On Starting Afresh

It is a little daunting to be writing my first post of the year, given that a new year is traditionally the time for turning over a new leaf and proclaiming one’s resolutions. Or not. Some people say that one should set achievable goals rather than those often unaccomplishable New Year Resolutions.

Resolution is a strong word that makes me think of laws set in stone. Just to double check I consulted the Oxford English Dictionary (yes, again!) and found to my surprise that the primary meaning of the word is dissolution and decay.  The definition of “steadfastness of purpose” is only ninth on the list. If one adds a dash to the word and reads it as re-solution, then this makes perfect sense. Enough musing on the convolutedness of words and their meanings and back to the ideas associated with a new year.

For me a new year brings a bit of freshness. It is fun to open out that new calendar (especially if it has lovely prints of gardens or art works) and to write your name in a brand new diary and get out your coloured pencils to fill in the year planner page.

At the start of 2015 I set myself the task of making a monthly stitchery, with the aim of experimenting with different kinds of stitches and materials.  It was a very enjoyable project and at the end of the year I made a cloth book of all the pieces.

Here are the introductory pages:

As it turned out, The Book of Stitches has became a visual record of that year because of my associations with the fabrics and threads I used. Here are a few of the pages:

Stitched during Autumn when the oak tree was losing its leaves.

And then came Spring and a wedding. The scraps of silk from the dress were used for the background of this piece.

In keeping with the new year theme, the WordPress newsletter this week asks “What would you do if you could do anything?” That’s a difficult question to answer. How about fly to the moon? My simple answer is “carry on stitching”.  Perhaps I should embroider an emblem that says “Keep Calm and Carry on Stitching” and pin it up in a prominent place.

To put my money where my mouth is, this year I intend to sew a small house each weekend and, at the end of the year, to stitch them together into a quilt which shall be named Village 2019.