My motto for the year was “Make it Easier”. It seemed like half of what I did to make life easier was hard work. We should reap the benefits in the future, though. And it was a good habit to stop and think: “will this make life easier?” or “is there an easier way?” when faced with a task, rather than my usual habit of sprinting down a path without considering my limits.
January
The second month of the Summer of Quilts, in which I attempted to use up all the strips of flannelette I cut to weave floor rugs out of four years ago by sewing quilts. It was like a madness came over me.
It wasn’t all quilting, though. A return to crocheting in the previous year led to me making the Granny Square Jumper from stash and (of course) yarn I purchased in order to complete it. I love it and was wearing it as I typed the early version of this post.
February
Though I’d decided this quilting obsession had to stop at the end of summer, I knew that I couldn’t possibly get all the quilts done, so I prioritised finishing the tops. Binding and topstitching would have to happen later, maybe one quilt a month. For that reason, I have no finished projects to show for February even though there was feverish making of quilt tops.
March
The Blue Quilt, which was the hardest and biggest, was finished.
And the Purple Quilt.
And then I got around to doing what I’d intended to do when the quilting thing started: sewing clothes. First, the Cascade Skirt.
April
Then lots of knits.
May
Then the Colour-Blocked Corduroy Jacket.
And crocheting continued with the Gradient Slouchy Hat
June
No projects were finished in June, because I was reorganising three and a half rooms of our house in order to reinstate the guest room and divide my hobbies into a room for textiles and a room for art. And was THAT a project. Utterly exhausting, but worth it.
July
But in July I finished three quilts First the Rainbow Cat Quilt.
Then the Art Quilt.
And finally the last quilt, the Cats In Squares Quilt.
I was introduced to slow stitching.
And I wove off the dishcloths on the Jane.
August
Another month of no finished projects, but I did start two big slow stitch ones. Slow means longer gaps between finished objects, which is probably why I bought some kits at the Craft & Quilt Show and was suddenly very inspired by small project tutorials online.
September
I hand stitched a cute pentagon bag.
And made fabric birds.
And made a triangle bag.
I made microwave bowl cosies.
And a pencil case.
By then I’d finished one of the big projects: a kawandi made from old men’s shirts.
October
I sewed some pinstripe pants.
And a harvest apron/bag from cotton canvas scraps.
November
I made (or covered) some sewing tools.
And I made a shirt from some very old organic cotton remnants.
December
When a friend wanted the Desperately Seeking Susan jacket I’d put together fifteen years before, I decided to attach the collar properly and fix up a few things on the back.
That inspired a new jacket transformation, the Moon Raven Jacket.
Also…
It was a year of quitting. First Instagram, after I couldn’t sign in to my Creative Fidget account any more, then Twitter, which I’d barely touched in years. I also stopped my Sketchbox subscription. It was fun for the year I had it, and I still enjoy using the mediums I discovered through it, but there are only so many kinds of art supplies and they were bound to start repeating themselves.
It was also the year I got hooked on YouTube, watching art, sewing and thrifting videos. At its best it’s informative and inspiring, at its worst it’s a distraction. I’d rather be making art or sewing, but both require a certain amount of alertness and energy, and sometimes I have neither. And now I remember that slow stitching was meant to be my ‘dull brain’ activity.
In the next year I plan to keep on making art, sewing and slow stitching. I’m sure there’ll be other creative rabbit holes to explore, or revisiting of familiar territories, but (to keep the analogy going) no I have no destination in mind and will dawdle along at whatever pace suits.