Ah 2023. I feel pretty good about 2023, in terms of everything, not just things I did or completed. I started working a bit more again. Baby is a bit more independent, but also that makes her more prone to trying to hurt herself by hurtling herself about which always keeps me on my toes.
This year was actually marked with quite a few projects. It’s been pretty sewing heavy since since I find that the easiest thing to do right now in terms of picking up and putting down as needed.
One thing I delved back into this year (a little hesitantly at first, but more as the year went on) is printmaking. Specifically, lino cut. Many eons ago I actually had a job as a screenprinter, which was labour intensive, hot and sweaty, but so much fun. I had dabbled in lino cut around that time as well, but never took it too seriously. I got a bug this year to get back into it though, because I really want to incorporate it into my textiles. I don’t have much to show yet, but playing around has given me a lot of joy. I hope to showcase a bit more on this blog in 2024.
I also released a knitting pattern ebook called Changing Light with a collection of patterns that I had been working on over the past few years. I decided in spring it was time to get them done and out because they had been sitting unfinished for so long. I’m really glad I got them released, but I’m not going to lie, it felt like a marathon and it is tough putting out an ebook all by yourself. I released the patterns together and individually, and I’m not sure the extra work was worth it, to be honest. In the future, I’ll likely just keep releasing patterns singly. We’ll see. I don’t have a lot of time for knitting patterns these days anyway, so they’ll likely just be sporadic for the foreseeable future.
I had hoped to keep up with the blog more, but the photos are the bottleneck for me. I’ll even write the post then just never get around to taking the photos, because I need to pull out the DSLR, get them on the computer, and edit them. I’ve come to terms with the fact I’ll never get everything I make up here, but I have major projects I would like to keep up more. We’ll see how that goes for 2024!
The gallery below is most of what I’ve completed this year, in roughly chronological order of completion date. You can click each photo and you’ll be taken to a bit of a blurb about it, and those with their own blog posts have a link to them.
Some things I finished this year that I didn’t take photos of are:
- 2 t-shirts
1 linen skirt
1 linen table cloth
1 naturally dyed name pennant with hand appliqued letters for the baby that hangs in her room (I absolutely love this, but I’m privacy conscious and don’t want to paste her name all over, so alas, no photo)
12 linen table napkins
Looking to 2024…
It’s been a common refrain the past few years that I’m not going to set hard and fast goals. I’m not sure I’ll do that ever again, to be honest. I have my “like to dos” but I’m not going to kill myself over it.
I would like to get the two upcoming quilts I planned out this year done. They’ve been bubbling around in my head for what feels like forever, and I’m excited to see them completed. My friend Amy very kindly sent me some of her indigo dyed fabric in the final colour that I needed, so I even have everything I need to get going on the first one. The other still requires some dyeing, but nothing too onerous.
I would like to spin more, but it’s hard with my now-toddler. I have one bump of fibre left from my Long Way Homestead breed of the month club, and that will be my first spinning project. I’d love to spin my Icelandic sweater quantity; maybe for Tour de Fleece. We’ll see how that one goes. I could at least get a start. The fact of the matter is I miss doing my annual spin to knit sweater project, and since I have the Icelandic I don’t have to do any prep, cutting down on how long it takes considerably. But I’m not sure I quite have the time to start again.
I’d also like to build up a bit more of a natural dyed fabric stash. I’m not generally a person that likes to stash; it makes me uneasy having supplies sitting around without an intended purpose. However, my dye-to-quilt method does make things take way longer than I like. I’d be happy to do some dyeing, then create the pattern around the fabrics, versus dyeing for the pattern (which is what I’ve done the past few years). We have a few months left of winter, maybe I’ll give myself that time to mordant. I bought Quilt Alchemy earlier in the year, and while it’s inspired me in a whole host of ways, it’s really made me think about my process and how I want to change that.
Now that I’m done all my Christmas crafting (I spent the past few months working on several projects – giving myself lots of time was a smart choice), I’m excited to work on some personal projects again. I’ve had some ideas percolating, so I’ll likely do some smaller projects to test some ideas and get back into the flow of more spontaneous crafting.
Other than that, we’ll see where 2024 takes me in terms of time and projects. I said above I’d like to delve deeper into my block printing, and I especially want to play around with iron mordant printing on cloth.
In relation to my last post, I did end up putting Dominion F&F on hiatus, a status with which it’ll stay in for the foreseeable future. Really, until I figure out what I want to do with it, if anything. It felt kinda good to do it.
In non-crafting 2024 not-really-resolutions, I’ve decided to make it the year of The Print. And by that, I mean I’m going to purchase prints from all these lovely printmakers I’ve found in the past few years. I started already this year, but in 2024 I’m going to go hard and decorate my walls with all their amazing art. I’ll show them off here as I get them (you know, if I get around to the photos).
Onwards.