel about stuff. Because you can go online and find basic correspondences for colors and whatnot, and it's all the same and that's fine.
But what about more new stuff and new ideas and other people with other ideas. And I really loved how you had, not only just like tool correspondences, but what if something goes wrong? What if you wanna incorporate diety into it? They were really more layered ideas, even though it is quite a beginner book.
It can take you on a further journey than some which I really appreciated.
Raechel: I really feel that a lot of magic is very personal. I liken it to language in that if I say cat, all three of us and everybody listening are gonna have a different picture in their head. We may all imagine a domestic cat, but it's gonna be different colors.
It's gonna be a different, length of hair, all of that. And I feel that way for correspondences. That pink, okay, romantic love. And there's gonna be other stuff, but people have their own internal emotions and contexts. And if you come from a background where romantic love has, either it's something you've longed for or something that's been withheld or something that has been used to hurt you, you're gonna have a different relationship to that correspondence than somebody else.
And. I feel that it's great to have. And I provide correspondences in the book, but it's always good going back to this idea of book of shadows, to just sit with yourself and go, okay, what does this color actually, what does this herb actually mean to me? What does any of this and to, how can I incorporate that in my magic and not let somebody say you really should be using this rather than that.
No, I'll just use my thing. Thank you very much. And you do your thing and everything will be fine.
Jim: I love that.
Katie: Different ways to do all sorts of things. It's like people who knit one way and then teach another person and they're like no, you're doing it wrong. You're not holding it the right way.
And yet the stitches, they still produced exactly the same.
Jim: People get into internet fights over how they knit.
Katie: Oh my gosh. Yes.
Raechel: Yeah. I'm gonna believe you on that. I have a few knitting friends. I have never got into knitting or crochet or anything like that. And yeah, I can believe that there would be like in the book, I totally teach the wrong way to do a certain embroidery stitch because it's easier than the chain stitch that I have in there.
I have it set up for the easy way to do it instead of the hard way. And there are some places that are like, no, then you're doing it backwards. I'm like, does it make the stitch then I'm gonna do the easy way.
Katie: Sometimes smart is better.
Raechel: It's a beginner sewing book. I'm not going to, I appreciate you bringing that up because I know that there has been some criticism about the book that it's very beginner. And that was exactly the point is to get people who either have never could, are at the start of their witchcraft journey or at the start of their crafting journey while, and even people who are farther down the road on either one of those putting the two together, that's a whole different scenario.
So I wanted to make it as accessible and as easy to follow as possible. And as a springboard for people to jump off into other works and to start thinking about how to make it their own
Jim: Okay. I'm gonna just say something: I've been practicing witchcraft since 1998. So for a long ass time, I am high priest of a coven
I'm like this freaking, like witch's kind of a big deal. Yeah. Not necessarily, but yes. I learned a lot about witchcraft from your book. Awesome. I am not a big sewer so of course that's an area that I'm just like, whoa, this is really cool. So I learned, I'm a total beginner when it comes to sewing.
So as a person who is considered an elder in my community I love beginner books, and I feel like people who say that was to beginner are novices in some way. Or they lack an ability to look deeper into what else is there, or to take something that is universal or can be applied in a deeper way.
Your correspondences, the interesting challenge of something that is different from what we may have associated it or corresponded it with before, the interesting ways in which you're presenting information that is challenging as fodder for deeper thought and reflection. Just the concept of merging magic with a tangible idea is sewing, there's no end of new ways to learn and apply witchcraft based and inspired by your book. So I really think that anyone who criticizes any beginner book by saying it's to beginner or it's to anything, that's a criticism of the reviewer. Because I myself can see how this book could be taken much deeper and much further.
It works on those different levels. And I think that's a really important thing is when a book is able to be taken more deeply as Katie said, and I deeply appreciate that.
Raechel: Thank you. I, again, this is when I stopped reading the reviews, cuz I was like, look for every well for every great review that you're gonna read there's gonna be a review that is not great. Maybe even just be meh and I don't need to take that personally.
They're not for me anyway.
Jim: Yeah. Reviews are not actually criticism. So criticism is someone who is actually a writer or actually a practicing witch or actually a sewer who can then look at the book and evaluate it and give you really constructive, good feedback and criticism for how you'd write your next book or what you would do differently or how you do something.
It's what your editor would do. It's the stuff that happens in the process of creation that is criticism we can all use and learn from. Reviews are not that. Reviews are a sales tool.
Yeah.
Katie: Yeah. And opinions.
Jim: Everyone has one just like that orifice at the end of our body.
Katie: Yes. And I must say as a sewer, so I went to college for fashion design. I knew how to beforehand. And I had to take all four years of the schooling, including the beginning sewing classes. I remember being very put out by that but I already know how to sew. I can do patterns. I make my own blah, blah, blah, blah.
I learned so much in those basic beginner classes and continue in anything that I have thought I know this. No, because there's always someone with a clever way to do something that you haven't thought of before that you're gonna get at least one gem from. And I find those are always worth it because they're mind blowers.
Just like you said, with your chain stitch who wouldn't wanna do it a little bit better, so it's okay for things to evolve over time.
All right. Let's take a quick break. And when we come back, we'll talk even more magical making about Sew Witchy. We'll be right back.
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Jim: We're back with Raechel Henderson and the book: Sew Witchy.
Raechel, we talked about it before we started recording, but I'm gonna bring it up again. This book, she is so pretty gorgeous. That is one beautifully put together book.
The graphics, the photographs, most of which you told me, you took yourself and there was obviously some art direction from your publisher, but this is you with a camera that you got out of the library and just a lot of gumption and a standard for aesthetics that you brought into this book. And it is absolutely beautiful.
So I wanna talk to you about aesthetics and the craft and aesthetics and crafting.
In our magical practice, we find that it's very important for good ritual and good, magical practice to start with the aesthetics, like you eat with your eyes first, when you come to a restaurant or when you're making food, if it looks like brown slop, even if it tastes delicious, it looks like brown slop.
So like with magic, when you walk into our home, what do you smell? What do you see? What do you hear? Those things are important. What are you wearing? How do you feel? All those things contribute to then the actual ritual or the meditation or the magic that we're gonna be doing? So the aesthetics in our mind really matter.
Can you comment about that with crafting and with your sense of magic and aesthetics, because you said you had some ideas about it.
Raechel: Yes. Actually that's an excellent question. One of the things that I have tried, especially with Sew Witchy is that there is a certain aesthetic that often gets displayed and offered up, especially like on Pinterest and Instagram. The witchy aesthetic where it's all like soft focus and it's a lot of dried herbs and then crystals.
It's like the person took every single witchy thing that they have in the house and stuck it on a desk. Yeah. And that's really great because it just gives you very much this richness, and that's a very rich kind of magic.
You see something your senses are going to put you in the right mind frame for magic. I go the opposite of that in that I tend to focus more on domestic. Like you're gonna have just the bowls that you have. You're gonna have things that you have on hand that may not be something you picked up from the local occult store.
You're not gonna have a lot of these dried herbs around and your crystal ball and all of this. And again, there's nothing wrong with that. It's a different approach to magic where it's a little more practical I would say where you're using what you have. And I feel like oftentimes I see these pictures and they're beautiful.
And yes, I would like to be in that cottage in the mountains with the herbs hanging from the ceiling and I've got my big caldron my cast iron caldron there and everything else. And I sometimes feel like that presents a gate to people where they're like, I can't get to that. So how do I practice magic if it doesn't look like that.
And it's really funny that you mention that certain person, because my goal is to become the pagan one of her.
Jim: All right. Just say just pagan, Martha Stewart. Yes.
Raechel: That's one of my goals is to bring this magic into the home, into these modern homes.
Like right now I'm living in a trailer house and we own it and it's lovely. And I love it so much because I have windows that I can look over the kitchen through and everything, but that is a far cry from a cabin up in the mountains. It's a far cry from these old, the old wood and the stonework and all of this.
I want to create an aesthetic that goes, you can still have magic on your formica table and with your cereal bowls that you have to make sure you use the next day. You gotta rinse 'em out so that you can have them tomorrow morning so the kids can have their cereal and stuff like that. I was really lucky in that the house that I was in at the time when I was taking those pictures for Sew Witchy was just full of weird stuff. I love my friends and they just have weird stuff in their house. So that we can have kind of that quirky kind of aesthetic and show people that magic doesn't require anything more than yourself. And the tools in the aesthetic help you get into the right mindset.
But if you can't get into that mindset on your own, then no amount of fancy tarot cards and crystals and wands, and all of that are really gonna help that much. Yes.
Jim: 100% agree. We teach our students everything you need to do magic you have standing naked in the woods. Which also could be in the desert or on the beach or wherever.
And you're right. Whether you're living in a studio apartment in a city, in a mobile home, in the middle of, the least populous state in the union or in a opulent cabin in the woods, or a fabulous mansion in the suburbs and up upstate New York, wherever you live. You can use the tools you have access to, and those can, and also might hinder you.
Too many tools, you become dependent on them. I don't have my labradorite en crusted magic wand. You got a finger don't you?
Katie: Yeah. Or saying something like I can't be a witch until I have the, or I've done the. Okay, then you're never gonna get there. Like how you gonna get there?
You gotta do it.
Raechel: And that's one thing that I've noticed. And I'm gonna pick a little bit on Llewellyn because I can cuz I love him. But the, I have seen that there is a huge disconnect between books that will say: Hey, it doesn't matter if you're living in the city, you can be a witch, here's these places. And the illustrations that they have in the book tend to be this very romanticized view of again, the cabins, the hanging herbs, the caldron over the fireplace and that sort of stuff, which is great.
But if you are someone who is sitting in that studio apartment in the middle of the city, there's not a lot for you to connect there and again can provide that feeling of I can't do it because my life doesn't look like that. So it really makes me so happy that people have responded positively to the pictures because I had no clue what I was doing.
I was flying by the seat of my pants being helped with some advice from friends and having a very patient art director who was like, no, try again.
That was learn trial by fire because I did those pictures. Most of them came out in that six weeks when I was, living with a friend and homeless and half of my family was several thousand miles away. And it was just me, my daughter in Illinois going okay. We're living in an attic, like some sort of Gothic secret wives.
Katie: The vampires in the attic.
Raechel: Exactly. Keeping my sewing machine in the back of my Jeep to pull out every once in a while to set up the shots.
Jim: I'm so inspired by that because I think that the aesthetics sometimes comes out either super gothy, super crammed with all the things that you described. Or we get the other side where it's very crafty and very uninspired where it's just a floppy piece of poorly sewn or poorly stitched or something, that's just laying there and there's no attention to aesthetics or there's no sort of thought into we could put a little bit of aesthetic into it.
One of the things that we encourage our students to do is go to Goodwill. Yes. And look at the housewares with new eyes and look for magical tools because it can assist your magic. Look for magical tools that are a dollar 99, $3.
I've gotten cauldrons that weren't really cauldrons that are ceramic and there are $3. All kinds of stuff for very little money.
And then you can pick up a book like Sew Witchy or others that can show you how to make an altar cloth, how to do different things. Even steam seem an edge around something. And there you go. You have something that can bring a little bit of aesthetic vibe to what you're doing.
Katie: Yes. And so what is it about sewing that you find so magical?
Raechel: It is absolutely about taking basically raw materials and using my attention to make something. It gives you sense of control. It gives you a sense of, I made that, I did that thing. And it gives you something that lasts. So you put a spell out and the results will come at some points.
You don't know when. Whereas, if you've made a spell pouch you can see that spell pouch. You can hold it, you can put more intention into it every time you use it. I'm really big into physical components just because I'm a very tactile person and having that kind of object permanence helps me keep my focus.
Not only is it this act of creation, but there's also a meditative property to it where you're sitting there and you're sewing and you're focusing all of your attention on this one task. That's pretty much what meditation's about is blocking everything out, focusing on one thing. Even if, oftentimes I'll have the TV on or listening to podcast to distract my monkey brain.
But then I'm focusing on what I'm doing and with all the distractions that go on in day to day life, having something that you're just focusing on can be really helpful. Especially if you're somebody who doesn't really do well with this sitting meditation, where you're just sitting and you're clearing your mind. Having something to focus on can help with that.
Katie: Absolutely. Yeah. So many people get turned off by the idea of meditation because they have the idea that it is only sit quiet. Don't think about anything there are so many ways around that. Especially for those of us with active minds and hands who need to be doing something in order to be doing nothing, ironically? What the hell does that mean?
One thing that I really enjoyed when I was flipping through your book was how, again, these seemingly mundane things that I never really thought about being magical suddenly became magical. Take the washing care symbols.
I was like, holy shit.
These are sigils! I never thought of it. What other things have I not thought of like this?
Raechel: Anybody can do this, all you have to do is approach something with a magical mindset.
It honestly is just, hey, mundane task, mundane thing: how would this be magical? It's not something specific just to sewing or crafting or anything like that. You can do it with anything.
Because what is a sigil? A sigili is a symbol that contains a lot of information that you don't get specifically from the sigil.
It's not a word. You read the word, you know what the word means? If you have a symbol or a sidle or something like that, the meaning is encoded in the symbol. So you can look at that as it's a way to pack a lot of meaning, a lot of magical meaning into a very obscure opaque symbol.
Like when I bought tags, cuz when I was a sewist, I put little tags in all of my stuff and you get one of those. You put the sigil in there because you want for whatever it is that you want. Mine was that people felt good.
You feel good using this or wearing this? Because I wanted, one, if people feel good wearing my stuff, they're gonna tell other people to come and buy my stuff. But also it was a way to put out into the world that good feeling. The same can go for any of those care symbols.
It's kind of a relatable way to explain sigils to people who may not understand a sigil, what is that? How does that work? Here you go.
Katie: And another very practical section that I'm sure a lot of people wouldn't even think to put in a book is when it isn't coming together. Because nobody wants to hear about failures, but it's a beginner's book, that's how you learn. But not just that, like giving yourself sort of the patience, but like what else might be coming in there. So why did you decide to put that section in the book?
Raechel: Because everybody who sews runs into that issue, where all of a sudden your seam is not catching and the thread's going everywhere and you're like, WTF?
You have to walk through the steps of, okay. So is it, my tension, is my needle blunt? And yeah, you can walk through all of the physical things, but sometimes you fix all of that and it's still not working. Okay. I'm a witch. So if I've done all the physical stuff and it's still not working, then let's start looking at the metaphysical, the occult reasons why it might not be working.
I am a believer that we have house gnomes. The house that I was in when I wrote this book, not taking the pictures, but the house I was in before I was homeless, like things would go missing. Things would be moved. And I knew it was house gnomes. And I was like, okay, you've got a house gnome problem.
You've gotta deal with it in the same way that if you had a mouse problem or you had, any other kind of not, I'm not calling you pests house gnomes, so please don't come and hide my stuff. But it's the same thing. If this is gonna be a book on magical sewing, then I have to provide not only the physical reasons why something might not be working into steps to go through it, but the metaphysical as well.
Jim: How to improve our relationship with the faye yes our home and there, our appreciation and partnership with them.
Raechel: Yes, exactly. Exactly.
Jim: I think that's what I heard you say. Thank you. Is that what you all heard her say? Yes.
Katie: Didn't realize you were a broker to the fairies. It's wonderful. It's great.
Jim: I'm just here to hashtag help.
Raechel: If there is a lack somewhere meta physically, it's not just gonna be in your sewing, but your sewing may be where they're getting your attention. Whatever you are doing, making, if the problem's metaphysical, then that's gonna affect other parts of the area too. So you gotta get your house in order.
It just made sense to include that in the book, because again, it's a beginner book, so beginners might be like, I've done everything. Why isn't working, I've adjusted the tension. I've done all this other stuff. You aren't just crafting little C you're crafting big C, so let's check out what other issues might be popping up that you haven't been aware of.
Katie: Just so much wonderful information. I can't recommend this book highly enough, whether you're a magical maker in particular, or just interested in broadening your craft and the craft horizons
Jim: And whether you're a beginner or an experience witch or sewer I think you'll get a ton out of this book.
Your perspectives, Raechel are so welcome. So awesome. And I think this interview gives even more background into where you're coming from and about the book. Oh, I just love it so much.
Raechel: Oh, I'm so glad that makes me really happy to hear that. I am so happy that people found my weird little sewing magic book inspiring.
Jim: On our weird little podcast, they'll love it.
Katie: It's like you made it for us, so thanks. And so before we let you go, what other projects do you have in the works?
Tell us that, tell us where people can find you, all that good stuff.
Raechel: Okay I'm on Instagram at idiorhythmic which I'm sure you can put in the show notes because we will, we sure will. I'm trying to spell that people will be like, what? I just turned in my third book, which is a wheel of the year craft book.
So it's got crafts and recipes and rituals and other stuff just for the various Sabbaths. And then the project that I'm working on right now is a very weird project. It is a tabletop RPG of witchcraft.
Katie: Woo. Ooh, fun.
Raechel: It's called covenant in crucible. We're play testing it with people.
Probably do in January or December a Kickstarter for it. And it's very much taking my view of how magic works and turning it into an RPG for what the tabletop.
Katie: So fun. You'll have to keep us posted about that for sure. We wanna let everybody know when it comes out and I wanna play it and I don't even absolutely like games usually. That sounds fun.
Well, everyone, this has been really amazing. Thank you again so much, Raechel, for making time to chat with us and everyone listening and hopefully we can have you on again soon.
Raechel: Thank you so much for having me.
Jim: It's been so much fun. Definitely check out our show notes with links to Raechel's website, where you can find all of her offerings, everything about her, where you can buy the Sew Witchy book is I think, required reading for everyone who listens to this podcast for both your magic and your crafting.
Incredible. And Raechel, you're just so delightful. I wish we could just hang out in person. So thank you so much for being on the show.
Raechel: Thank you so much for having me. This has been just awesome.
Katie: All right, everybody. Until next week. Thanks Jim. It's been a delight as usual.
Jim: I love hanging out with you, Katie. We'll see you next week.
Katie: Bye bye.
Raechel: Bye.
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