January 2026 – Confessions of a Fibre Strumpet

January 28th already? A month almost come and gone. Plans not started, some still taking shape, others showing little green shoots. It’s a work in progress.

I ruminated on my word for this year for some time. Knowing its flavour, but not the precise ingredients. I was pondering the taste of it, back in December, when I felt the need to recentre myself, reclaim my drive and get back to enjoying me, wholeheartedly.

So it makes perfect sense now that my word for 2026 is intent.

Not INTENT, all shouty, harsh capital letters that scream a challenge at me to focus on the path ahead, but an understated intent. Lowercase i, with its gentle message to make better choices where possible for head, heart and hands. (The prolific maker in me just couldn’t acknowledge the part my hands have to play in my everyday life and sanity.)

With that in mind, it’s time to pull up my socks and get back to my biggest flop of last year. The Appleoak Fibreworks One-Year Professional Dyers Course, which I started in 2025 and never truly got my teeth into. Despite its name, participants actually have two years to complete the course, which is rather helpful given the amount of information included.

I enrolled on the course as a way to build on what I already knew about natural dyeing. Document more, clarify my knowledge, document more, improve my techniques, learn more, document more and not skip past the areas or colours (purple) that hold little interest to me. Did I mention document more? I am the world’s worst at taking notes, legible ones, in a notebook, the same notebook, that I can refer back to later.

I did complete most of the reading and a good bit of the coursework throughout the year, but I’ve decided it might be best to start again, as there were aspects of the dyeing that I messed up. Most notably, my indigo vats, which I had to remake. We were given a new topic each month, with the actual dyeing beginning in March with Tannins. It was an incredible amount of work and it’s the one chapter that I’m fairly confident I did correctly, but my note taking was next to useless, so I’ll have to repeat everything again.

Before I get there, I’m going to have to do an inventory of my dye stuffs and materials to see if any of them need re-stocking. The costs involved with taking the course are not insignificant and I don’t think I had budgeted well for the extra items I needed along the way. At least by working out what extras I’ll need to complete the course now, I should avoid anymore nasty suprises.

There has, of course, been fibrecrafting, although nowhere near as much as usual. Much of my making time has been given over to researching things on the computer or in books and there is only so much spare time in the day. The time that is additional to what is required for ordinary use (as per the dictionary) must also come when one has the energy to put it to good use. In other words, sitting down a little after 9pm most nights isn’t conducive to getting too much knitting done. This is one area where change is ongoing. I love knitting, my brain prefers it when I knit and my hands hate me when I don’t.

None of my current WIPs was doing it for me, though, so I finally decided to cast on a Lento, using yarn from my stash. My plan to make a workhorse jumper that I can throw on with my uniform of long sleeve t-shirt and dungarees, has gone slightly awry when I saw how amazing the two yarns I’m using look together.

Just look at the beautiful blue.

The jumper is feeling just a little too classy for everyday wear currently.

I also need to get this basic asymmetrical shawl cast off. It’s been on my needles since December 2025 and I could really do with it this Winter.

Before I forget.

I was delighted to receive the Long Draw issue of Ply Magazine on Monday. Courtesy of my beautiful daughter, who renewed my lapsed subscription for Christmas (love that woman). Long Draw is a technique I would love to master, in the hopes of eventually spinning a jumper’s quantity of fluff.

I guess I should sign off now and see if I can’t squeeze a couple of rows in on my Lento before bed.

Happy Making

2025 was meant to be my year of RELEARNING.

Not learning, as I wasn’t setting out to learn anything new.

Rather, I wanted to review my knowledge base and pick out the bits that I’d skipped over because I could. I felt like perhaps they had left holes in my understanding.

It was a two-pronged plan.

Relearning many of the things I had taught myself, like weaving, natural dyeing, knitting and spinning, because when you’re self-taught, it’s far too easy to skip past the things that don’t make your heart sing. After all, why would I need to learn how to make a natural purple dye when it’s my least favourite colour?
Relearning who I was. Getting to know the parts of me that no longer felt relevant and feeling out the perimenopausal me as I head towards a life without natural estrogen. (natural, because I will be sucking estrogen pastilles morning, noon and night if they ever become available)

Most importantly, I was going to record my progress. Here, ideally, but somewhere, anywhere that I could, just so I had a record to come back to.

On reflection, some of this did come to fruition, and 2025 was a good year in many ways, most notably with the births of two new grandsons (no estrogen here, either, it seems). Both my daughter and eldest son welcomed a little boy to each of their families, having now become parents of two sons each.

I took a weaving course at the ETB and realised my knowledge base was pretty good after all – massive confidence boost right there, which has reflected in my ability to teach others and pass that knowledge on.

I continued in my role as Chairperson of The Handweavers Guild of Cork and helped organise an exhibition to mark our 45th Anniversary, the first in many years.

I taught four or five people how to spin, which still amazes me.

I finished teaching an art project with young people from the Traveller Community that I’d started the year before and was delighted to see the reactions of their friends and families when their work went on show at the Traveller Pride Event in Dungarvan.

I also managed to tap into myself a little. I kept up with my exercise regimen from the year before and tried to make small changes in my personal life.

There were massive failures, though and if I’m being honest with myself, they were because I felt completely untethered. I felt like I was watching myself through a lens for most of 2025. One step removed from reality. Going through the motions, rather than being an active participant.

I’m amazed I actually managed to achieve the things I did, given how I felt most of the time.

The feeling was all encompassing and along with feeling detached, I couldn’t shake the sense of disbelief at a world gone mad. Seeing images of death and destruction across all of my social media platforms, but not so much in the mainstream news, has left me feeling hollowed out.

Making has always been my happy place, my downtime, my meditation, but not so much in 2025. My head was too busy, too unhappy, to stay focused on anything for too long and even if I did, was it right to document it, especially on a public forum?

The world is on fire and the flames are getting bigger, as the unbelievable events of this week prove, but I think I’ve come to accept that it’s ok to be angry and still create.

It’s even ok to document what I’ve been making.

It’s especially ok to enjoy life as much as you can. It’s no small thing to be safe, have food to eat, shelter and family and friends to love.

I was coming here to write about my intentions for 2026 and put my word for this year on the record anyway, but I wanted to reflect on 2025 first and mention a post I read on Substack this week that resonates with how I feel. It’s by Gina Luker and largely about what’s happening in America, but it’s also happening worldwide, in real time.

Back soon with the knitting, dyeing, spinning, etc. I just needed to get that off my chest.

💙