5 Things I Learned Stitching Every Day in 2017 + Why I’m Doing It Again (Join Me!)

Do you want to get bet­ter at embroi­dery and boost your cre­ativ­i­ty in the new year? Well, then I have a project for you! It’s called 1 Year of Stitch­es.

1 Year of Stitch­es is a year-long endeav­or, cre­at­ed by artist Han­nah Claire Som­merville, in which you add at least one embroi­dery stitch to the same hoop each day. (You can always stitch more, of course.) As you move through the year, your embroi­dery grows, and by the end, you’ve got a unique pic­to­r­i­al diary of that time.

There are few project guide­lines, but for the most part, 1 Year of Stitch­es is extreme­ly open-end­ed. You can tai­lor the chal­lenge to fit your per­son­al­i­ty and cre­ative goals.

Here are the guidelines for 1 Year of Stitches 2019:

1. Make at least one stitch every day. (If you can’t do this, at least take a pic­ture of it that day)
2. Take a pic­ture that shows your project. Don’t get dis­cour­aged if progress looks slow (or not at all).
3. Date your pic­ture and write a sen­tence (or a few words) about the embroi­dery or your day.
4. Share online—through social media or a blog. Tag it with: #1yearofstitches; @1yearofstitches.

I par­tic­i­pat­ed in 1 Year of Stitch­es in 2017 and am excit­ed to dive back in for 2019 (start­ing Jan­u­ary 1). But, it was a year of learn­ing; not only new embroi­dery stitch­es but about myself.

This was the begin­ning of my 1 Year of Stitch­es project in 2017. Tak­en on Jan­u­ary 4, 2017.

These are five things I’ll keep in mind for my 2019 hoop.

1. 1 Year of Stitch­es is a marathon, not a sprint.

I’ve got the whole year to work on this hoop. Most days I will try and make more than just a stitch, but I will not burn out by embroi­der­ing a ton in the new year and then neglect­ing the hoop when things get busy. This hap­pened in 2017; I stitched a lot in Jan­u­ary and Feb­ru­ary, but I became unex­pect­ed­ly busy as the year wore on—my embroi­dery suf­fered because of it. I then looked at how much progress I had made at the start of the year and grew dis­cour­aged. Not this time!

2. Make the project part of your dai­ly routine.

I strug­gled with this for my 2017 project. I told myself I’d stitch each night… but then I’d get pre­oc­cu­pied or be too tired. At times, the hoop felt like a bur­den! But, I look back and think about how reward­ing it was; it was a way to be cre­ative every day, no mat­ter how small it seemed.

Inte­grat­ing 1 Year of Stitch­es into my dai­ly life will be the key to suc­cess. I now real­ize it’s best that I stitch in the morn­ing; I’m an ear­ly ris­er that loves a qui­et home. I will use that time to wake up, stitch, and start my day with art—rather than sit­ting straight down to my com­put­er. In this way, it’ll help me achieve a much-need­ed bal­ance with technology.

3. You might not embroi­der as much as you like. And that’s okay!

Life will get busy, and some days I will only make a stitch. And that’s okay! In 2017, I had eyes big­ger than my hands. I start­ed with a 12-inch hoop (ha!) and then even­tu­al­ly moved to a 10-inch hoop—which I did­n’t even come close to fill­ing. For 2019, I’m try­ing an eight-inch hoop on for size.

4. A theme (how­ev­er broad) can be helpful.

The days I found it hard­est to stitch were days that I had no clear visu­al direc­tion for my hoop. When it came time to embroi­der, what was I even embroi­der­ing towards?

I’m not an abstract artist, but I do enjoy cre­at­ing styl­ized draw­ings. In 2017, I start­ed with no theme and it shows. For 2019, I will cen­ter the project around a loose idea that I can explore through imagery and stitch­ing. It will def­i­nite­ly involve plants.

Dis­claimer: You do not have to have a theme for your project! You can embroi­der what­ev­er you like—for me, it’s help­ful to plan what I’ll be stitch­ing. But, I’ve seen plen­ty of amaz­ing hoops that look like a year of doo­dles with thread.

5. Deter­mine how you’ll share your work each day.

When I first told peo­ple I’d be work­ing on 1 year of Stitch­es, I got an amaz­ing response. So many oth­ers want­ed to join! At that time, I cre­at­ed a 1 Year of Stitch­es Face­book group where you could share your project. (I am still part of it today, but I have since trans­ferred my admin duties to anoth­er mem­ber. I have no part in run­ning it anymore.)

I try to lim­it my Face­book­ing, so I won’t be shar­ing my progress on that plat­form. I’m much more com­fort­able with Insta­gram. But in 2017, I real­ized the dai­ly shar­ing in an Insta­gram (feed) post just was­n’t for me. I end­ed up post­ing my progress in Insta­gram Sto­ries and made it a high­light on my @brwnpaperbag profile.

I’ve since start­ed anoth­er Insta­gram that only chron­i­cles my embroi­dery called @brwnpaperbag_stitch. I’ll be shar­ing my dai­ly progress there, in the Sto­ries, just like last time. I also plan to cre­ate a week­ly post (in my feed) that details how the week of stitch­ing went.

This is a com­fort­able and reli­able way I know I’ll share my stitch­ing. Fig­ure out what works best for you!

Bonus: Make a ded­i­cat­ed space for your photography.

One of the best things I did in the 2017 project was to ded­i­cate part of my stu­dio for pho­tograph­ing my hoop. I did­n’t move the paper and lights for a year. This made it super easy to pho­to­graph at the end of the day because it was all ready to go.

The end of my 1 Year of Stitch­es project for 2017. Tak­en on Decem­ber 30, 2017.