Sew Witchy: Tools, Techniques & Projects for Sewing Magick

by Raechel Henderson

Enhance your witchcraft by putting needle and thread to fabric. Part sewing manual and part grimoire, this fun and easy guide turns every craft project into a magickal ritual. Packed with easy-to-follow instructions and photographs, Sew Witchy presents a wide variety of projects that complement and improve your practice, from dream pillows and spell bags to cords and altar cloths. With spells grouped by type, this book encourages you to enhance familiar spells with sewing supplies and try spells that infuse mundane sewing tasks with magickal intent. You'll also find a comprehensive list of the magical correspondences for sewing tools, notions, and fabrics. Perfect for any skill level or magical path, this enjoyable and colorful book explores the historical and cultural uses of magic and sewing from all over the world.

Genres: Witchcraft, Nonfiction, Crafts, Sewing, Paganism, Magic, Spirituality

264 pages, Paperback

Published November 8, 2019

Reviews

[Ligaya · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a decent book if you're a beginning sewist, and particularly if you are a "magickally minded crafter," but the projects are too simple if you have more experience. I was reading this book solely for the craft projects and quickly skimmed over the extraneous text.

[Riley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Overview:
This unique sewing book shows how to implement magick into your everyday sewing. This book has many different difficulties suited for everyone to enjoy something in this book. Whether you want to learn to sew a pincushion spider or a dream pillow this book has many different options to spice up your life. With many pictures included in this book and even pattern templates in the back to help you, this book is worth checking out.

Thoughts:
I enjoyed reading this book and really loved the author. She is really cool and an open-minded person which I appreciated and made me love the book even more. I can't tell you how much I loved that the author made sure that in this book the clothing you can sew together were "non-gender specific." And even mentioned that she works with "trans and nonbinary clients."
I like that this book included different difficulties so someone who is new to sewing can still do some of the stuff in this book.
One part that stood out to me as well was that the author was mindful of cultures and there deities. And even put in that you should research them and where they belong if the deity isn't from your culture or path. Because I have read books that don't include that and have that attitude of just using whatever deity you want.
I could go on about this book and what I liked about it because I did enjoy myself.
I also will like to add in, I liked that the author is mindful and doesn't like to waste scraps of fabric. And even dedicated a chapter in this book to using scraps.
I loved the photos added to this book and they were easy to understand and I enjoyed that the author and her family were models for some of the clothing in this book.
Overall I am happy I found this book.

[Christopher Gerrib · Rating 4 out of 5]

Full disclosure - I know the author personally. She made a costume for me, and if you're reading this via Facebook I'm wearing it in my profile picture.

Sew Witchy is an interesting book. As the title suggests, much of the book is intended to assist you in learning how to sew clothing. That is frankly not my interest, but I found the descriptions clear and understandable.

But that's not all the book is. Raechel is a practicing Pagan, and so she discusses various Pagan practices one can incorporate into your sewing project. It's clear from the reading that Raechel is no dilettante in either sewing or her religion. I found this a very interesting and unusual book.

[Sidney Eileen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sew Witchy: Tools, Techniques & Projects for Sewing and Magic, by Raechel Henderson is a wonderful introduction to using sewing and embroidery in your magical practice. It is written with the complete beginner to both sewing and witchcraft in mind, and insightful enough to inspire experienced sewers, witches, and other magical practitioners, making it a perfect addition to the library of anyone interested in incorporating magic into their sewing practice.

The first part of the book takes you through the philosophies and basic magical underpinnings of turning your sewing endeavors into magical endeavors. Raechel Henderson is very thorough about touching on magical properties and approaches to everything from picking your fabric and thread, to preparing your work area, treating and consecrating your sewing tools as magical tools, and touching on correspondences and other magical practices (like runes and numerology) that can be incorporated into sewing magic. She is also conscientious of the fact that different practices can and probably will look different from her own, and gives suggestions for how to further explore magic in sewing.

Most of the book is various projects to get you started or provide inspiration, which Raechel Henderson scales in difficulty from 1 to 3. In all honesty, I consider every single project in this book to be beginner difficulty level, and approachable for even the newest sewer. With that in mind, though, the difficult levels are accurate relative to each other. Also, most of the projects can be easily adapted and made more complicated by sewers with more experience who are looking to make something more intricate or involved.

The projects cover a wonderful array of potential needs and purposes, both magical and mundane. There really is something in there that can be used as a starting point or inspiration for just about any sewing or magical purpose, and after reading this book I am itching to start sewing or embroidering again.

The couple criticisms I have are very minor, but deserve a mention. There are a few points where Raechel Henderson mentions gendering correspondences as though they are universal, which is irritating to me as a nonbinary individual who finds such correspondences inaccurate, distracting, and limiting. However, she does this far less often than is typically found in magical primers of this nature. If this sort of thing also bothers you, please just be aware it is in there.

I am also not a fan of the instructional diagrams, especially those describing hand sewing and embroidery. They are OK, but not as clear as I have seen in many a sewing or embroidery book, or that you can find in my own instructions on hand sewing. However, the focus of this book is magical practice, not how to sew. There are enough basic instructions that you can use it as a sewing primer, but it would be unreasonable to expect this book to excel in that area or cover all the technical aspects of sewing in detail. It provides enough of an overview of sewing skills to get you started, provide a foundational understanding of how sewing relates to magic, and allow you to jump into the projects specifically found in this book. The focus is rightfully on how to make your sewing a part of your magical practice.

If you are a complete beginner to sewing or embroidery, I highly recommend also buying a book or two which are focused on how to sew and/or how to do embroidery. Each topic is extensive in its own right, and warrants multiple books that cover different aspects in detail. If you are interested in embroidery, I highly recommend also buying a book that indexes various embroidery stitches. This will help you to apply the wonderfully laid out principles and ideas found in this book to your own unique projects for your own unique practice.

Whether you are interested in adding magic into your sewing practice, or adding a sewing practice into your magic, Sew Witchy by Raechel Henderson is a wonderful place to start.

[Irene Adler · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm not gonna lie, but I didn't read all of this book because, as the title gives away, some of it is related to practising magic. That's not my thing, but if it's yours, go you! This is the sewing book for you.

So, to the sewing parts:
Introduction - Getting started: This is an essay on preparing to sew and well worth reading even if you don't want to don ritual robes.

Tools, materials and techniques: This is extensive, you won't need all of the tools unless you go in for sewing in a big way. But it's always useful to know what is available. Good tips for choosing a sewing machine if you decide to buy one. Excellent and sadly rare section on caring for your tools. Interesting section on the history and properties of fabric (including magical). Solid section on techniques with clear diagrams.

Two magical sections - judge these for yourselves. But I did take a cruise through the section on laundering fabric and clothes. It's a yes from me to less chemicals and more essential oils.

Projects - Altar cloths and runners, altar bowls (made from fabric twine, useful way to use up scraps), sewing tools such as pin cushions and travel sewing kits, accessories such as scarves, cowls and capes, home items, pouches bags and IT equipment covers, magic items.

Another section on magic.

Includes patterns.

[Emily · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm only rating this book on the first 90 pages and a few of the patterns I read. I think this is a good introduction for people who like sewing to get into witchcraft or vice versa. But by no means do I think this is a good first witchcraft book. Once you have a few books and some basic knowledge under your belt, this would be good for showing different ways to work traditional spells or using colors/elements in your craftwork.

I plan to make three of the sewing projects from this book. The Spider Pincushion, the hooded cape, and the tea stained tarot cloth.

This does have lots of different bag/pouch patterns and some good beginner sewing projects.

Also the author's bio says she is pagan, but a fair amount of the info/projects in the book leaned more wiccan

[The Shakti Witch · Rating 2 out of 5]

Sadly not much magickal about this book. A scarf, nope not magickal. A tablecloth, nope not magickal. What there is though is an introduction to very simple sewing techniques and projects for those wishing to explore a “witchy aesthetic “, think spider pin cushion. The incantations are very Wiccan although the author identifies as Pagan. Some patterns for ritual clothing are included but I felt this would be a more useful book for practitioners if included more about the magickal elements and what to include in charm making etc. Great for those who wish to know how to embroider, “ Do no harm but take no shit”...if you can’t figure it out for yourself already.

[Dawn Graham · Rating 4 out of 5]

I commend Ms Henderson for producing a book of such that has few equals in regards to the topic. I have been a crafter/seamstress and witch for decades and just the title alone drew me in. While appreciative of her intent, I found some of the instructions in the projects highly confusing and missing needed details. I am experienced and still found some of them to be lacking. On the positive side though, I found the chapter on button magick especially helpful and the appendix is full of quick, useful information.

[Sam (Hissing Potatoes) · Rating 4 out of 5]

A nifty, unique combination of sewing tutorials and incorporating intention and meaning into every step of the sewing process. I appreciated the author's personal touch throughout, the deliberate approach to making each project gender neutral, and the reminders throughout to both customize projects according to the reader's preferences and to research and respect other cultures before using their elements in projects.

[Katthew · Rating 5 out of 5]

CORRESPONDENCE LISTS OF EMBROIDERY STITCHES.

using broken needles in protective and baneful magic.

color correspondence in mending/protection by adding a few stitches.

mark the spool of thread for what you're working toward.

making poppets as pincushions/ sachets. put a pin in it for negative thoughts

cowls for protection. casting a circle.

[K Kriesel · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was cute, I wish I had found this book years ago when I was more of a beginner witch & seamstress. Now that I know more about knot magic and 9 square quilts (see Utterly Wicked by Dorothy Morrison), I'm disappointed they weren't included here.

[Opal Luna · Rating 5 out of 5]

A beautiful book perfect for the beginner with needle or Witchcraft. Possibly for the more experienced person who has never thought of combining the two. -Opal Luna, author of Fiber Magick, a witch's guide to spellcasting using crochet, knotwork and weaving

[Jun · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book for bridging the gap between your craft and sewing! It gives ideas on how to incorporate elements using sewing materials, as well as instructional projects.

[Traci Lee · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love the variety of projects and tutorials! The vibe is immaculate.

[Elizabeth Hatfield · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very informative and enchanting read.