The second half of 2015 sped past, a whirlwind of dyeing, sewing, and new ideas. On the home front there were some upheavals as well, changes and realisations and plans for the future.

One thing I have always done with this blog is to limit it, to only talk about work, or things that closely resemble work. This year I’d like to share more than just work. I want to share personal projects, personal discoveries and dreams, and to not just limit the blog to things I make for sale.

My reason behind this is that every experience we have shapes who we are, and the things that we create. By only sharing work, I’m forcing myself to work inside such a rigid framework that it can be very hard to break out of – and I end up sharing nothing at all. Some of the things that shape my work never have their story told, and I’d like to share them.

Anyone who follows me on instagram knows that I am a huge knitter. I love it. Being able to knit has opened up a whole new world of fashion for me. The action of knitting, the patterns, the yarn have all combined to give me a new appreciation of clothing, fibres, textiles; and I’ve also gained new viewpoints on what fashion is, what sustainability is, and how this speaks to the environment. It’s changed my wider outlook on society as a whole, and has made me consider things like the economics of the wool industry, China, India, wages, animal rights, and the list goes on.

I also sew (obviously!), and I really love making my own clothes. There’s so much I don’t know, but I’d like to share those personal projects here as well. I don’t intend on ever designing or selling my own line of clothes, I’m just a dabbler, and I like well made simple outfits – stuff I rarely find at the shops. I also like to think about where my clothes came from – were the workers paid sufficiently? Do they have to work 12 hours a day to feed their family? Is the dye house taking environmental precautions? Where was it made? Do children work in the factory – etc. It seems much easier to circumnavigate these issues if i make as much as I can myself.

Gardening. As an adult I have been wanting to grow my own food for awhile – but as a renter I put it off. Whenever I began a garden we would inevitably end up having to move, and the loss was always such a downer that I vowed to not do it again until we owned our own home. Last October we found out that our landlords are quite happy living overseas thanks very much and don’t intend on moving back for at least a few more years – so we have some sort of permanence before we can buy something permanent!

So I started a garden. And I LOVE it. I’d go so far as to say it has become an obsession. It began as one garden bed (albeit a large one), and has grown in size and now encompasses 4 more raised beds, and 4 more garden beds. Yikes! It’s producing lots of veggies, and i think we will have more than we can eat. I hope to store some of it for over the winter, I need to learn about root cellars. So prepare yourselves to see my love of all things plant.

These are just some of the things I hope to share more of in 2016. I’m already dubbing this year “the year of personal projects”. I really plan on focusing a lot of energy making things for the joy of it, hopefully at a ratio of “one for me, one for you.”