Creative Resolutions

North Stars for 2025

Photo by Abby Johnson :)

Here we are at the cusp of 2025!! I have been taking stock and thinking about some necessary and inspiring shifts I’d like to make in the new year, particularly around my creative process and the how and why of sharing it. So, here is a little list of simple but transformative changes, or rather new emphasises… just what I’m after. With each tenet I’ve also included someone or something I’m looking to for guidance, a muse of sorts! May it serve as a sneak peak as to the direction of this newsletter for the year, and a reference of possibilities.

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Creative Resolutions I am Centering for 2025

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Emphasize quality and make fewer things.

This is the cornerstone of how I hope to shift my creative life in the coming year!! I have a Pinterest habit that keeps the garment inspiration coming, and my “to-make” list ever growing. Ideas? I’ve got ‘em! Closet space and clothing needs? Not really! This past year I have really been feeling a resistance to my normal mode and rate of making. For example, this newsletter in its first year set the rate of two letters per month and with it, two new garments made. This was a great practice in consistency that I am proud I was able to commit myself to. However, since that first anniversary that same feat has been harder, and though my enjoyment of writing these e-mails has increased, I’ve had a lack of enthusiasm towards doing the making required to write one up in it’s usual form, and I think that is because I don’t actually desire having two new garments in my closet every month! I want my making to be specific and thought out. After all, this is a personal project, I am, for the most part, making just one of each garment and I do not need to be emulating mass production methods. So, I’d like to slow it down, make fewer garments, take more time with each thing I create, and make them more special!

Muse - Victoria Jin - the perfect personification of this tenet and my favorite creator on youtube!

Each video is a mini-documentary and deep dive into both the process of making and the inspiration that created the impetuous to make. The garment and the documentation are both highly-stylized, one of a kind, and very attentive to detail. Good things take time, and she takes hers, and what she makes is the stuff of dreams!

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Stitch More by Hand.

One way I hope to engage with textiles and infuse the garments I make with more specialness is to sew more by hand. A surefire way to go slower! I’d like to increase my repertoire of couture level hand finishes, as well as embrace embellishment by way of embroidery and appliqué on more of my projects. My interest in this also lies in the process, going beyond the beautiful form it can create and discovering the function it can have internally, bringing more mindfulness and flow into my creative work.

Muse - Anna Saterstrom & my “slow stitch” group - endlessly inspiring textile artist and the ideal container for this exploration!

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Being a part of a stitch group that meets monthly has been such a boon this past year, most especially because of the communal aspect and getting to see and be inspired by the process and work of others. Getting to see Anna’s work is a particular treat— shells, buttons, bits of crochet and doily get reworked and transformed by a multitude of tiny running stitches, decorative embroidery, words and her singular eye for composition.

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Make good use of scraps.

I do my best to limit waste of all types, and this includes the textile waste I accumulate in my workshop. This is important to me, knowing how polluting the fashion industry is as a whole, doing my absolute best in this department keeps me in integrity with my values. That said, the scraps have accumulated and now is the time to actually make good on my low-waste workshop ideals— storing scraps is not the end solution in keeping them out of landfill, it’s a purgatory between use and waste. I’m thinking of a two-prong approach. Firstly, get more serious about patch-working, quilting, stuffing pillows, getting a little *prolific* with it. I’d love to make a dent, feel like I’m staying on top of the piles, and make utilizing off-cuts a natural part of creation cycle. Secondly, establish a relationship with a trusted textile recycler. This also excites me, as a way I could tackle less-usable scraps once I have enough lumpy pillows (lol the reality of scrap stuffing at the moment), and expand my reach out of my home workshop and into the higher volume arenas of my workplaces. I love Material Return, a textile recycler in North Carolina, they are doing great work on this front, and I am gunning to work with them!

Muse- Twyla Lambert-Clark - fiber artist and garment maker who focuses on sustainability and reuse.

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Twyla is local artist known for her creative use of “found” textiles. This past year she saved countless t-shirts from the landfill, by taking on a local screen-printing operation’s mis-prints and weaving them into rugs. Such resourcefulness and care!!

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So, these are the themes I’ll be carrying into E-Pastiche this year. My intention is to send two letters a month. With a slower rate of sewing, you may see some garments get two letters, or some letters have no garments… but I look forward to increasing my creativity within these parameters and sharing more of the process and personal perspectives on making as they emerge.

**And with that!!** I thank you for being a reader!

It would mean so much to me if you shared this publication with a friend who you think might enjoy it :-)