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.
I’ve made some new half-skein Randoms thread collections – these are (broadly) colour-coordinated half skeins from my current thread range, in sets of 8-10. Good for small projects, and good for expanding your thread collection. Because we all need more thread, right?
Good for secret Santas and stocking fillers, because we probably have to start talking about Christmas.
I’ll be closing my shop around 10th December-ish, only for the holidays and only for tangible items that need posting; PDFs will continue to be available throughout the holiday period. It seems early to be closing, but I really can’t do the whole panic-last-minute rush thing, spending entire afternoons in a queue at the post office, worrying about whether post is going to arrive in time etc. Last date for overseas orders (that’s outside UK) will be around 2nd December – so if you’re not in the UK, you’ve got about three weeks to buy what you need 😱
Three weeks? Better start writing a few lists myself…
Happy shopping! Get in touch if you have any questions about any of the products, and thank you as always for your valued support. I know I couldn’t do any of this without you.
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.
Having spent most of this week winding thread, I thought a behind-the-scenes glimpse might be interesting.
I dye thread in hanks, then wash and rinse it, letting it dry outside on a sunny day. When it’s all dry it comes in to be sorted into groups.
hand-dyed thread hanks, grouped by type
I then wind each hank into smaller skeins. Hanks will yield anything from four to ten skeins, depending on the thread type. Pictured below is a new fine cotton boucle yarn that I’m trying. I can no longer get the chunkier cotton boucle that I’ve had previously.
cotton boucle yarn, hanks into skeins
When each hank has been turned into skeins, each skein is twisted. This helps to prevent tangling and keeps them neat and easy to pack for shipping. I use a miniaturist’s drill with half a large paperclip glued where the drill bit should be.
twisted skeins
Then I label each skein with the thread type and yardage. I print, cut and hand write each label. Shown below is the new batch of silk perle 8.
labelling skeins
Once each batch has been labelled, the skeins are sorted by colour ready to be counted, numbered, named, photographed, described and listed in the shop.
skeins ready to be counted, numbered, and named
This entire process has to be repeated nine times, since I currently stock nine different types of thread (four silk and five cotton). I can only wind for half a day at a time, to avoid repetitive strain injury, so it does take a few weeks to get all of it into the shop.
The best bit about the whole process is that there is no waste. Any part-skeins go into Randoms, to be gathered into mini-collections, and anything shorter than a yard goes into the ends pot to be used as ties for tags or in daily stitching.
ends pot (left) and Randoms (right)
Did I say that was the best bit? I meant it’s the second-best bit. This is the best bit:
Mine! Dyers’ perks
I only take a few yards for myself, and only in the colours that really appeal to me. These threads are wrapped round paper tubes, made very simply by rolling a 3″ square piece of copy paper and cutting a little notch in one end.
So there it is – the process from start to end. Threads should be available from around mid-September, if all goes to plan. In the meantime there are still some very pretty threads in the shop here.
For me, back to the daily grind. I mean daily wind.
It’s been a busy couple of weeks: over 950 skeins of thread, wound and labelled and coming soon. Soon-ish. I’ve just got to list and describe a couple more batches, then I’ll take a couple of days off, and after that they’re all yours.
I picked out some of my favourites – I call it dyer’s perks. Hank ends, oddments and leftovers, and all mine. I wind any skeins that are for me onto rolls of paper to keep them reasonably neat.
threads coming soon
These are some of the thread taster sets:
delicious!
Be patient. Not much longer to wait, maybe a week or so.
The free ticket gives you access to the workshops for 24 hours on the day they’re released. Upgrading to the VIP pass gives you lifetime access to all workshops AND you also get the free extras that participating artists are generously sharing. If you bought your early bird VIP pass then I hope you’re enjoying your exclusive early access to all the amazing workshops and free gifts.
For transparency, buying your VIP pass from the links on this page will result in my earning a small commission at no extra cost to you. This helps enormously to support my work as an independent artist. Thank you so much.
And a reminder that you can watch my Making Zen interview with Kate here
The third Monday in January (2025) is supposed to be the most depressing day of the year. It’s nonsense, of course (though I guess some of you in the US may not be in agreement right now…) The concept apparently was invented by a travel company in 2005, to sell more holidays, and only applies to the northern hemisphere because of the cold weather and the short daylight hours here. As you know, I love the winter and the chilly, grey, short days. I also like January, blue, and Mondays, so I’m just here today to disprove the theory. I hope you haven’t fallen for the marketing/sales hype that’s trying to persuade you to feel miserable today. You might want to look away at this point if you don’t like blue, though.
Today’s daily stitching had to be blue, if only to justify the title of this post.
20th January daily stitching
And a closer look:
lifetime (cross stitches) piling up – 🎶 earworm by Talking Heads, ‘Lifetime Piling Up’
Recently I’ve been gathering together some little zero waste samples that I put together last year. These are just tiny scraps of fabric laid on a foundation, covered in a sheer fabric, and randomly (or purposefully) stitched. I thought it might be nice to compile them into a mixed media sketchbook. More on this later.
zero waste sketchbook page
I’m doing zero waste with collage papers too, using all the tiny scraps and strips of painted papers, letting the stitched samples and collage elements begin a little conversation.
stitch on the left, painting and collage on the right
It’s all very intuitive and kinaesthetic. The hands start doing something with fabric or thread or paper, and the brain eventually gets interested enough to join in. You have to start doing the work in order to do the work.
There are a few more basted samples that need stitching.
zero waste samples using selvedges and hand-dyed scrapsabout 8″ square, layered scraps and sheer fabrics, ready for stitching
And a box of glorious blue threads vying for attention.
🎶 blue, blue, electric blue 🎶 earworm by David Bowie, ‘Sound and Vision’
So when I say ‘wishing you a Blue Monday’, I mean it in the happiest way possible.
While we all wait for me to wind the latest batch of newly dyed threads, there are a couple of special offers in the shop right now.
**EDIT/UPDATE – now all sold out, thank you. Your threads are on their way.
These are the perle 8 silk skeins that are discontinued, and are reduced to clear. When they’re gone they’re gone forever as I won’t be buying this particular thread again.
Please read the full post before heading to the links – thank you.
And there are some single skeins (not dyed by me; please read the shop listing for full details) here:
single skeins, perle 8 silk
Please, a caveat if I may – if you are in the US, please check that you’ve picked United States in the drop-down country menu and not United Kingdom. If you accidentally pick the UK option the system will charge the UK postage rate rather than the correct overseas rate, and this causes extra work and stress for me as I then have to email you to explain. Overseas shipping is expensive. I only charge what it actually costs, and I often make a small loss on international postage. The difference between UK and US shipping costs is about £10. This happens surprisingly often – several times a week, sometimes – and I simply can’t afford to lose £10 every time I ship goods to the US because the correct postage hasn’t been paid. It really isn’t fair to make exceptions.
If this continues to happen then I will have no option but to consider – with immense regret – discontinuing overseas shipping altogether.
Also – if you’re in Europe, please be aware that your country will charge import duties. This is an unfortunate consequence of Brexit and nothing to do with me; I have no control over the amount charged and I don’t profit from it in any way. You can use an online import tax checker to estimate what the additional cost will be.
Apologies for the ranting. Of course I could vastly inflate all my prices and call it ‘free’ shipping. I’d be interested to hear your views, particularly if you’re not in the UK.
Operation Restock the Shop continues apace and is keeping me more busy than I thought it was possible to be.
Here’s what’s been happening this week:
A few are dry and ready to wind:
It will take me at least a few weeks to sort and wind everything here. There are some positively scrumptious colours, and they’ll be in the shop as soon as I can get them there – optimistically the second week in September, realistically probably a bit later.
As always, I won’t announce the shop update – I prefer to sidle everything in quietly – but keep an eye out if you’re interested.
For now I’ve got my eye on some of those delicious threads. Dyer’s perks, I call it. Looking forward to a colourful weekend.
I was hoping to have the latest batch of hand-dyed threads in the shop next week but unfortunately that’s not going to be possible.
A few thread types are done but I still have many more skeins to wind, and then they will need sorting into sets, photographing, describing and listing, all of which takes more time than you might expect.
the winding chair
Further progress will be limited because it looks as if our long-awaited house move may finally be happening the week after next, and I will have to close the shop temporarily while I focus on packing.
The shop will close on Tuesday 20th February, and will re-open as soon as I’ve been able to unpack my supplies in our new home. I don’t know how long that will take, but I’m aiming for the first or second week in March. If you’re looking for daily stitching templates while the shop is closed, you can now get those through my Teachable school here.
A preview of some of the silk threads that will be coming next month:
silk threads coming next month
And in the meantime, here’s what I’ll be doing next week:
The thread update last week has kept me very busy, and if you have ordered some thread (thank you) it’s on its way.
Most of the thread collections have gone; (at the time of writing) there’s just one silk set left:
the last silk thread collection, very pink
I gave myself a surprise extra dyeing day yesterday. Normally I plan these events and spend a week or two preparing for it, but this time I wondered what would happen if I just wound some larger hanks and got stuck in.
And it turned out to be so much easier this time. Winding single skeins and dyeing them takes a bit of time and effort, particularly as many of them need winding again if they tangle too much in the wash. Bigger hanks don’t tangle anywhere near as much, and will yield several skeins of similar colours. They will still all need winding individually, but that’s fine. They’ll be done when they’re done.
threads in various stages of drying/waiting to be washed
This current batch will just be for thread sets, not single skeins. There will be some silk sets and some mini cotton sets, when they’re all dry and sorted. I like putting these collections together, finding colours that sit nicely side by side. They’re a bit like a choir, I always think. Some sing loud and clear, others sing a quieter underlying harmony that sits in the spaces between the more strident notes.
I have a tiny bit of dye left, and there is some fine silk thread that should be arriving today, so I will put all of that together later until all the colour is used up.
leftover dye, and waste not want not
In the meantime there are a few single skeins left in the shop but when they’re gone there will just be thread sets for now.
silk single skeinscotton single skeins
I’m really looking forward to sorting this week’s threads when they’re all dry. There is nothing so joyful as glorious colour on a grey wet day.
