Hello you wonderful creatures, today I'd like to share a bit about a different project I've been working on.

For the longest time I've wanted to make my own set of runes (Norse Elder Futhark), the one I purchased felt alright but they weren't a great quality, a bit hard to read and well... It just feels right for them to be handmade!

For a few years now I've been keeping an eye out for a quality deadwood to turn into my runes. It's said that fruit bearing tree limbs tend to be the best. Fruit being a symbol for knowledge and that's a wonderful idea to tie into the crafting of your runes.

I could never seem to find a suitable branch. Most were too big or just not of the right kind of wood.

I did have an antler that my dog found while on a walk. After some research I found that while it was possible, it was a messy, difficult, and lengthy task to get done right. And I was informed that I better be prepared to wear a mask and for the smell of burning hair as I sawed through it bit by bit.

So that wasn't going to work. But, most rune crafters were also working with whatever material they were familiar with and had to hand.

I'm no carver, nor do I usually work with animal parts. And so, enter fabric!

I recently was gifted an embroidery machine. I had spent some of last month figuring out the software and doing some test runs. Now I finally feel prepared to see this project through.

Today I booted up the embroidery software and set about pathing out all the stitches for the 24 runes.

It's amazing to me how difficult it is to learn new software every time. Everything has it's own way of doing things and it's not always obvious or even easy to search for an answer. I feel as though I'm getting the hang of it though!

I was dragging my feet for doing this part. It actually went pretty quickly and smoothly aside from a few hiccups where I was telling it where to start but it insisted on starting the stitches weirdly in the middle. I just brute forced my way through it by breaking up the shape into smaller parts.

Then came the actual stitching. I broke the runes up into batches to fit into my 4" hoop. The rune symbols themselves are exactly 25mm high, with some padding for the body of the rune.

The stitching went off without a hitch! I forgot to snag a picture of them all stitched up but I'll grab one tomorrow of the next set. I also programmed in a border stitch that way I could have them be all the same size without fussing too much. And to get practice at aligning things in my machine.

Turns out my alignment plate isn't made to be dummy proof, it keys in a specific way but if you have it upside down or backwards it aligns off. What a bad design D: but now I know at least.

They weren't too far off to not be usable though~

And then, six sets of ladder stitches! Which, I wanted a lot of practice with anyways so this will be good.

I went with black thread to more closely see what my handiwork was looking like. It definitely stands out like this but I'm learning more from it.

I filled these with rice, I left an opening just wide enough for a funnel and just kinda jammed them in there with a chopstick. I really aughta take more pictures to document my projects.

Well there you have it! The first 6 runes of the elder Futhark have been completed. We have Fehu, Uruz, Thorisahz, Ahnsooz, Raihdo and Kenaz.

I'm so looking forward to putting these into use! They already feel great to handle. And their beanbag like nature makes them perfect for tossing onto a surface for rune casting. No worrys about chipping anything.

I hope you enjoyed this update of my project! I'll be doing lots more stuff like this and figuring out how I can best make it informational as well as just fun to follow along.

Until next time. Treat yourself to something you love, you deserve it. :3

-Clareon The Critter