Spring Cleaning - Making a clean sweep!

It's almost time to sweep out the old and bring in the new! 
I live in a drafty old historical house in an old neighborhood in Eugene, OR and every winter we let the curtains down to keep the heat in and even put up some extra ones in open doorways to keep heat wrangled into our living areas.  You can imagine it gets kind of dark and cozy in there and when spring comes around we are more than ready to open everything up and let the sun shine in and when we do the light shows us just how much dust we've been collecting.  Yikes!

The nice thing about my place is that I have nice wood floors throughout the entire house which makes it easy to clean and, being a broom maker, I have all the right brooms to do the job! 

Below is a list of our brooms and their functions:

THE KITCHEN BROOM - This broom great for all hard floors and for sweeping the porch and the sidwalk.

THE BESOM - Used for sweeping corners and getting cobwebs off the ceiling. 

THE HEARTH BROOM - For cleaning the fireplace.

THE KID BROOM - Put the kids to work!  This broom is fun for the kid's but it's also useful for small spaces like the bathroom or the pantry.

THE TURKEY WING BROOM - This hand broom is perfect for getting into corners and sweeping under counters.  It also looks very lovely hanging on the wall.

THE WHISK BROOM - This hand broom is great for sweeping up small messes and fits perfectly into any dust pan for sweeping up dirt piles. 

THE COBWEB BROOM - A broom for the cobwebs!  This lightweight broom on long stick is perfect for grabbing cobwebs from the ceiling. 


Each of these brooms is available on my ETSY site:  www.broomchick.etsy.com
You can also find them on EBAY: http://myworld.ebay.com/broomchick/?_trksid=p4340.l2559
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/BROOMCHICK/123580760996450
Twitter: Broomchick: https://twitter.com/#!/Broomchick 

Wedding Brooms and Handfasting Besoms

In recent years the wedding tradition of "broom jumping" has become more and more popular, but it has actually been around for centuries and over the 15+ years I have been making and selling brooms I have come across many different explanations for the act of "jumping the broom", mostly from the Pagan based religious folks and the African American community. According to Wikipedia:

“ Jumping the broom is a phrase and custom relating to wedding ceremonies in different cultural traditions, found in "many diverse cultures, those of Africa − Europe including Scotland, Hungary and Gypsy culture", all of which "include brooms at wedding rituals." [1] It is particularly associated with the Romani gypsy people of the United Kingdom[2], especially those in Wales.[3] There is "evidence showing the wedding custom was practiced by gypsies(sic) in England, Scotland"[4] as well as by African Americans and other groups. ”

The ritual of "broom jumping" is exactly as it sounds. Toward the end of the wedding ritual couples hold hands and jump over the broom, either together or one at a time and although the symbolism may be different, all couples arrive at the other side of the broom being married.

We have several brooms that work great for these ceremonies, it’s totally up to you to choose what broom fits best.  For the Neopagan we offer the traditional ceremonial besom aka the witch’s broom, is about 56 inches long and is sewn in the round “old world” style, it comes in a variety of colors: Natural, Rust, Black or a Mixture of all 3 colors. 

We also offer a smaller version of the witches besom, which we call the cobweb broom or small ceremonial besom at 56 inches it is about 1/3 the thickness of the ceremonial besom.  It is only available in natural. 

If you are not into the “old world” style besom we have the kitchen broom aka the wedding broom, which is a flat broom style, 56 inches long, it comes in a variety of colors: Natural, Rust, Black or a Mixture of all 3 colors.  We also offer this broom with tree spirit carving ( carved kitchen broom ).

Carved Kitchen Broom

A smaller version of the kitchen broom is the kid’s broom, 48 inches long, it comes in a variety of colors: Natural, Rust, Black or a Mixture of all 3 colors. 

Finally, we have the hearth broom, which is 36 inches long and it comes in a variety of colors: Natural, Rust, Black or a Mixture of all 3 colors.  We also offer this broom with tree spirit carving ( carved hearth broom ) and we offer it in the “old world” besom style in both regular and carved ( hearth broom round and carved hearth broom round )

Hearth Broom

Carved Hearth Broom

Round Hearth Broom

Round Carved Hearth Broom

You can find all of these brooms and more at my etsy store:  www.broomchick.etsy.com or check my facebook page http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/BROOMCHICK/123580760996450 for ebay auctions. 


CHECK OUT THIS COOL TREASURY ON ETSY - 
Hopping the Broom: A Spring Wedding Guide
http://www.etsy.com/treasury/Njc0NjUyM3wyMjQxNjY5MjI3/hopping-the-broom-a-spring-wedding-guide

NEW QUIDDITCH BROOMS

I've been working on these new Quidditch brooms for the last month and I finally finished them and got them photographed. I'm so excited to show them off, I call it "The Zipper". Hand painted with specially selected twisty stick and a special winding job that stands up to rough-housing. Perfect for your Harry Potter fan! Available on www.broomchick.etsy.com

Eugene Holiday Market and Cyber Monday Sale

Eugeneans! Come visit us at the Holiday Market at Booth #99 every weekend till Christmas eve!

For those of you who do not live in Eugene, OR. Please enjoy my CYBER MONDAY SALE at

www.broomchick.etsy.com (sale is only for online etsy store).

10% off any purchase with the use of this code at checkout: CYBERMONDAY

Happy Holiday's!! ~Broomchick and Brutus

Fall Photo Shoot - Just in time for Samhain

Recently had a fun photo shoot at my friend Dawn Baby's house, with Dawn and Jen Drake and some sweet little chickens.  The pics turned out great.  Had lots of fun!

RUST KITCHEN BROOM

OSTRICH FEATHER DUSTER

 NATURAL BESOM

 BLACK KITCHEN BROOM

 MIXED KITCHEN BROOM

 RUST HEARTH BROOM - FLAT

 NATURAL KITCHEN BROOM

 BESOMS

BROOMS

Broomchick's Got A New Ride!!

Just in time for the holiday season I traded in my RV for this fancy mini-van, not only is it my favorite color but there is plenty of room for carting around my brooms and of course my Brutus Beefcakes. I count my blessings and am very grateful that I was able to swap it out with no trouble. Having this new van will enable me to go on the road and do more craft shows, so watch out west coast!! Here I come!!

Keep your eyes peeled for this month's issue of Parenting Magazine, I haven't seen it yet, but I have been told that my witches broom will be featured in the Halloween issue. My brooms are a hit this time of year and are a compliment to many halloween costumes. I have 2 designs that are great for WICKED Witches and Harry Potter Enthusiasts: The Witches Broom or the Cobweb broom. You could also complete your Cinderella or Snow White costumes with a lovely Kitchen Broom or the miniature Kid's Broom.

Let's Tour the Broomshop

I often get emails from folks who are skeptical about how our brooms are made because the quality is so good they assume that they are machine made, so i will attempt to give you a tour of the tools we use in the broom making process. Just recently we were featured on a local news program so I will start by posting a link to the video so that you can see the boys working hard. I was off doing a show that day, so they missed me. http://kezi.com/news/local/214801

In this first photo you see our pedal operated winding machine which we use to wind the broom corn onto the broom stick with. This is one of the hardest and most dangerous jobs in the broom shop and I you can see Seth winding brooms in the beginning of the video in the link I posted above. We use sassafras sticks which we get from the Ozarks of Arkansas where the wood grows wild and it is harvested and kiln dried in an old fashioned kiln. Our broom corn is grown by the Amish, in Southern Illinois, and we dye the corn ourselves in a variety of colors (mostly rust, or black but occasionally we will do purple, green and red).

Once the broom corn is wound onto the stick it then goes to the sewer who loads it into the historic "Shaker Vice" which is what makes the brooms flat. The shaker vice is featured in the second picture on this page and in the video Thurman explains that this particular vice has an iron casting that dates back to 1878. You can also see a demonstration of Michael sewing a broom bare handed with a flat needle that has its hole in the center of the needle. Michael has hardened his hands to the point that he no longer needs to use finger tape and leather palm cuffs, unlike me. when I sit down to sew a broom with my sissy girl fingers I tape nearly every finger with surgical tape, then I put my thick leather and metal palm cuffs on and get to work. I probably waste a good 10 minutes just prepping to sew (I do not have calluses caused from pulling on the strings and blistering... thank goodness). Most brooms take about 4 rows of stitching, the smaller ones we do two lines on.

When the broom is sewn it then goes into a pile next to the platting table where it will eventually be platted. Platting is what we call the basket weave decoration that goes over the metal winding wire at the top of the broom. The plats are actually the stock of the broom corn plant and we cut them into about 8 inch sections then slice them in half and we soak them in buckets of water to soften them up, then using the contraption we call a winding table (in the fourth photograph) we use our feet on the wheel for tension as we weave the plats onto the broom. Much like sewing this requires a great deal of upper body strength and we get quite a workout from platting.

The final stage of broom making is what we call "trim, hole and leather" and it's exactly that. We use a guillotine style trimmer to trim the broom corn flat, then using a drill press we drill a hole at the top of the stick and finish up with a piece of leather. There you have it.

We make a variety of brooms for many different purposes, all of which i will highlight in my upcoming blogs so please keep posted.

Cheers to making a clean sweep!!
~Broomchick