Happy New Gregorian Year to Everyone!

* The Diagram for the Basis of Plaited Braid Stitch is down the bottom of this page

I hope you all had good holidays and enjoyed some downtime where you could reflect on all things creative and maybe develop some ideas from that feeling.

I bought a lot of books for myself over the holidays.  You know how it is, what I tried to resist in the rush up to Christmas, eventually made it into my shopping bag in the New Year sales.

I now have a feeling of pressure coming at me from all sides e.g. I'm literally running out of space!

I decided to cancel my subscription to Evernote, as I'm self-imposing extreme economy on my household........its a long story, but basically I have taken over a lot of things from my DH and 'economy' is now served up three times a day, and also between meals...

Thank Goodness, economy is 'self-imposed' and rather fun in many ways, like a kind of game where you have to suss out who's trying to fool you out of your money the whole time.

Whereas if its not self-imposed its basically called 'poverty' and if there is one thing no woman in her right mind will do, and that is become voluntarily broke!  Am I right ladies?

Isn't the cold weather completely clarifying and bracing!  

We went to the Caribbean again in November, I know, I know, that had to be a break from economy, or who am I fooling?

Yeah, and because there had been all those hurricanes out there, I decided I couldn't read anything other than books about natural disasters.

So I read a collection of short stories about people surviving natural disasters, hurricanes, floods, stranded in snow storms etc.

It was then I realised I really enjoy reading about HOW TO SURVIVE anywhere...and especially how to retain 'grace'.

Last January I started the year walking along a beach on the Eastern Coast, which is basically Dutch, and faced the natural ferocity of an invigorating sub-zero wind that lashed my face and made my eyes water like crazy.

I walked on, the stronger and colder the wind blew, the more well I began to feel? 

By the end of the 3 mile trek my hands were red and sore even in my pockets, and my feet were completely numb.  That's when I headed back and gradually my ears recovered and sensations returned to my feet.

It was wonderful!

The best way ever to welcome the New Year, face on, laughing in the face of adversity...!

I'm going back there next week and I'll take some photos.  I like it there, the people are pretty strange, its like a tribe or something, where their roots are Dutch and they know that you're NOT of Dutch decent.  

I have no problem being an outsider, I've been one all my life.
I'm so used to it now, I wouldn't have it any other way.

Yeah and the other thing that happened last January, was I reconciled with my mother.

I don't know if anyone knew, but I had a Cold War with my mother for 17 years.

I wouldn't recommend it to anyone, it kind of stinks if I look back, which I don't anymore...

Anyway last year I reconciled with her.  I basically just let all my pain and anguish (read anger) just ebb away and I saw her for how she is now, old, in pain and tortured.  I decided to call it a day and offered her genuine friendship again.  

So lets hope reconciliation and courage in adversity continue to extend their magical powers over us mere humans.

Oh, and the other thing to report here is I kind of learnt how to read Tarot cards and now I'm starting to look at Runes.  I like what I'm learning about Runes.  Especially as their basis is more than likely from the Phoenician alphabet.  

So here is the image of the knot that in my opinion is is essentially Plaited Braid stitch, completed on a spike:

It took me a LONG, LONG time to find it, but at last I did.  So this proves that the knot\stitch was recognised in the culture of the day, probably coming from fishing or cord making traditions from much earlier times e.g. possibly Bronze age?  

Because hair braids from the Bronze age have been recovered virtually in tact, and they used incredibly complex knot-making skills in those days, make no mistake. 

That's my take on this whole Plaited Braid thing anyway...