newsletter archives

28 January, 2009

New this Week!

We just can’t help being excited these days here at DWCS – we’ve got so many new things to tell you about this week, including:

• In addition to yet another new free creative tip video for you, our second full length how-to DVD is now available! It is the Three Sisters Hats video, with detailed demonstrations of how to make all three hats – the brimmed hat, the tam and the cotton cloche – as well as the animation of the Three Sisters story and further musings by our story narrator, ‘Squash Blossom’.

• Now any DWCS item that is available as a kit is also available as a finished, ready to enjoy artisan item! There is no waiting time for the jewelry items – Divine Woman Bracelets, Amaterasu’s Jewels or Three Graces brooches and hatbands – any of these will be on its way to you within 24 hours of placing your order. The crocheted items – the Windscarf, Eve’s Apple Tote, Three Sister Hats, Aphrodite’s necklace – will be custom made for you. Check the listing for each item in the Artisan section of our shop for delivery time, as this will vary.

• If that weren’t enough good news, look also for the gorgeous new Valentine’s Day additions to the Divine Woman bracelet series – coming in the next few days! These, like all bracelets in this series, are priced at a super-affordable $12 per kit and $20 per all ready-to-slip-onto-your-wrist bracelet. Don't forget that the 10% discount on orders of 6 or more bracelets or bracelet kits is good until Valentine's Day!

• Oh, and we’ve got an exciting new product in the works – all we’ll say about it right now is that it involves fabric, gorgeous beads and it honors our new President’s heritage!

First Lady Fashion Missing Link

It was only as the enchantment of the day started subsiding that I started thinking about how Michelle Obama glowed on this amazing, hopeful, historical inauguration day. Of course, who wouldn’t be absolutely glowing if your beloved were standing right in front of you, taking the oath of the President of the United States and feeling the hope and goodwill of millions of people worldwide enveloping the two of you?

It seemed, too, that it wasn’t until later in the day that the media’s attention turned to what seemed, in the scope of things, the lesser details of the day – like whether or not people liked our new First Lady’s golden inaugural outfit. I thought she, well – glowed. But was it all due to the occasion, or did she also, for this wondrous moment in time, intuitively choose a color which not only suited the hopeful mood of our nation and the world, but also her own deeper self? She’s obviously got color coordination sense – her gloves and shoes harmonized beautifully with her Isabel Toledo outfit, for example.

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On the other hand, her election day Narcisso Rodriguez red and black ‘lava dress’ seemed off the mark to me – mostly because it looked, on the TV screen, like someone had thrown a pot of red paint at her just before she walked out on stage. The sense that she is the anchor which effortlessly grounds and keeps her little family safely united by embodying their colors, was spot on, however.

This got me wondering about other outfits Michelle Obama has worn recently in her additional role as a fashion icon and supporter of American designers. Obviously, some of her choices work better than others, but why? It seems universally recognized among fashionistas that she knows which silhouettes suit her confident body shape and self image. Hmmm… I wonder – perhaps color is the missing piece of the puzzle? Read more…

Three Sisters Crochet Tip Video

It’s all about texture – baubles and loops, in this case – and how to create them. ‘Corn Woman’s’ cotton crocheted cloche features a lovely textured trim and hatband loops that look pretty elaborate, but are actually simple to accomplish. Our Three Sisters crochet tip shows you exactly how. But don’t allow the fact that this trim is used on a hat to limit your imagination: where else might you use it? The empire waistline of a little girl’s dress? As the basis of a ribbon or bead-embellished belt? As the edge trim of table mats, perhaps? Enjoy… isn’t creativity such fun?

Patterns for the Three Sisters hats are available for download HERE. Or perhaps you would prefer the KITS? – they are available HERE.

In Close-up Detail: Hats, Hats Hats!

blockcloche Hats are quite the fashion item this season, and patterns for crocheted hats are not as plentifully available as knitting ones, so we thought we would do our bit to make a little dent in that deficit. Whereas our Three Sisters Hats pattern has been available for some weeks now, the full how-to video with full directions has only just received our “video druid’s” final magical touch and is ready for your enjoyment. It contains full instructions on how to make all three hats, as well as “Squash Blossom’s” re-telling of the native American Three Sisters saga and previously unpublished further musings.

Techniques covered in this hat video include how to make baubles, hatband loops, crocheting in a circle, shaping hat crowns, gathering, felting and blocking your hat, to name a few.

Like Eve’s Apple Tote, our first full-length how-to DVD, it is also priced at an affordable $15. Both DVDs are in stock, so order your copy now!

RetireSmiling Blog Offer

I have been honored with the invitation to become a blogger at www.retiresmiling.com! That's right. Now, in addition to the tips, suggestions, reviews and miscellaneous shared thoughts regarding blending craft and mythology for Divine Women in all walks of life that appear here, I will also be posting entries there.

In cooperation with RetireSmiling.com – the Global Community for GrownUps, my Blog will be a featured resource on this fabulous new website. To find my Blog, just go to www.retiresmiling.com. Then go to the Blog section and scroll down until you see my name. Click and voila! There I’ll be. Just waiting for you. Shortly, you’ll find me in the Forum section, as well.

As a way of saying “Thank You” for your first visit to my Blog, I have made arrangements for you to receive a free e-copy of Dr. Lynda Falkenstein’s fabulous book, Don’t Just Retire: Reformat! Turning Your Life Experiences into Prosperity and Personal Happiness. (Retail value is $29.95). To receive your free book, you must register at www.RetireSmiling. Be sure to mention my name when you sign up. Happy reading!

Your Comments, Please!

As we build a community of women who share similar interests, we’ve created several ways in which we can stay in touch. These include:

• E-mail us at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

• Comment on our blog entries. You’ll find the blog under event/news. To leave a comment, click on the title of the entry you wish to comment on, then scroll to the bottom, fill in the various boxes and type your message. It’s as easy as that!

• Look us up on Ravelry.com. Teresa is ‘DivineWoman’.

We’d love to hear from you!

Our Thanks to You!

Our deepest and heartfelt thanks to all of you who have resonated and so thoughtfully responded to the last newsletter, and in particular to “About sisters and hats”. Here are some of the thoughts we received, relayed with permission:

“How lovely that the hat you made your friend has become the model for other hats,
for other women, all of whom are sisters and friends to someone. Your connection and sisterhood will live on. And the hat is literally a sister ‘hood’... something which will serve as a protection and a cover for another ‘sister.’ " – Ladine

“Thank you for your beautiful newsletter. I was so deeply moved by the story of yours and your friend’s year and a half together. And the Three Sisters video was lovely.” – Anna

“Wow. What a powerful story about your life-sister. And timely. Less than 30 minutes ago, I received a call from a dear friend's wife. He is undergoing cancer surgery tomorrow and they think it may have already metastasized into his spine. I feel deep gratitude for his friendship and I am worried that, like you, I will have a deep hole in my heart when he is gone.” – Ron

18 January, 2009

New This Week

It really does look like there is a blue sky out there as we look out the window here at Divine Women Creative Studio and watch wisps of clouds float away, revealing the city of Portland below and Mt St Helen’s in the distance. There is still frost on the ground, but the air feels so crisp and clear, inviting deep breaths of renewal.

cloudwisps

With the change in the climate – both the weather and political – the hope in the air is almost palpable. Spring will come soon. For America, this time to cultivate and plant seeds for growth may well begin early – or at least our hope and faith is that it will – with the inauguration of President Obama in just a few days.

In this historical time, apart from the call to service (see usaservice.org if you haven’t yet), perhaps you have been wondering about ways in which to commune with people dear to you, in small day-to-day ways, on a one-to-one, woman-to-woman level? Little things count – a gesture of appreciation, of recognition, of communing.

In this spirit, a friend recently had a great idea: girlfriend parties to make and share Divine Woman bracelets! We think that’s a fantastic concept, so we would like to make it easy (and affordable) for you to share some Divine Women time with your friends and family. Check out the article below for more details.

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Divine Girlfriend party special discounts

The idea is simple: first, invite five or more Divine Women to get together with you – for lunch or tea at your home, for an office lunch with a difference, for a mother-daughter and friends after-school fun time – and make some bracelets to share, enjoy or give away. It’s a fun time together and you’ll have the opportunity to both give and receive compliments and appreciation. What could be better?

Then, a week or so before your party, order any combination of six or more Divine Woman bracelet kits – available in eight gorgeous designs – at 10% off our already super low kit prices of $12 each! (Don’t worry if the discount does not show up in the check out window – it will be applied when we process the order.) All bracelets include a combination of beautiful natural stones or pearls, with some glass beads. Kits come with an easy to follow full color pattern, and are packaged in a lovely purple box made of recycled materials.

If, however, making bracelets is not your thing, and you would prefer to simply offer each of your guests a lovely gift (along with the compliments and appreciation, naturally), we will be happy to make the bracelets up for you before we ship them to you. And, of course, the 10% discount also applies to the $20 each price of ready-to-gift bracelets in quantities of 6 or more.

The final touch for either the kits or the ready-made bracelets is a ‘scroll’ explaining the Divine Woman qualities of the stones in each bracelet. These free downloadable templates are easily personalized and provide yet another way to let a Divine Woman know how special she is to you.

So, join the excitement – and, as an added bonus, perhaps even manage to by-pass cabin fever in the process – and get a Divine Girlfriend party going. But, please, don’t delay - the discount offer is only good for orders placed by Valentine’s day – Saturday, February 14, 2009!

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Spring Colors forecast

OK, yes, it is still winter out there, and there is much to enjoy about it. Like cozying up by the fire with a fun knitting or crochet project. Or a good book. Or getting together with friends and making Divine Woman bracelets, as we suggest above. Or, since it has snowed so much, go skiing.

This need not keep us from looking forward to the array of colors that come with springtime, however. And, oh, are the colors luscious! Front and center in this spring’s published fashion color palette is a continuation of the royal reign of purple, appropriately softened into a scrumptious lavender. It is surrounded by vibrant greens, yellows, blues and pinks, and moderated by neutral grays, blush and beige.

Springtime is, in fact, the time of the year when the colors of our morninglight palette tend to come to the forefront of fashion. They are the delectably bubbly, clear, warm, mid-range colors of spring flowers that remind us of birdsong and the renewal of life both in nature and in our hearts.

However, while these fashionable colors do express the spirit of the season, are they truly suited to you and your personality? Do they express the true YOU? What if you are not best described as vivacious, warm, lively, outgoing, energetic, enthusiastic and optimistic? What if you are innately more flamboyant, a campaigner with intense energy and an insatiable curiosity? Or, what if you are the quiet, gentle, calm, cool and collected sort of person who is so very constant, dependable, comforting and reassuring? Or perhaps your hallmarks are your strength, self-assurance, heartiness, frankness and decisiveness? Would this spring fashion palette do your personality justice? Of course not! So what to do?

Well, start by taking our unique, custom designed COLOR TEST, and then read the palette description(s) that apply to you. This will help you determine the harmonious color palette that best expresses your personality. It will also help you know which color palette to choose when ordering any of our kits or products. But most importantly, it will help you choose colors that support your individuality – with the added bonus that all the colors in your wardrobe, if from this palette, will harmonize with each other.

What of the fashionable spring colors, you ask? Well, every harmonious palette includes approximations of these very fashion colors which will work for you – slight tweaks to the colors handed down to us by the color-powers-that-be, if you will. So, the lovely spring fashion lavender, a Morninglight color, will be cooler in the Dreamlight and Starlight palettes, and somewhat more ‘greyed’ and intensified in the Firelight palette, as illustrated.

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Amazing isn’t it? Just a little ‘tweak’ in our perspective and choices, and a whole different aspect of natural harmony presents itself! Enjoy!

Free Pattern – Cotton Brimmed Hat

Our Three Sisters crochet hat pattern (available as an instant download, printed/mailed version and as part of all the hat kits) does, in fact, include the directions for all three of the very different style hats - a cotton cloche, a wool and silk blend tam and a felted wool brimmed hat.

Nonetheless, we have already received requests for a version of the brimmed hat for those of you who are allergic to wool. We heard you, and here it is – and we offer it as yet another free pattern, too!

It’s super-easy and very quick to make up. We crocheted our sample with a double strand of Tahki’s Cotton Classic, which creates a sturdier fabric similar in weight to a felted bulky wool. The hat also features loops which will hold a variety of hatband possibilities. Some ideas to try out are: our beaded hatband, a pretty ribbon, several strands of leftover gorgeous yarns braided or twisted together, a narrow long silk scarf, or even a bit of lace.

To complete the hat, you’ll need just under 4 skeins of Tahki’s Cotton Classic (or equivalent), a 4.50 crochet hook, a couple of hours of your time, and voilà! - a new hat just right for the spring weather we are all starting to yearn for… Instant download the pattern HERE; kits available in our four colorways soon.

Our Thanks to You

8 January, 2009

Happy New Year!

May the New year bring you the joy of cooperation, creativity and connection with life and loved ones – and may these be grounded in the touch and feel of sensuous fibers and delightful stones and beads!

Here at DWCS we’re starting off the year with cooperation and inter-connection on our minds and in our hearts as we embark with you on new creative efforts. We realize that to achieve this, we must each be willing to ‘wear different hats’ – so why not make them, too? Check out our new video, below. And, of course, check out our website for the hat patterns, kits and instructional video!

Three Sisters Hats story video

In good times, in difficult times, and in the in-between times, if we are lucky, you and I are blessed with the support and enduring loyalty of our sisterhood of women. Our new Three Sisters story video is inspired by that very support that women lend to each other, as well as the ways in which we work cooperatively – which often requires us to be flexible in the roles we play, in the hats that we wear.

For our video, we blended the Iroquois story of the Three Sisters – beans, corn and squash –with the Cherokee story of the trail of tears and the result is what you see here. But it seems the story does not limit its reach to women: our ‘video druid’, Brendan Gill (Alphabet Films), was so inspired by the story that he created the original characters and this fabulous animation to illustrate it!

brendanhats Brendan, in fact, is the director, cameraman, editor and all around creative force behind all our videos. That he is teacher in his own right and that he has a preference for documentary and instructional formats makes the creative cooperation between Brendan and DWCS seem absolutely synchronistic. And we are delighted that he is such an integral part of our team!

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About sisters and hats

Although the story we chose to illustrate our three hats is one, presumably, of blood sisters, these hats were actually inspired by sisterhood of a different order. As the eldest of four sisters I can attest to the ups and downs and complications in sisterly relationships. It can often be like pulling on a rubber band: sometimes it fits snugly and holds everything together just so, sometimes reluctantly so, and sometimes it snaps and stings you.

But sometimes we are blessed with a friend who is so close, that she becomes a life-sister. Just over a year and a half ago, such a friend came into my life. The first time we decided to share a cuppa, we didn’t stop talking for three hours. We found that we had much in common in our backgrounds and interests – and that we were both newcomers to Oregon who had followed our hearts to arrive at this very place and time. It felt like we had known each other forever. Such a rare occurrence, this, and what a delight!

And then, with the discovery of cancer in her lungs, in the chemo treatment rooms, in the car on our way to myriad doctor’s waiting rooms, followed by late breakfasts at the Cadillac Cafe on Broadway or lunches in quaint northwest Portland spots, during long visits and shared holidays, our friendship blossomed into sisterhood. We talked of and lived in the moment. Moments of relating, connection. Moments of fear, despair and surrender. Moments of hope, planning, exploration. Moments of facing life – and death. Some were her moments. Some were mine. We shared them. She was so very generous in that way, this Divine-Woman-sister-friend.

Last spring she requested a hat to wear to her son’s college graduation, an event so important to her she was determined not to miss it no matter what, chemo treatments notwithstanding. So I made her a white cotton cloche, and we noticed how friends and sisters often choose to ‘wear different hats’ for each other, and in each other’s lives.

That little white cloche, as you may well have guessed, became the inspiration and prototype for the Three Sisters Hats we are sharing with you here. When you make them, you’ll notice, that though they each look very different from each other, at the core, they are really so very similar. Like sisters.

My sister-friend has left this world now – and a gaping hole in my heart and life. It’s what this moment holds. I feel deep sorrow, and deep gratitude.

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Is it a necklace or a hatband?

It is both, actually. Our beaded Three Graces Hatbands were designed to add just the right touch to our Three Sisters cloche, but they will do double-duty as a necklace. Finished off with a convenient magnetic closure – which means that if your hat gets stretched a bit, these hatbands will simply unclasp, rather than fall apart, and yet stay on the hat because they are threaded through the ingenious hatband loops on the hat itself. At 24” to 26” in length and available in our four colorways, these ‘hatbands’ are the perfect length for a simply elegant necklace. Instant download patterns available HERE. Printed and mailed to you version available HERE. And, of course, we have KITS all ready to string together, which come with a copy of the pattern.