Taken from Jane's Magical Herbs Branch Lesson Homework
For this lesson I have decided to make a poppet with the intent of healing my grey cat, Sandra. Last year, my sister gave me some flea treatment that was surplus to requirements because she didn’t want to waste it. I used it on my cats and they both suffered a severe allergic reaction to it. Coleen recovered fairly quickly, but Sandra has really struggled. She had steroid injections two months running to help heal the sores and grow her fur back, and I had to slather ointment on her to stop her licking the lesions. Our vet recommended a special flea collar that lasts for 8 months, but both cats were allergic to those too, so I had to ditch them. Coleen has recovered with suitable flea treatment, but Sandra hasn’t fared so well and it took weeks for her skin to heal. She’s now back on her familiar flea treatment, and she’s grown a lot of the short hair back, but is still sadly lacking in guard hair, so she looks a bit of a mess. She’s always been a nervous cat, and her biggest weakness is over-grooming, which is no good when she needs to grow fur.
Because she’s grey, I sought out some grey iron-on interfacing, and some plain fabric to iron it on to, which I’m using with the grey fabric on the outside. I found a sheet of sticky labels with a yellow background, so I’ve cut a piece of the yellow paper to make the eyes.
My ingredients are:
Fur from Sandra’s brush – luckily I’d let it build up for a while.
Cast-off claw sheaths from her favourite scratching area.
Valerian root to soothe her nerves.
Pink salt to cleanse her damaged bits.
Rose quartz for love and healing.
Salt of Dark Earth to ‘bury’ Sandra’s over-grooming problem.
Two drops each of lavender and tea tree essential oils, for healing her skin.
Today just happened to be near enough to the date her next flea treatment was due, so I dabbed the wet rim of the vial on the neck of the poppet to correspond with where I’d put it on Sandra.
As an afterthought, I added a bit of ‘donor fur’ from her twin sister Coleen, who is very good at growing fur.
Sewing round a grey poppet with grey thread was quite fiddly, but my early-stage cataracts have developed a bit since I last did any hand sewing, so I guess that’s to be expected. At least I can still just about thread a needle. The joys of old age, eh?!
As I put each ingredient into the poppet, I spoke my intent for it, and then it was ready to finish sewing up and add its features.
I tried tucking the poppet under the place where Sandra was sleeping, but I think she was a bit overwhelmed by the aroma, and she moved to the other end of the bed, so I’ve put it on my altar where it can keep its beady eyes on Sandra as she sleeps.