Wanna know a secret about these year end posts? I start writing them in early November. That’s in the hopes I get myself in gear enough to write it all down, edit it heavily (since they’re generally quite long and rambling), and get the photos taken of things I want to photograph. These posts take me forever, but I do love taking the opportunity to really go over what I made this year. Especially since having a kid I’m like “boy, I just didn’t have time to do anything this year”. Then I start tallying it all up, and somehow, I made a metric ass-ton, even if they are smaller projects.
Part of writing these is looking back on my last year’s post and see what I wrote about the upcoming year and compare it to what actually happened. Things are fluid, and I might not get to what I want. I probably won’t, but it’s good to strive.
I had planned to make both of the larger quilts I had in mind. I did do one (yay!) but I did not get to the other, because I changed the colour scheme and it necessitates a lot of dyeing, one in a fairly large quantity. Making that kind of time and physical space didn’t seem to happen in 2024.
I had also hoped to spin more, and I did! I finished all my old Long Way Homestead breed of the month fibre, and I even worked through some other older fibre.
I wanted to dye more, and I did a bit. Not as much as I had hoped, including not getting to an indigo vat (but maybe this winter). I did get some new colours, and allowed myself to experiment more rather than going in with a hard-formed idea. So that is good, and hopefully something I can continue working on to surprise myself. Sometimes planning is good, but I have a habit of over-planning, which can be stifling. It’s something I’ve been working on more and more in all areas of what I do, and it’s allowed me to make more discoveries in the past two years.
I wanted to delve deeper into block printing, and I absolutely did not get the time I had hoped to do that. I specifically wanted to incorporate it more into textiles, but that needs a lot of experimentation, and getting those large chunks of time are hard. Barring that I just want to make prints on paper too, and I didn’t get much time with that either. But I think I’m going to make it a priority in 2025.
That’s a lot about what I didn’t do, but there’s a buttload of stuff I did do, including finishing up some projects that had been languishing, including a pair of socks I started while pregnant that I finally finished. My friend Anna puts out a Christmas sock pattern every year, and I decided to make the Christmas Eve socks in a slightly less Christmasy colour scheme for all year wearing. I altered the pattern slightly to fit my foot, which meant altering the stitch count, which did mean messing with the patterning over the instep a bit. It also meant that the notes I didn’t take while pregnant did not stick in my head, and I had to rip them back almost to the beginning to have a go again. But at least they’re done.
As is my way, here’s the gallery, click the images to be taken either be taken to a larger image, where they’ll be a link to a longer blog post, or a bit of a blurb about the project. These are roughly ordered by completion date.
A few things I didn’t take photos of, but have some thoughts on:
- Sunday Pants for the kid. I made several of these, and it’s a good simple pattern. One of these days I’ll add side pockets. I’ll be making more for 2025 because, you know, kids grow.
Eastwood PJ pants. I made a few of these (a couple as testers, and a proper pair out of some really nice cotton flannel). I didn’t love the pattern as much as I thought, there are some odd choices, and I’ve changed them in order to simplify certain construction aspects.
Bummies – which I won’t be making more of now that she’s grown out of the last sizes. Cute pattern, excellent instructions. Very easy to make a bunch at once out of not much fabric. I preferred the leg cuff version, because I found the elastic around the legs rode up and bugged her.
Looking to 2025…
Like I said above, this coming year I really, really want to get more heavily into my printmaking; I didn’t get to do anywhere near as much as I wanted in 2024. Whether it’s on textiles or paper, this time next year I’d love to look back and see projects big and small, along with practicing some new techniques.
I’d also like to get the second quilt out that’s been rattling around in my head for two years now. Until the kid is a bit older I doubt I’ll have room for more than one big quilt a year, so that’ll be the big quilt in 2025.
I still have some old wool I’d like to finally spin; I’m hoping to really put a dent into my milled Icelandic roving, which has been sitting around taunting me for like three years. It’s a lovely wool, and if I just sit down to work on it, I will have a few sweater’s worth of yarn (I do not expect to spin that much in on year). I also have a small stash of Herdwick wool from Crafty Jaks I’d like to finally get done into yarn.
Something I don’t talk about too much here is photography, which I’ve been heavily involved in for most of my life. When I say photography, I very specifically mean film photography, and now that we’ve gotten set up for black & white developing at home, that’ll likely increase exponentially. Not sure how much I’ll end up going into that here since I kinda have a spot on my other site for it, but lots of that will be in the cards for 2025 so it was at least worth a mention here.
And most importantly, I’m going to keep working on my leg-jerk reaction to over plan everything. Make room for more experimentation, whether that’s dyeing or sewing or printing or whatever.
Edited to add:
After I finished writing and posted this, I did end up completing not one, not two, but three more projects. My Rando Socks, along with two huswifs (which I’m now a little obsessed with making, everybody needs like five of these, right?). Maybe I’ll actually get around the photographing these in January and adding them to this post for posterity.