Year of the Blog

Hello and Happy New Year from me, Bobbin and Fred!

I hope you all had a fab time over the holidays. We munched and giggled our way through the holiday season, rocked around the Christmas tree and pretended to be Cats after watching the musical on DVD for the first time. We won’t make it to the stage but we

laughed ourselves silly prancing about and singing our meows. We even thought about how we’d make our own costumes…hacking up fur coats and knitwear featured heavily in our plans.

So that’s Cats and now it’s onto Dogs!

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The Year of the Dog to be exact.

In the Chinese Zodiac the dog represents integrity and equality and 2018 promises prosperity to those who are proactive, work hard and communicate well. I believe that to be true of every year. As Samuel Goldwyn said, ‘the harder I work, the luckier I get’.

Even so, I’m going to embrace this belief more than ever and use it to push my design skills forward, as an excuse to communicate and build stronger relationships and to think positively about what I can achieve by being more generous with my skills and ideas.

This year may well be the Year of the Dog but it’s also Bobbin and Fred’s Year of the Blog. I set this up last spring and I’ve been so flaky with it since BUT I’m here today to make a pledge to the super folks who are following me despite my tardiness so far. It’s also a pledge to new followers who find this happy little blog and, a pledge to myself. It's a way of being accountable and making myself regularly caress the keys to mark my creative journey as it unfolds.

I want to make this space my space and your space. Our little corner of the internet that inspires us and enables our creativity to expand, a place we want to explore and interact with.

So…here goes…

…I solemnly swear that I am up to no good. Ah, hang on, that's not right, that was last night's pledge 😉 Let's try again.

*raises hand*

I solemnly swear to blog weekly for the next 52 weeks.

Should I prick my finger with my sewing needle and do some complicated handshakes with Bobbin and Fred to seal the deal?

If you answered yes, imagine I’m doing that.

If you answered no, rest assured I’m just hunkering down under my pile of crochet blankets while B&F shoot me bemused looks.

Talking of crochet, this is me in my crochet scarf and new knitted hat. Both were made by the talented Willow and Twist. Mum actually managed to roll the hat up and stuff it in a cracker! She had to do a bit of cracker surgery to manage it but you can imagine my surprise and pleasure when I pulled it out! Here I am grinning delightedly shortly afterwards.

I’ve started the year as I mean to go on by adding some more stitches to a book cover I’ve been working on for a while and charting the inside, flappy bits to stitch. It’s a surprise present so I’m only sharing abstract shots of it so as not to give the game away.

The photos plot the colours building up the design one by one. First I sewed all the blue, then the white, red, gold, purple and finally the green. I've just noticed the green isn't in the picture (doh!) but I promise it is there in reality. I’ve never stitched like this before but I found it very motivating and satisfying to see how adding the different colours changed the way they interact with each other.

I started this project last spring too. I’ve been stitching it between deadlines for commissions and now I've got a little break in my schedule I’m determined to get it completed, pronto! I want to move on but mostly I'm looking forward to gifting it to my friend so she can enjoy it.

Have you managed to fit in some time with your needle and thread today? I’d love to know what you’re working on or what your goal for 2018 is so feel free to share the juicy details in the comments below 😀