Monthly Archives: December 2025

Fiber Goals 2025 – How Did I Do?

by

This year’s goals were as follows:

  1. Revisit Old Goals
  2. Try Something New
  3. Something Stash Something Write more
  4. Game Design

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.”

Here’s the mid-year check-in:

Fiber Goals 2025 mid-year check-in

Revisit Old Goals

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.
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 sampler scarf showing different textures and weaving techniques, done in blue and grey yarns.
A box with a disassembled loom in it.
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.
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.
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!

2025 Diamine Inkvent Teal – Day 5-8

by

Second set of Inkvent inks! Yes, I’m behind. It’s been an absurd month as we prepare to move, with our entire plans getting derailed repeatedly, but most of this week’s news has been good so here’s hoping!

Swatches from day 5-8 of the Diamine Inkvent Teal (2025) calendar. The colours are named Marie Rose, Fir & Fob, Blush and Dream Catcher.

Day 5: Marie Rose. Kind of an orange-brown that shows a bit of black at the edge of the bigger swatches. I wondered why it was names “rose” when at best it might be a really desiccated old rose petal colour, but apparently it’s named after a type of sauce and not after the plant. I actually don’t have anything particularly close to this colour and it’s a nice uncomplicated standard ink so it’ll definitely get used even though it’s a colour I might never have thought to buy.

Day 6: Fir & Fog. Beautiful blue-leaning green with iridescent shimmer. It makes me think more of spruce than fir trees but I don’t think most people think that deeply about their evergreens. Love it. I’d probably get this even without the shimmer; it’s a really nice colour. Plus the name really makes me feel like Pacific Northwest winter, where I see the big Douglas Firs looming out of the fog many mornings.

The same Diamine Inkvent Teal day 5-8 swatches shown with the camera at a different angle to show shimmer & sheen better.
The same Diamine Inkvent Teal day 5-8 swatches shown with the camera at a different angle to show shimmer & sheen better.

Day 7: Blush. Pink. This one goes on the page looking like fresh nosebleed (look, I was one of those kids and I’m very familiar with what a drop of fresh blood looks like on the page) but it dries pleasantly into a red-leaning pink. I think the closest colour I have is Pilot Iroshuziku Momiji which is more pink and less red. I’ve been struggling to use Momiji in palettes because it’s a bit too bright, so I think the slightly more muted feeling Blush is going to fit in really well.

Day 8: Dream Catcher. There is so much pink sheen that you can barely see the base colour, but it is actually blue. This is fun but *very* similar to last year’s Cosmic Glow, so even though it’s lovely it maybe wasn’t quite as exciting as it would have been if I didn’t have last year’s colour. I had to really stare at them together to see that Dream Catcher’s base blue is subtly more greenish than Cosmic Glow’s (but it’s not as far over as Vibe, also in last year’s inkvent). I have a few other similar blue-with-pink-sheen inks but none of them have as much sheen as these so they feel pretty different.

Dream Catcher and Cosmic Glow swatches showing that they have the same colour of pink sheen but slightly different base colours.
Dream Catcher and Cosmic Glow swatches showing that they have the same colour of pink sheen but slightly different base colours.
Dream Catcher and Cosmic Glow swatches shown at an angle so the sheen is less visible and you can see that they have slightly different base shades of blue, with Dream Catcher leaning slightly more greenish
Dream Catcher and Cosmic Glow swatches shown at an angle so the sheen is less visible and you can see that they have slightly different base shades of blue, with Dream Catcher leaning slightly more greenish.


Even though Dream Catcher is nearly a dupe and a colour family that’s already over-represented in my collection, these are all very pretty and will definitely get used. If I had to guess, Blush is the one that’ll get used most often because I have wanted a different pink for a while, but I’m really in love with the spruce green of Fir & Fog plus the name will make me think of the pacific northwest winter.

2025 Diamine Inkvent Teal – Day 1-4

by

Every week this month I’ve had to completely re-evaluate all my plans and expectations. So I got a late start with Inkvent after a sudden emergency, but I’ve been swatching inks daily since I caught up and it has been a nice ritual amidst the chaos. Turns out the chaos of a house in the middle of packing makes for terrible photography conditions so I haven’t been keeping up with that so much, but here’s the first few swatches from when I was lucky enough to get a day with ok light.

Four swatches of Ink from the 2025 Diamine Inkvent fountain pen ink calendar. The ink swatiches are named Celestial Skies, Energy, Carousel, and Smoky Tobacco and they're described in more detail in the post.

Day 1: Celestial Skies. Lovely lightly teal-leaning blue with a touch of red sheen and gold shimmer. This was amazing in the dip pen — lots of shimmer and the sheen around every letter looks spectacular. If it looks half as good in a regular pen this will be a treat.

Day 2: Energy: purple with green sheen. Looks cooler in the swatch than in regular writing but I really like the underlying purple and don’t mind the sheen but I wish it was a little less intense so you could see more of the purple through it. Since the dip pen tends to be wetter and thus showcase more sheen, I may like this one a lot better in a regular pen. But it’ll be usable either way.

The same Inkvent Teal day1-4 swatches at a slight angle to showcase sheen and shimmer better.

Day 3: Carousel. Red with a very tiny bit of gold sheen that makes it look like enamel paint. I really love it. This one is listed as a pigment ink. I didn’t think to test how waterproof it was but it was definitely harder to clean off my tools. I’ve been looking for a “correction pen red” kind of colour so I’m pretty delighted to have this one even if I may need to be careful to put it only in pens I can clean easily.

Day 4: Smoky Tobacco. Brown with a tobacco scent. I saw someone describe this as smelling like cancer. It definitely made my nose unhappy when I had the bottle open for a bit, so I’m probably minorly allergic to this, or it smells enough of tobacco that it’s brining back bad memories of all the second hand smoke one used to inhale in restaurants and bars before cigarette bans started to happen. Thankfully the smell doesn’t seem to linger on the page and once I realized my nose was running and closed the bottle I was able to write with it okay so it could just be that there’s a bit more alcohol in there than usual and it won’t be an issue in practice. It’s a nice enough brown with a bit of a black sheen on the iroful paper (not pictured, my swatches on Rhodia) and I don’t have anything particularly similar, but we’ll see if the smell is a dealbreaker in practice.

I think of these four, Celestial Skies will be the first one to go into a pen and I might not even wait until the end of the month.

December 2025 Ink and life

by

I knew that this month was very likely to go off the rails with our upcoming move, but that didn’t mean I didn’t have hopes even as I tried to build slack into my plans. One of the things I’d hoped was that I’d be able to take a little time out of my day and do Inkvent swatches and journalling as a bit of a meditative practice in the face of chaos. Turns out chaos was stronger than that and I’ve been mostly offline for the first few days of the month, but I’m catching up and getting into it now.

Ink

No ink palette for this month — I’m writing half of my journal entries with the day’s Inkvent ink using my dip pen with the reservoir and finishing them out with whatever pens I still have inked. I might swap inks eventually but there’s basically no colour scheme going on here.

The front of the Diamine Inkvent Calendar, Teal edition. It's a box with numbered doors on it and each one has a new mini vial of ink behind it. The design features a wintery scene.
The front of the Diamine Inkvent Calendar, Teal edition. It’s a box with numbered doors on it and each one has a new mini vial of ink behind it. The design features a wintery scene.

I am making swatches of each ink as I go, so I’ll probably start posting those in groups or something if things have really settled down enough to allow for that.

Stickers:

  • Christmas bears by Kawaiihentaii
  • Holiday squirrels by Nettle & Twig
  • Shiny snowflakes don’t list an artist, just stickii.
Three sticker sheets from stickii wth seasonal themes and three washi tapes, one very thin one in a larger holder.

Other Stuff

It’s been a rough month and we’re only a few days in, but I’m still working on holiday knitting and haven’t started the advent-style knitting I had planned because emergencies took precedence over winding yarn. The house is starting to look like we’re prepping for a move with boxes starting to pile up, and kid’s got a big countdown chain to help him visualize how many days before the end of school I’ve got a cough at the moment that has kept me out of choir, which honestly is a bit of a blessing because it’s one less thing to worry about. But we’re surviving and we were lucky enough to have a friend visiting when the worst went down, so I’m feeling tired but supported and hopeful that we’re making our way through it all.