Month: December 2025

New Year’s Eve 2025

And here we are, the end of the year already.

2025 daily stitching

365 blocks of hand embroidery, one every day for twelve months, each stitch witnessing the passage of time.

2025 daily stitching

Time is all we have, and time is all that we are. We have time, we make time, we find time, we save time, we spare time, we waste time, we spend time. We are time.

time capsule

This year’s stitching is about 7″ wide and 122″ long, cotton and silk embroidery threads on vintage cotton/linen blend.

People ask me what will I do with it. I don’t ‘do’ anything with it. It’s enough for it to be itself, a surface onto which I have inscribed time with needle and thread, a cloth I have held in my hands every day for a year, a cloth that holds and remembers moments from my life. The cloth will still be here when I am not.

completed stitching in protective cover

New Year’s Eve is a time for a final glance back, over our shoulder, before we move unsteadily forward into more of the unknown.

2025: January, the beginning
2025: January/February
2025: March
2025: April
2025: April/May
2025: May/June
2025: June/July
2025: July/August
2025: August/September
2025: September/October
2025: October/November
2025: November
2025: December

Of course this is not the end, nor is it a new beginning. It’s just the continuation of time. Tomorrow is only ever the day after today, when we gather ourselves to begin again.

2026 ahead

Happy new year to you all, and happy stitching if you’re embarking on a new stitch adventure for 2026.

2025: all of it

You can find my daily stitching PDF templates here, information about pre-printed fabric from Spoonflower here, and information about my online classes here. You can also subscribe to my YouTube channel here for occasional daily stitching videos.

Wintering

I’m taking a break now for a week or two, to enjoy some rest and quiet reflective time.

daily stitching in progress

My shop is now closed for tangible items (thread and fabric scraps) but remains open for daily stitching templates. If you have a problem with a PDF download, then please do get in touch but please be patient as I will not be checking emails every day. My Teachable School also remains open and accessible throughout the festivities.

I’m preparing next year’s daily stitching by covering the grid lines, and it’s starting to look very inviting.

2026 preparations in progress

I’ll be back some time around new year with my completed stitching for 2025 and to begin again with 2026. It amazes me every new year’s eve how today turns into next year at the toll of a bell and an entire twelve months is suddenly behind us. Our human understanding of time is a strange thing.

Thank you for travelling through 2025 with me; I couldn’t make a living doing what I love without your kind support. Wishing you all the joy and peace of the season, and I’ll look forward to continuing next year.

Goals

I’ve been making a new planner for next year, trying to encourage myself to be more organised. Last year’s planner got more use than I expected, so I’ll keep it up through 2026.

Handmade book in progress

I use a cardboard template to draw each week-to-view page, and I stuck a bit of old ribbon to the spine to act as a bookmark.

2026 planner

I cheated with the cover and just changed the 5 to a 6

2026 planner cover

No need to reinvent the wheel or create extra work for myself.

It was a good opportunity to review this year’s goals, the ones I made in January:

2025 goals, made in the naive optimism of January

Well, let’s see how I did.

Don’t work at weekends: Fail. Pretty epic fail, in fact.

Don’t work past 7pm: ditto

Take 4 weeks holiday: Actually I almost made this one. Including the 10 days holiday I WILL take later this month, that will amount to about three and a half weeks for the year. Nearly.

Wednesday afternoons are for CPD (that’s a throwback from my corporate days, Continuing Professional Development) which essentially means throwing some paint/ink/thread around in order to learn something new: Managed that maybe a dozen times over the year at the most. Nowhere near enough.

End of year report: Must try harder!

On the plus side, I’m fairly sure I might win the annual Employee of the Year award. Only because my boss (that’s me) only has one of us to choose from (also me).

Next year I intend to make more use of my neglected YouTube channel, and I may well do more of what I’ve done today – daily stitching in real time, with running commentary.

You can see the making of this one here.

11th December, daily stitching

I have a few other goals in mind (as well as repeating those above that I didn’t quite get the hang of) which I’ll share in due course.

For now, I’m starting to wind down and will be officially on holiday from 17th December until about 29th-ish. I’ll be back next week with my last post before the festivities, and in the meantime I hope all your preparations for Christmas and beyond are going well.

Shop news

Just to say last orders for hand-dyed threads and fabric before Christmas is Tuesday 16th December, and that’s for UK orders only now as it’s unlikely that overseas orders will reach you before the festivities.

Silk thread sets

The shop will re-open for shippable items (hand-dyed fabric and thread) around January 5th. You can still purchase PDF downloads in the meantime. If you’re purchasing a PDF, the email containing the download link will go to the email address you used for the purchase, and that email may go to your spam/junk folder. Please save the download to your device before trying to print it as you may lose access to the link if you try to print it before saving.

I’ll be taking a break from 17th to 31st December, and may not respond to emails in my usual instant manner so please be patient if you have a question or problem with any purchases.

There isn’t much of the year left, and I can see the lower hem of my 2025 daily stitching scroll.

2025 daily stitching, nearly at the end

I’ll show the whole thing around new year, when I’ll also be starting my 2026 adventure.

2026 preparations

And finally, a reminder that you can now purchase pre-printed fabric for daily stitching via my shop on Spoonflower. Please read through the information on the blog page before purchasing.

Samples of pre-printed fabrics for daily stitching

When you buy from Spoonflower, 90% of your money goes to them. For transparency, I earn a 10% commission on each purchase, but I’m unable to help you with any questions or problems regarding your orders. For help with your printed fabric order please contact the Spoonflower help team and they should be able to assist.

Back later in the week with a little end-of-year reflection.

November 2025 daily stitching

As always, just like that. Time passed, as it does.

November 2025, daily stitching

A few stitches every day, not knowing in advance what will happen. No plan, no design. Any given moment could bring anything. Just a needle and thread navigating through time and hoping for the best.

November, detail

I think my favourite this month is that little sprig of red leaves. I don’t know where any of these things come from.

November 2025, detail

Not many words today.

November daily stitching, detail

And not too much of this year left…

December ahead. Or behind.

A reminder, if you’re embarking on a similar journey next year (and whoa, suddenly that’s next month 😳), that you can find my daily stitching templates here, and you can now purchase pre-printed fabric here. There is also a page here with Stitch Journal FAQs and general information.