Somehow It's Another Year

Good Riddance 2025

Hey Friends. I’m a little embarrassed that I let a couple years slide by without any new posts. I’ve been so busy with my small business, full-time job, and being a mom & wife. I kept getting the emails that I had a new subscriber and I’d think, I should maybe carve out some time to make a new post. Then I never did and the new subscriber emails kept coming, but I still didn’t make time. I’m sorry about that. In this new year, I really want to get back to writing here and sharing my normal life, small business journey, and what I’m making. I’m always making things. I’m not great at documenting it, but I love when I can go back and see what I did. A lot of the past year was a blur and I can’t believe how quickly it seems like it went.

Here’s a quick reflection of 2025. Well, what I can remember anyway. I’m going back through my photos to see what I can remember.

To start the year off, my grandma passed away 11 days into the new year. She was an artist and painted many scenes and buildings around Charleston, SC. She was an integral part of my own art journey. For as long as I can remember, I’d go stay with her during the summer and she’d set me up with paints and a canvas board in her studio. She even took me with her to art classes a couple times where she had me working with clay while she worked on still life. I loved showing her what I was working on the through the years and getting her feedback. I am certainly feeling that loss. I have her easel sitting on my desk and a pile of art supplies I got from her studio.

Not too long after the funeral, I found out I picked up COVID for the first time. I had avoided it for 5 years. This was happening while the Tik Tok stuff was happening. You know when it went down and then magically suspiciously came back the next day? While I was holed up in my room, bed bound, I worked on whatever handicrafts I could access without infecting the whole house. Luckily, I had some bedside hexies and some fabric scraps that I could work on.

In March, I visited my local Joann’s for the last time and that was also the month I taught myself how to make reed baskets. Several years ago I thrifted a basket making book and some time after that I bought some reed. Both set untouched in my room and under my bed until March of 2025 when I suddenly had the notion to make a basket. I think it came about because I wanted a basket for collecting eggs and remembered I had the reed. Why buy one for $9.99 when I can make one with materials I already have that I only just now remembered I had? I made 4 pretty decent baskets and then my brain was like “okay we did that. What’s next?” I don’t know how other people operate, but for me, I get a thing in my head and I have to execute it immediately. Then once I’ve done it, I can move on.

In May of 2025, I started a knitting project. A open sides vest called the Blomstring Slipover by Fiber Tales. I finished the front and I am working on the back piece of it now. Boy did those bobble stitches stick a wrench in my motivation, but I did eventually get through them. Now, I just have to hope I have enough yarn. I bought this yarn from Cary, NC on a trip. I believe I may have written about it in a previous newsletter. I started knitting the Schemer Slipover by Apella Knits with this yarn and was about 65% done, but I could not figure out how to do the short rows needed for the shoulder shaping. Project abandoned. After some time, I frogged it and let the yarn cakes sit in a vintage Little Mermaid lunch box until I decided on what to make with it.

I started a quilt top in June. I made a whole bunch of nine patches made with scraps from previous projects. This was a project that I was locked in on until I finished the whole quilt top. It’s now just sitting waiting to be basted. What’s the hold up? I don’t have room to lay it out on the floor to put the basting pins in. Maybe it’s worth it to send it off to be quilted?

In August of 2025, my business (Cotton & Ochre if you’re new here) celebrated 2 years of being around. The growth has been slow, but it is there. Coming into 2025 with the looming tariffs, I was really worried about what would happen and was willing to pivot to keep this going. Everything seems to be fine and the tariffs aren’t affecting me as much as I thought. I was able to introduce a few more products that are all made in the USA. I also launched my personal label design service in February which has been really popular and fun for me, but it’s something that I have a limited bandwidth for right now.

I love when I see people share photos of the beautiful handmade things they put my labels on. There’s a lot of woven labels out there on the market, and it still baffles me that people choose mine. I’m trying to figure out something cute to celebrate year 3.

Since the last newsletter, we added 21 new chickens for a total of 25. We built two more coops. One is an A-frame, and one is a hoop coop. They aren’t laying much now since it’s Winter, but I bet once Spring rolls around we’ll be swimming in eggs. It’s kinda funny how that works because I love baking more in the Winter!

Speaking of eggs, I have been working on a wee little farm stand to set at the road for our excess eggs. I started it in the Spring of 2025, but stalled out in the Summer because it was so dang hot outside. One of my goals, for this year is to finish it up. I want to have a little pantry in there and hopefully a little library if I can figure out how to make it safe from rain. I’ve been so inspired by Jenna’s (@theladywholunches on instagram) little library and how she’s been keeping pantry items stocked in it. You never know who is struggling out there, and a lot of people are embarrassed to reach out for help. I love that it’s discreet, but it can have a big impact.

In November 2025, I pledged my business to donate 10% of my profits to a local food pantry/kitchen. They are really showing up for the community with the hot meals and they have a huge pantry stocked that anyone can shop for FREE. I ended up doing 10% of total sales of November and sent them $250. Thanks to Sadie at Spaghetti Western Sewing’s Hurry Home X Rue Coat QAL, I had a ton of customers that month. One thing I always looked forward to when I started my business was being able to donate to non-profits. I hope I can grow even more and this can become a more frequent, maybe monthly thing. I encourage everyone to donate to them or your own local pantry that’s out there doing the work, if you’re able.

These past couple years I feel like my full-time job has taken hostage over my personal creative outlets and I’ve had to fight for every minute I was able to make something. There were many times where I took what time I could and let myself catch on work later. I still remember a thing Jessica Hische said many many years ago in an interview or maybe it was a talk she did. She had this term called “procrastiworking” and said that she would work on the stuff she wanted to do first, then do the stuff she needed to do after she was done. Which isn’t as easy to do when you work for an agency with real deadlines, daily expectations, and everything is urgent. Every now and then I get these strong urges to work on a specific thing, and I can’t make my brain work on the stuff for my job. It really puts me in a lot of situations where I’m not doing my best work and I’m cramming at the last minute because I couldn’t function until I got that specific thing done. If I think about it, I’ve always struggled with any type of sit down and work type tasks unless it was one I imposed on myself. In high school, I’d avoid writing papers by rearranging my room. Then I’d stay up until 2am the day it’s due writing my paper. These days I’m making baskets instead of writing code and piecing a quilt top instead of piecing together a deck. I hope I can get a better handle on carving out my personal project time, because I’m always in a better place all around when I can get those things done and out my brain.

Historically, the time between Christmas and Easter, is a time where I do a lot of knitting and reading. I’m looking forward to clearing my mind of whatever cool thing I saw on instagram and just getting back to what I want to do and making sure I’m doing everything intentionally. If you read this whole thing, you’re amazing and I appreciate you! Let me know what you’d like me to share more about in my newsletter. Here’s to more of everything that makes me happy.