The end of October, and the beginning of the long dark winter nights. My favourite time of year.
October 2025 daily stitching
As always, the time flies.
October, daily stitching (detail)
Many of the daily blocks are outlined with textured yarn – silk or cotton boucle, or cotton slub. I use mainly my own hand-dyed silk and cotton threads for the stitching.
Today’s ghostly grey stripes for Samhain (or Hallowe’en) are in fine silk. Looking at, looking between, looking beyond; sensing the veil between the worlds.
31st October
As usual, some daily blocks turned out better than others. That’s life.
October, daily stitching (detail)
None of it matters, really. This is just a visual witness to the passage of time as each day moves to the next. These are moments within the days in my life. Moments arrive and then are gone forever, the present constantly melting into the past before our very eyes.
The other side is almost as interesting.
October, the other side
And the end of the year is in sight:
Two months to go
I’ll be back later in the month with news of the templates for 2026. Wishing everyone a wonderful weekend and happy stitching.
I have given myself too much to do, as usual. It started as an experiment to see whether I could produce enough hand-dyed thread to sustain a stand at Knit and Stitch in Harrogate next year. It was an idle thought, which I have tested and unfortunately found wanting. The crucial points I hadn’t factored in are that I only have one pair of hands, and there are only twenty-four hours in a day. I haven’t completely given up on the idea, but it will involve a little more rigorous planning and pacing if it’s going to work.
Hey ho. More thread for the shop, then, in the meantime.
There’s a big pile of hanks awaiting winding into skeins:
cotton and silk thread ready for winding
There’s a growing pile of threads that have been wound into skeins and are waiting for labels:
threads awaiting labelling
Apologies for the light, by the way – my north-facing room doesn’t get any sun, and the view from my window is mostly trees. Definitely not complaining about any of that, but the light is decidedly blueish at my desk at this time of year.
And finally there’s a smaller pile of threads being labelled:
labelled thread skeins
These are ‘spares’ that will go into Randoms, which will be in the shop (I hope) some time next month. I’m trialling a new labelling system which so far is working quite well. The swing tags get a bit cumbersome in a set of threads, and it can be fiddly to get them all to lie flat when packaging them for posting. These are smaller and flatter and I hope might work a bit better. I sourced some plastic-free sellotape so the labels and tape will be compostable.
I estimate there’s probably another hundred hours or so of winding/labelling/sorting into groups, so this will keep me busy for another couple of weeks at least.
I’ll be back at the end of the month with October’s daily stitching.
It’s been a busy week of curating and creating some lovely new fabric scrap packs.
There’s a new selection of black/white/neutral sheer and semi-sheer fabrics for you to layer and/or paint:
sheer and semi-sheer fabrics
This one contains scraps of very sheer nylon chiffon, unusual textured tulles, dress nets and plain tulle, two-tone voile, and black and white printed chiffon that takes paints and inks beautifully. These are synthetic fabrics so they won’t take fibre-reactive dye. I’ve had great success using diluted acrylic inks on these fabrics – the inks are semi-translucent so they don’t interfere with the sheerness of the fabrics, and they’re pretty much colourfast when dry.
sheer and semi-sheer fabrics
There’s a collection of hand-painted fabrics (and I’m especially pleased with this one):
hand-painted chiffon, tulle and other scraps
This one contains paint-dyed synthetic chiffon, painted textured tulle, fine nylon chiffon, hand-dyed cotton scrim and a few snippets of hand-dyed cotton organdie and other tiny scraps. Fabulous for layering, and good for my Stitched Samples for Sketchbooks course, and my Stitch a Little Landscape course too.
hand-painted sheer/semi-sheer scraps
And finally, if you like a little luxury in your layered stitching, there’s a collection of hand-dyed silk organza and silk chiffon:
hand-dyed silk organza and silk chiffon
The silk chiffon is ultra-soft and floaty; the organza is stiffer and semi-transparent. This one comes with a couple of yards of hand-dyed/tea-dyed silk ribbon.
hand-dyed silk organza and chiffon scraps
I even made new labels and sourced some compostable cellophane bags to package them in.
These collections are available now while existing stocks last; I don’t plan to restock before Christmas so when they’re gone they’re gone. Still lots of choice in threads too. Just saying.
Overseas news: I’ve now sent a couple of trial packages to the US, one of which has been delivered (it took about a week) and the other is well on its way. The system appears to be working fairly smoothly.
Unfortunately for anyone in Canada, Royal Mail is not currently delivering there due to the postal strike. You can still place an order if you want to, and I will post it when the current troubles have been resolved.
Royal Mail is now providing an international mail service that replaces the flat fee for US customers and instead charges the 10% tariff at the point of posting. What that means is that all charges and fees are paid up front before your parcel leaves the UK, leaving you nothing further to pay when your parcel is delivered. It also ensures that your parcel clears customs as smoothly as possible. Definitely no $80 fee.
Unfortunately I’ve had to increase the postage costs for US customers, to help cover the cost of the tariff as well as the administration fee that Royal Mail charges for providing the service.
There may be some delays to begin with, until the system becomes familiar and runs more smoothly, so you may want to wait a few weeks or so before placing an order – but you definitely can order again if you want to, and hurrah for that.
In other news, I’m preparing some new sheer fabric collections and have been painting some lovely chiffon and tulle fabrics.
painted chiffonpatterned tulle, painted and drying
I have some sheer silk fabrics to dye next week and then I’ll have some fun curating an inspirational collection for you.
We’re in for a wet and windy weekend here in the UK, so a comfy chair, a hot chocolate, and a good book may well be on the menu. And some quiet stitching, of course.
