December 2024: Still Baby Steps I Guess
December Goals:
Garb:
Definitely finish Juana’s camisa
Classes and Research:
Continue work on the survey for the Juana outfit.
Work on the recipes for the Food That Built Spain class
Read Delicioso: A History of Food In Spain
For the last several years, December has been a month of travel for me. It makes it a fantastic time to work on major research projects like Persona Pentathlon and new classes for Winter University, but not so great for things like working on garb. It’s a mistake I make almost every year, setting myself garb goals in December and December 2024 was no exception. This year, The Foods That Build Spain class was my December priority, and finishing the new camisa for Juana’s outfit a secondary one.
The camisa facing was a fantastic Unevent project though. By virtue of needing something to do while sitting for several hours on a weekend, the tabletop embroidery frame was my best friend that weekend. It allowed me to participate easily while still keeping myself engaged and occupied during the slow times. I’m working on some feedback from Crown to improve my embroidery, so it’s going a little slower than originally planned, but I’m pleased with the outcomes so far.
Travel and illness made this month a less than productive month unfortunately. I was in California for a week, celebrating a year of hard work and successes with my coworkers, and came home with some weird travel crud that laid me up for about another week. I did get some work done on the embroidery, but I certainly did not get as much as I wanted to done.
What I did get done was the reading and research work I wanted to for my upcoming class. I read through Delicioso, transcribed my notes and learnings, and started in on a few papers also for the foods class. Travel does make for one thing and that’s plenty of reading and research time! We did also use some holiday down time to start doing some cleaning and reorganizing, and finally I got some long overdue art put up on the wall.
Thinking about 2025, and the fact that we are definitely moving, I’m going to spend time early in the year working on clearing out my stash. I’ve got a lot of fabric that I’ve been holding on for no good reason, and some that I have very good reasons for that I just haven’t motivated myself to getting around to. So those are the projects I’m going to work on first. This may mean the Juana outfit gets put off a little longer in favor of other stash-busting projects, but I can live with that. I’ll still be focused on completing the camisa first though!
January Goals:
Garb:
Finish one motif each day until the Juana camisa facing is finished. I have 11 left to do.
Finish assembling the camisa.
Classes and Research:
Continue work on the survey for the Juana outfit.
Work on the recipes for the Food That Built Spain class
Finalize handout and slides for The Foods That Built Spain
