A Year of Embroidery

This year is the 20th anniversary of my mum passing from cancer, she was an avid crafter and was always making. She was often found sitting in the lounge, lamp on and needle in hand, cross stitching a new masterpiece for the house. In reflecting on the 20 years that have passed, I thought it would be fitting to remember this year by embarking on a daily embroidery journal. Each day is remembered/represented through an icon, with each month filling 1/12th segment of an embroidery hoop.

I have used Sophie O’Neill from The Stir-Crazy Crafter resources on developing an embroidery journal and I highly recommend checking these out. Based on Sophie’s advice I do not embroider every day, rather I draw the icon in my diary (I am very thankful that my daily diary this year has little boxes under each day, perfect for this) and have some down time on the weekend in which I reflect on the week that has been and stitch the icons out.

I am a little rusty with my embroidery skills and hope that my skills, speed and stitch proficiency sharpens throughout this year. Each month I will share the month that has been, January was definitely a learning curve, I typically embroider using a mix of cotton floss and wool, this proved extremely difficult in the size constraints for each icon. I also realised I needed a finer chalk and invested in the Bohin mechanical chalk pencil which is now one of my favourite notions to use.

I hope you enjoy January and are inspired to give embroidery a go.