Denise

“In the sixteenth century, the needle held a number of symbolic meanings. It was thought to be synonymous with breath, the rhythm it produced being analogous to that of breathing. It also signified an arrow piercing a target or a gateway through which one could pass between the underworld, the temporal universe and the celestial heavens.”
― Clare Hunter, Embroidering Her Truth: Mary, Queen of Scots and the Language of Power

“Sewing is a conscious activity, not just an object. It is what we put into cloth, the time, care, thought, the evidence of self that we invest in it that makes it potent. This is not mere surface decoration; needlework is layered in emotional meaning.”
― Clare Hunter, Embroidering Her Truth: Mary, Queen of Scots and the Language of Power

“Earlier still, woodblock prints known as lubki, popular in the 1600s and 1700s, are our earliest known confirmed representations of her. These decorations, originally fashioned from the carve-able layer of wood under the bark of linden trees, hung in the households of those who could not afford more expensive icons.”
― Kris Spisak, Becoming Baba Yaga: Trickster, Feminist, and Witch of the Woods

“It occurred to her, sadly, and not for the first time, that as you grew older you became busier, and time went faster and faster, the months pushing each other rudely out of the way, and the years slipping off the calendar and into the past.”
― Rosamunde Pilcher, September