2023: The Year of Reinvention – January Update

“Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any other”

– Abraham Lincoln

My Year of Reinvention – Creatively

Another quick update for this month. I found the busy holiday season so hectic! I needed a week off to just unwind and recover. I’m taking the next month (or two or three) to reinvent myself – creatively speaking, anyway! You cannot rush the creative process. You’d think I’d know that by now! 😉

For the first time in years I was organized going into January. I find calling this time of year the “New Year” so unnatural and strange. To me, the new year should be in March, when spring begins. March is when life in the garden starts anew.

Currently, I have an organized list of tasks: the must do and the want-to-do. Getting these ideas out into the tangible is more challenging especially when you have a family and household to run. But I feel this is the year to reinvent myself creatively.

What’s On Sale

Usually, reinvention in the studio means changing my branding. But this time, I will be going through my products and deciding what needs to be updated, and what needs to go. It also means finally trying some new skills and projects I’ve put on the back-burner over the years. I finally feel confident and motivated!

I know I won’t get to it all, but I’m so ready to finally take the leap. We shall see where I end up. I will be marking down items that I want to retire, so keep a look out for sales. For the month of January, many products on the website are marked down 23% off in celebration of 2023. Etsy has select items on sale from 15% – 23% off.

I hope to stay on schedule from month to month so to have things to share but I certainly can’t promise that.

What I’m Working On

The latest dye experiements

Finally back in the dye pots, starting with worsted weight commercial merino yarn. I’m being too critical with the color choices so it’s slow going. Today I decided to stop looking at my notes and just dye by feel. I’m enjoying the process more and can’t wait to share what I come up with!

Current in-progress yarn dye

I’m having fun with this dye combo, totally winging it! This is a DK merino commercial yarn. Olive brown on one side, a turquoise fade-out on the other. I’m sprinkling nautical blue (kind of like navy blue but richer) in the white space and we’ll see where it goes from there…

If all fails, I’ll just over dye it black (LOL!).

I’m going through some of my engraved products and deciding how I would like to update them. This bead board photos ugly but it’s what I used for years for projects in progress. Once I add beads to this board, nothing will be rolling away on me. Not even when the cat walks across my table 😀

I’m scrutinizing some of the products that I’ve made for some time but I feel need to be updated or discontinued. Some will change, some will be marked down significantly and some will disappear, at least for now! I’ve been going through pictures of items I made 15 years ago, and I think some may have to make a comeback this year. Excited to get creating!

I’ll be back next month with an update. I’m not sure how much of one…

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