January 2024 – ann wood handmade

I have one important thought for you and for me today and everyday of the challenge:

Done is better than perfect!

This exercise is so not about perfection. It is for listening to yourself. It’s for your imagination, it’s a place to try things – explore. Show up, try stuff, make mistakes, try again, get somewhere new. 100 days of that is magic.

Life rewards action, give it a chance and it will show up with happy accidents. The minute you do something a feedback loop begins. You get information. Begin, listen and respond.

Be brave and be curious.

onward in stitch!

ann

*learn about the stitch book challenge here

DAY 1

stitch book 2024 – day 1

5 things bringing me joy this January

*This post contains affiliate links – meaning I get a small commission if you purchase through the links – they are marked with an asterisk

1. day planner

I’m so into it. In olden times I always had a day planner book. It’s for capturing ideas, project planning and a daily record – at the end of each day I make a little list: 5 things about today.
The book is beside my bed and it’s the last thing I do each day. It is very short and simple but recording this little list makes me notice things.

I’ve also marked each of the 100 days for the stitch book challenge and get to experience the deep satisfaction of checking them off.

I love that it’s small enough to always have with me so ideas can be written down as they happen and the calendar aspect brings so much more organization and context to those notes.

The book is beautiful and super simple. After I looked at every day planner on the planet I went with the *hobonichi techo (a6 size in black gingham).

2. Imagination day camp

Next September my friend Autumn Song and I are co teaching (again) at the Squam Art Retreat. We are currently creating a big playful day of imagination igniting fun. That is she and I walking along the path at Squam, ideas and plans tumbling all over the place. We have endless things to say to each other and all sorts of surprising new intersections appear. It’s a you got peanut butter on my chocolate situation for sure.

Autumn and I first met at my experimenting with dolls workshop in 2016. The class was improv based – a yes and approach to making a figure. I loved Autumn’s ability to completely immerse herself in the creation of her doll and watch her gentleman moth emerging a little bit at a time.

“My name is Cedric Randolf. I am a moth, I fought in the Boer War. I am quite wise and quite old. In one eye I have a cataract, with my other eye I see only goodness”

I love working with Autumn. Ideas flow easily between us, they bounce back and forth and get deeper and more detailed and weirder and sillier etc. etc. We both like to think about thinking, where ideas come from and the absolute joy of making things and that is what imagination day camp is all about. Check out Autumn’s instagram here. And her website here.

You can find out more about the class and fall retreat here.

3. A cozy spot

A perfect spot to hibernate and stitch and watch the snow. I’ve been looking for THIS daybed forever. It turned up (the exact one I wanted!) at a garage sale for just a little money and in perfect shape. The mattress is a chunk of memory foam and the cover is made from big scraps and some toile curtains from a thrift store. This was my first experience with welting and I give myself a B+. Am I a little awash in toile? Yes. But I like it.

4. What it is

By Lynda Barry. It’s a big book about process, ideas and creativity. I took it out of the library so often I finally bought a copy- *it’s currently on sale. It is visually very dense and when I first looked at it I thought it would be too difficult to navigate – text is hand written and intermingled with tons of collage and drawing. You have to spend a little time with it. She asks questions like what is an image? What is an idea? What is a memory? What is a story? That will make you think. It’s written for an adolescent/teenage audience so it’s perfect for me…

5. Great Horned Owl

I saw a great horned owl!. First time ever. I had been hearing them in evening, calling in the little forest just behind me since I moved to my current place in Guilford. That small, dense patch of trees got cleared for development and there were no more owl calls. This winter I started hearing him again on my run and then one evening there he was, huge, in a tree right above me at dusk, calling and being answered by another. That night I got to write “saw a great horned owl” in my list of 5 things about today.

Are you feeling new yearsy? Are your ready for stitch book 2024? Have you ever seen a great horned owl!? What’s bringing you joy in 2024? Let us know in the comments.

stitch club membership is open again

Let’s start with the membership and then get into some ideas for setting yourself up for the stitch book challenge. You don’t need to join to participate but it is a great place to find support and share your progress.

What happens in stitch club? It’s the private ann wood handmade community, a great place to get inspired, share what you’re working on and make sewy friends.

New for 2024

The international scrap festival in february with ideas, challenges and a scrap swap

creative sparks- monthly prompts to get your wheels turning

enrollment in the 2024 stitch book group (you don’t have to participate – but if you do the group is super helpful)

sew-alongs and more!

The 2024 100 day stitch book challenge begins on 1/19 and ends on 4/27

LEARN MORE ABOUT THE CHALLENGE HERE

Please use the link above if your are brand new to the challenge – you’ll find all the info you need.

There are lot’s of ways to approach this hundred day challenge. My plan is to go boldly forth into the unknown. Start without knowing and create time and space for ideas that don’t easily present themselves in the general course of things. That’s what showing up does. You show up and work. You move your mind and your hands and see what happens.

It’s a terrifying proposition. It’s uncomfortable. And it’s how you get somewhere new. This is the third annual stitch book challenge and just like the two previous years I’m excited and also very nervous to start. Daily commitments are hard. Showing daily progress is hard, especially after you’ve gone on and on about how creative and productive the process is.

But here we are again. I can’t resist. Can you? I’ve got some ideas and lessons learned from the previous years to help you get ready.

My plan is to not have a plan except for:

Thinking of the pages in pairs. I loved having a second chance at compositions by treating 2 pages as one image/idea in last years book. I mostly did not work on the two pages consecutively. Especially when I wasn’t happy with what I’d done, putting the idea aside and letting it percolate for a bit helped a lot.

I’m also leaning towards leaving my edges raw again.

Support the 100 day stitch book project and the always growing free pattern library.

Click here to add your support.

remove obstacles

Make it as easy as possible to show up. For me that means having my materials accessible and transportable. A to-go kit is essential. I’ve got scraps, some cut pages (I don’t cut them all in the beginning), a little needle book and a thread pouch. And because the world really is magic this sweet tote bag, made by a friend, arrived unexpectedly on the very day I was looking for something to contain my stitch book supplies.

15 minutes is even more doable if everything is already set up.

plan for the bad days

In 100 days there will most likely be some bad days. Some way too busy or sick or too something days. The secret to those days is a predetermined, minimally acceptable effort. This is also known as “phoning it in”. Protect the habit, protect the momentum and do something. I’ve had days where I was sick or traveling and teaching and way too stretched but I stitched some basic straight stitches or added a super basic applique for 15 minutes. It was not my most present or mindful or thoughtful work but it got done and that mattered.

And if you do miss a day?

Keep going. Maybe do an extra 15 minutes when you can.

warm up

Engage in some productive procrastination. I’ve been doing some new yearsey sorting and organizing of fabric. It was a perfect time to start to pull out scraps for the 2024 book. As I sorted and ironed, scraps spoke to me and I’ve made a little collection. I’m surprised by how much white and light colored stuff I pulled – it’s not my usual jam. The sorting and collecting lit the spark and got me more excited and curious than nervous to start. There are colors and ideas I’m looking forward to experimenting with.