I won’t post a daily stitching video every day, mainly because I can’t be available 365 days a year, but also because sometimes I just want to stitch quietly on my own without explaining anything. There might be a video tutorial maybe once or twice a week. Ish.
But as a result of the videos, a few people were asking where they can buy the spools I store my thread on.
thread on paper spools
You probably could buy them somewhere, or you could use sections of drinking straws, but it’s easier and cheaper to make them yourself as I do.
I hope you’re enjoying your daily stitching, if you’re embarking on a new year-long adventure. The whole huge blank canvas can look quite daunting at this time of year, but time flies and the days soon fill up if you just focus on one day at a time. Good advice for life too, I guess.
A new beginning or just continuing, it’s all the same really.
Today is about the Roman god Janus who looks back to the year just gone and forward at what’s to come. Stitches pointing backwards, and stitches pointing ahead.
1st January 2026
There’s a video of this one on my YouTube channel. I might do a video of tomorrow’s stitching too, but there definitely won’t be a video every day.
I’ve never intended the daily stitching to be a challenge or a stitch-along; I don’t provide prompts, themes, or directions for daily stitching. It’s more about being guided by your own intuition, and stitching something that is meaningful for you.
Hope everyone’s new year has got off to a good beginning.
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.
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.
Amid all the thread winding I’m just dropping in to let you know that my recorded interview with the lovely Kate Ward of Making Zen is now available to watch on YouTube here.
It was a joy to chat with Kate about daily stitching, mark-making, time and other things, and I hope you enjoy watching it. Please do give it a thumbs up on Kate’s YouTube channel if you liked it.
In the meantime if you haven’t got your Making Zen ticket yet, you can still get it here. Upgrading to the VIP pass will let you access the workshops two weeks early, from 15th May.
zero-waste stitched samples
The VIP pass gives you full access to all the workshops plus some very generous free gifts from 32 participating artists. For transparency, I am awarded a small commission (at no extra cost to you) when you purchase your ticket from the links on this page, so you will be helping to support my work as an independent artist. Thank you so much.
You know, middle-aged English people rarely get truly excited about anything, but I am genuinely very excited to be taking part in Making Zen this month and I’m looking forward to sharing some of my favourite techniques with you.
