This is crossposted from Curiousity.ca, my personal maker blog. If you want to link to this post, please use the original link since the formatting there is usually better.
Still settling in to the new house. We’ve prepped a couple of rooms for painting but then the furnace decided it would just sometimes not turn on in the middle of a cold snap, and cold rooms are hard to paint. New thermostat is supposedly coming today and we really hope that’s the problem. It looks like the former owners had some weird zwave kickstarter thermostat that was not great even when it seemed to be working, but it may well be an issue with the furnace itself. Thank goodness for good insulation so we didn’t freeze when it turned off overnight.
Painting continues, so here’s a photo of Hatch who looked at the cardboard I put on the floor and thought “must be a dog bed.”
Caption: Hatch, a black lab mix dog, is sprawled across a cardboard wardrobe box that has been flattened and placed on the floor to protect it during painting. He’s got his face in the sunbeam and is looking towards the window with his head over his paws, while his hind end is sprawled at a “draw me like one of your French girls” pinup pose with his legs stretched out.
And then, immediately, “don’t take my picture!”
Caption: Hatch, a black lab mix dog, sitting on some cardboard with his front half in a sunbeam. He’s sitting up compared to the previous photo and you can see that his front paws are crossed. He’s looking vaguely in my direction with his ears back like he’s not very impressed.
Anyhow, let’s talk inks.
A set of four ink swatches from the Diamine Inkvent Teal (2025) calendar. Day 17 Gala is a bright purple, Day 18 Laurel is deep green with so much red sheen that the green is often completely invisible, Day 19 Overcast is a light blue with pinkish tones, and Day 20 Ambiance is orange with pink sparkles.
Day 18: Laurel. Dark teal-leaning green base with so much red sheen that it’s more of a red ink than a green one. I like this one but I do wish it had a little less sheen so you could get more of the base colour, and it is very similar to Vibe from last year so it’s kind of boring in context. Still, viewed on its own it’s a fun ink and I appreciate that it’s a lot more green than all the other pink sheen inks I have. I wonder why I never see a deep red with the pink sheen? Something chemical or it just doesn’t look as cool in product photos?
Day 19: Overcast. A dual-tone ink that’s grey-blue with a pink tone. This one is really lovely, but unfortunately very close to my Fountain Pen Day purchase of Van Dieman’s Underflow. Underflow is a bit brighter and more green so they’re not exactly duplicates just very similar. I’ll use both!
Day 20: Ambiance. A peachy orange with pink sparkles. This one is unique in my collection — the closest ink I have has gold shimmer and despite the photo above making it look more gold, this one is definitely more of a pink shimmer when viewed head-on. I like it!
These are all lovely and will get used, though I feel like Laurel could have been more interesting with less sheen. I think Ambiance is the one I’m most excited to ink up and use in my journal, but probably Overcast and Gala will see more use over time due to the lack of shimmer.
This is crossposted from Curiousity.ca, my personal maker blog. If you want to link to this post, please use the original link since the formatting there is usually better.
Another belated Inkvent post for swatch Wednesday! I didn’t bother doing inkvent posts in December because of the move, and in theory now that some of our stuff has arrived I could probably be unpacking instead of blogging about ink. But our stuff got separated into two shipments and a lot of the furniture is on the second truck, and in some cases we have bookshelves but no actual shelves so they’re unusable for unpacking. Oh well. We don’t have an ETA yet on the second half of stuff so we’re doing what we can.
And in the meantime, here’s some ink swatches!
A set of swatches from the Diamine Inkvent Teal calendar showcasing day 13 Molten Basalt (grey with red sheen), 14 Mittens (hot pink, pigment ink), 15 Frostbite (dark blue with copper shimmer), 16 Ruby Taffeta (red with green shimmer)
Day 13: Molten Basalt. Grey with a reddish sheen. Normally I’m not a huge fan of greys because they’re either dark enough to mostly look black in practice, or they’re light enough that they’re kind of annoying to read without bringing much joy to my writing. (I like saturated colours!) But the sheen is enough to make this one interesting, and I like the name.
Day 14: Mittens. Hot pink pigment ink. I have no idea what could possibly call for waterproof Barbie pink ink in my life, but I love how saturated and unapologetic the colour looks. This one didn’t stain as badly as Brr! did but I was also a bit more careful about soaking the brush a few seconds after I was done using it.
Day 15: Frostbite. Dark blue with loads of copper shimmer. It looks a bit gold in the picture but its more coppery to my eye. This one’s very pretty and I’d like to see how it does in a pen where the shimmer is likely to be toned down a bit so you can actually appreciate the base colour.
Day 15: Ruby Taffeta. Red with iridescent green shimmer. For some reason the camera picks this up more as a silver but it’s noticeably green to my eyes in real life. This is the red of my dreams, exactly the red I’ve wanted and I’m almost mad that it’s got shimmer because it’s such a perfect red. (Look, I bonded with red pens during my stint as an editor, okay?) This will absolutely get used but it’s gonna be really tempting to not bother stirring it up and using it without the shimmer. Not that the shimmer is bad, but the slightly greenish iridescence isn’t what I would have chosen to go with such a glorious red. If anyone knows of a match for this colour without the shimmer, let me know!
Overall: I love all of these. Ruby Taffeta is probably my favourite, but Molten Basalt may get inked up more often due to the lack of shimmer. I do have some pinks similar to Mittens but they’re not pigment inks so it’s really a different beast. And the rest are all pretty different to what I had before!
This is crossposted from Curiousity.ca, my personal maker blog. If you want to link to this post, please use the original link since the formatting there is usually better.
Resuming the inkvent posts as swatch Wednesday posts. I took pictures of day 9-12 before I got totally swamped with moving stuff, but I’ll have to take the rest of the pictures in the new house. (I do have all my swatches, though!)
Day 9: Bittersweet. Very bright green, no shimmer or sheen. I thought maybe this one would be a bit hard to read but it seems fine. It’s not quite as day-glow as it looks in that photo but it is pretty bright in the sun. I love greens and a lot of my other light greens are a bit muddy in comparison so it’s fairly unique in my collection. Will get used for sure.
Nostalgia ink swatch photographed at an angle for the shimmer.
Day 10: Nostalgia. Brownish burgundy/purple with pink shimmer. Very pretty, and I rather liked playing with it on the paint brush where it’s a bit lighter than in the handwriting. Not a colour I might have chosen for myself but I’m looking forwards to using it because I think it’s going to fill a nice neutral-adjacent niche in my monthly palettes.
Brr! ink swatch showing the feathering in the paintbrush swatch and some of the shimmer.
Day 11: Brrr! Light blue with blue shimmer. I love this colour a lot but it stained the heck out of my paintbrush. Which isn’t a huge deal (I mean, it’s a paint brush, it was bound to happen eventually) but I’d probably have used an older brush if I’d realized it would be that bad. Maybe I’ll try some pen cleaner or the ultrasonic cleaner on the paintbrush just to see what happens but I don’t have high hopes. It’s a pigment ink so it shouldn’t be a surprise but I didn’t have as much trouble with Carousel and staining. I’m going to be careful to put this into my pens that are easier to clean and none of the ones with clear feeds. I do rather like how the swatch feathered a bit so it looks like frost, though!
Bubbly ink swatch at an angle to show the iridescent shimmer better.
Day 12: Bubbly. A very champagne gold with iridescent shimmer. This doesn’t look too bad in the swatch but the shading makes it go to the edge of hard to read in my journal writing. I’ll be curious to see if it behaves better or worse in a pen. This is another one I wouldn’t likely have chosen for myself, but the iridescent shimmer really makes it pop and live up to the name, plus it’s not like anything else in my collection.
I liked all of these inks a lot, though I’m going to have to be careful using Brrr! now that I know it stains.
This is crossposted from Curiousity.ca, my personal maker blog. If you want to link to this post, please use the original link since the formatting there is usually better.
For the past 10 years, rather than doing new year’s resolutions I’ve been doing “fiber goals.” (First 9 years in summary, last year’s wrap up was posted yesterday). The idea has always been to set goals around chasing joy, directing my creativity, and making space in my life for things I want to do rather than things I think I should do. But I don’t think that’s going to be as much about fiber this year! So I’m changing the name to “Creative Goals” and opening it up to other types of creativity explicitly in 2026.
1. Set up my new creative space
I’m moving (at the time this posts I’ll be en route to my new house!) and will have a whole new office to setup. My needs have changed a lot since I set up my old office around 12 years ago, and it’s going to take a lot of thinking and acquiring of furniture and tools, and probably a bunch of iterations before I settle on a final configuration. I’ve been slowly working my way through the book Structuring Life to Support Creativity by Sandra Tayler so I’ll probably be using some of the exercises there to help me along.
A few things already on my wishlist: I’d like a more dedicated space with better lighting for painting, journaling and photography, as well as better storage for the related tools. My dog would like a space for napping. It might be nice to have a reading/knitting chair for when I want peace and quiet. I’ll be working remotely some of the time so I may need to plan more carefully for privacy when on a call, too.
2. Crafting for my new climate
I’m moving to a much colder area, which leaves lots of room for knitting new accessories and clothes, and maybe some for sewing too. I expect to be making up some warmer mitts and hats and scarves and sweaters, but also possibly adjusting my stash and tools and pattern collections to support more heavyweight knitting.
3. Painting with Fountain Pen Ink
Towards the end of 2025 I got into watercolour painting, and I’d like to mess around more with applying those skills and tools to my fountain pen ink collection. I keep thinking about it and not actually sitting down and doing it, which makes it a perfect candidate for a yearly goal so that I make time!
4. Write for joy
Writing was my substitute goal part eat through last year, but I think i’d like to carry it over for 2026 even though I don’t usually do that. I’m going to tweak the goal just a teensy bit for this year and specify that I want to write for joy.
Writing has brought me a lot of joy in 2025 and especially with so many big changes coming for me in 2026 I want to re-affirm that writing for fun (and not just necessary work documentation type stuff) is still a priority to me. Mostly I think this will take the form of more fanfic and personal journal entries, but it could mean conference talks or blog posts or original fiction too. I’ve got a story I want to finish and more I’ve barely started, I want to try more writing prompts, and I think maybe in 2026 I’ll finally try participating in a story gift exchange? There’s a bunch of other ideas down in my brainstorming section that might be worth doing too. I don’t know, but as long as it’s fun it’s going to count. The big idea behind it all is that I need to make sure I have time and space for writing and keep up a regular writing habit even as my schedule changes.
Other brainstorming ideas
These are ideas that didn’t make the cut above, but I like to record them anyhow in case I feel like working on them even if they’re not a big focus of my year.
Writing: talk transcripts/associated blog posts. I have a lot of older talks that I never really made blog posts about.
Writing: more ao3 comments. I love getting comments but I sometimes forget to leave them on other people’s stuff because I read offline a lot! I really need a better system and practice for making sure I leave comments/kudos more often because my current system is not working out great.
Writing: Hone my craft. It’s been a long time since I went to writer’s workshops or anything and honestly I feel like it’d be weird to go into that sort of thing when I’m primarily writing fanfic, but it might be fun to pick up some books on writing or listen to some podcasts or something.
Fiber art: A use what you have goal. My overflowing bins are minis and sets, so maybe one of those?
Fiber art: Publish a pattern. I’ve got at least one that’s 80% ready and would just need photos and stuff.
Fiber art: mending. I always have some to do but maybe it would be good to focus on doing a bit every month?
Fiber art: find a local crafting group?
Painting: complete some kind of challenge, book, lessons?
Music: find a choir? re-join the band? something else?
Games: More silly Scratch games
Games: Learn a “real” engine? (which one?)
Games: Try making html games. are there frameworks for this?
This is crossposted from Curiousity.ca, my personal maker blog. If you want to link to this post, please use the original link since the formatting there is usually better.
I realized that my original plan to run a stash-focused social media event wasn’t something I wanted to do any more, so I swapped that one to be the more vague but intensely more fun “write more.”
August: Used up some leftover gradients for a sock (goals: self-striping, top to toes). Started a cable sweater (goals: complicated cables, knit a sweater)
September/October: Fall Finish or Frog Along! This is my favourite social media event where we finish languishing projects or reclaim the parts and let them go.
I wanted to focus on finishing things that would allow me to start packing parts of my craft supplies (goal: lesser used crafts, Whittle down the WIPs), so I finished a last couple of spins on my big wooden spinning wheel then packed it up:
A handspun skein of yarn in mixed purples is being held in front of a hydrangea bush that is trending towards hot pink and brown flowers but still has some purple left.
And I finished the sampler scarf I’d had on my loom and failed to finish last year, then packed up the loom:
A sampler scarf showing different textures and weaving techniques, done in blue and grey yarns.
A box with a disassembled loom in it.
Honestly, I’m not sure I’ll be pulling the loom out and re-assembling it anytime soon after I get moved, given how I felt about that last project.
I also made up a little “Chillow Collar” knitted jewellery kit that had been in my stash a while (goal: kits in stash). I totally failed to do some quilting or finish the sand seal my kid had started before he got bored of the sewing. I did get a bunch of work in on my fall sweater before abandoning it for October MKALs, though!
November: Working on xmas presents. They did use some stash yarn I had earmarked for projects, so they fit a few old goals! (goals: gradients, kits in stash)
December: One of my old goals was “toys” so I’m counting the gnome for that! plus I am still working on a sweater which was also an old goal.
Overall, this was a fun goal to recognize 10 years, but it didn’t turn out to be as fun as I hoped. Still a success but I think I’d have been better off choosing a specific goal or two to revisit rather than wading through the whole pile of them every month to find something to do.
Try Something New
I was feeling a bit burned out on coming up with ideas for this goal so I mentally de-prioritized it, but without trying to plan for it I wound up doing some fun new things anyhow:
August: I tried a little bit of bookbinding and then some soap-shaping with my kid. We didn’t work with lye or anything, he just melted soap blocks into fun shapes, and now we have a bunch of tiny soaps with polished rocks in them that he likes to dig out once they’re close to done.
September: This month was “fall finish or frog along” so I didn’t start anything particularly new.
October: Watercolour painting exercises from random books at the library. Some of them turned out really nice!
A watercolour painting of three mixed drinks with ice and garnishes.
I also did some hand lettering exercises, but didn’t get as far with that.
November: More watercolours. Also I had to learn an entire web development framework in a “language not on my resume” for a tech interview, which was fun but tiring.
A botanical watercolour painting featuring wild roses and berries. there is a paintbrush and a box with a palette holding the painting on the corners.
December: I’m also counting the gnome for this because it’s my first time knitting one in DK weight yarn, so I need to adjust the tools I use. And Imagined Landscapes often throws in a new technique or two to play with so who knows maybe i’ll learn something.
So even though I’d been planning to mostly drop this goal, I did some fun new things and didn’t stress about it and it was great. Absolutely finished this one out perfectly.
Write more
Kept chugging on fanfics, including writing for another event. I spent a lot of time in “writing sprints” where we kind of turn writing into something that’s a cross between a pomodoro timer and parallel play. I’ve had writing be a bit social back when I used to write for the Geek Feminism blog, but this is differently social and I love it. I’m starting to understand why every novel I read lately thanks their writing group.
For the blog, I’ve been keeping up with the monthly stationary posts. I’d hoped to spend some more time writing tech stuff in conjunction with my slow job hunt so my blog would look more nerdy again, but I haven’t gotten around to that as much. Turns out planning an international move eats up a lot of time, plus we had more than one medical emergency, and then I spent 3 weeks solo parenting while J flew to Canada to prep our new house. Oh, and I hit my head badly after the dog took off after a squirrel, and healing head injuries is rough and made worse by the fact that most of the signs you’re supposed to watch for are things that I experience regularly: headaches, dizziness, nausea.
The fanfic experience this year has been fantastic and the writing sprints have improved my life and honestly probably my mental health. If you combine the blog and fanfic I’ve published over 100k words this year and have written more that’s still in drafts or got edited out. So this goal has been a huge success!
Game Design
I got really into making silly games in Scratch with my kid and for my fandom friends in the fall, so this was a huge winner.
I still want to work in some less kid-oriented frameworks, but I’ve actually been really pleased with the amount of stuff they packed into Scratch. It’s been fun to look at the stupid mobile games and stuff my kid sees streamers play and think “Hey, we could make that in Scratch” so I think we’ll have some more fun prototyping silly ideas about how to make games better.
Also, I love that kiddo and I have been having real conversations about game design and fun and difficulty curves and art assets and stuff. I may need to see about joining some game design oriented communities the way I’ve been enjoying fandom communities if I want to turn this from a casual sometimes thing to a regular activity in my life, but for now kid and I are having a good time together. So I declare this goal a success!
Conclusions
Honestly, I think these weren’t the best goals: obviously the stash thing didn’t work out, and I think maybe revisiting old goals and doing “something new” were both a bit too open-ended and looking through that big list of previous years goals wasn’t as fun as I thought it would be. That’s probably because this was a year of burnout so I could have used more direction from my past self (but I was already very burned out last year when I was putting these goals together, so it is what it is). I got a lot out of the 2025 goals in the end, but it was a bit more of a struggle than fiber goals have been for me in previous years. Of course, everything has been a bit of a struggle this year so maybe the goals aren’t to blame.
For my personal goals tracking, I switched to re-writing the goals in my monthly journal spreads, then recording one or two things I planned to do to fill them, or added things after when I wrapped up the month. It made writing these wrap-up posts a lot easier! I think it helped me to have them where I was checking off completed projects so I saw them when I was deciding what to work on next, too. One of the things I enjoy about using a blank journal rather than one with preset pages is that I can slowly tweak these things as I find different things I need to record or keep in the front of my mind.
I still love the idea of fiber goals, but I think it’s fair to say that I’m stretching out from fiber right now and that’s unlikely to change in 2026. So I’m going to keep the idea of “have goals for things that bring you joy” going, but switch to calling them “Creative goals” for next year. Stay tuned tomorrow for what those goals will be!
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