A Slow Start to 2025 (A Recap of January to March)
I cannot believe that we have gone through the first quarter of 2025 already! It’s a mystery how time goes so fast! Is it that I’m older and it seems to move faster than when I was younger? Is it that I feel busier than ever and that’s where the time is going? Answers on a postcard friends! – Or in the comments down below! 😉
Disclaimer: This is a personal blog entry and you will not learn anything from reading this other than my thoughts and feelings, which will help you to know me better! 🙂
A Much Needed Holiday in Morocco
In January we went to Morocco for the first time. It was a somewhat last minute trip that D booked as we were both desperately in need of some time away.
We stayed at a Riad inside Marrakech’s old city walls, and it was a lovely experience. There was a (very cold) rooftop pool, lots of nooks to sit and soak up some sunshine, and a built in ‘spa’ so we were able to indulge in hammam (traditional Moroccan bath) and even had a massage on the penultimate day.
For me, the relaxing part was being able to switch off and enjoy drawing a little each day. I drew D mostly, but also some of the place where we were staying. I’ll add some photos of my sketchbook below!
Visiting Family
After the holiday I then travelled to the UK. I hadn’t been home to see family since October 2024, and my younger brother was going to be in court as a witness to the road collision incident that my young niece was in. It’s the kind of thing you say ‘accident’ for, but it wasn’t an accident. It was dangerous and negligent on the driver’s part, and my niece is only still with us because of my brother’s very quick thinking.
I won’t go into the details, because it’s unpleasant and shocking and will always upset me to think about it, but I went to court with my brother, he gave evidence, and the person being prosecuted was found guilty and dealt with according to the law. Win!
After that was over – by then it had been almost one year since the collision – I was finally able to relax with family, and we made lovely memories spending time together before I had to return home and get back to work.
A New Family Member!
My eldest niece had her first baby in February, and it happened to be the same day that we had our first snow fall of 2025!
I won’t be sharing any photos of Baby M here, because her privacy is the most important thing but I can tell you she was safely delivered, my niece did an amazing job, and I cannot wait to meet baby M as soon as possible!
Here are some photos of the snow day – I walked and walked while waiting for updates on how both H and Baby M were doing!
Health Struggles Impacting My Personal Projects
I really struggled this quarter with an ongoing health issue. I have something wrong with my thyroid, and it has impacted on so much, from the clothes I can wear to the amount of sleep I get at night and more.
If you see me wearing necklines that look ‘wrong’ because they’re just a fraction lower than is usual for a style, it’s not that I drafted them wrong, it’s that I need that space to feel comfortable.
I think that’s another thing that comes with age – understanding the various needs of others more.
I’ve always been an empathetic person, but I have also been (and probably always will be) a little bit rude in judging what others make and wear. It’s probably from training as a fashion designer, and thinking with a ‘commercial’ head and not a ‘functional/comfort first’ head.
Mostly my judgy-ness comes down to personal design ‘taste’ and I have never, EVER shared my thoughts with others, because what I think looks ridiculous, others would call amazing, and vice versa. Fashion, like art, is subjective and nobody needs to hear my opinion on how something looks on them. Like my Ma would say, if you can’t say something nice, say nothing.
She also said I was ‘too honest for my own good’ as I always thought honesty was the best policy, but honesty can be very hurtful and it took me more years than it should have to understand what she meant by that.
Now that I need a lowered neckline to feel just slightly more comfortable, I understand why others might make and wear what they do.
New Website Update!
In February, I also worked on a much needed overhaul of this website. I wanted the design to be cleaner, and more in line with what I have over at my online Eve Token shop site, which I think I’ve achieved.
The navigation also needed to be cleaned up so that it wasn’t such a struggle for readers to find what they were in need of. Now we have clear category tabs, with sub categories for you to really narrow down on what you’re searching for.
Comments I have received since the redesign suggests that I have nailed it, and I am so happy that the feedback has been so positive! I am always open to suggestions though, so if there is anything that you find ‘wrong’ or inconsistent, please do let me know in the comments below – even positive feedback is welcome too!
My Spring Work Schedule
Since giving up my office last year due to the cost and its unsuitability for the work I needed to get completed, my work schedule has mostly had to fit in around D’s. He was on a non-official sabbatical from late June last year so home all the time.. which made sticking to my normal schedule very tricky.
In February he was diving back into a full teaching semester – they have a different academic year structure here compared to what we’re used to in the UK – and I knew it would be chaos with a very early start each day and very few weekends free of work to do anything else. Even the garden fell into disarray!
For me, this would be a good thing. I can get a lot more done when I am working from home alone. There are fewer interruptions and I have more of a workday structure too. Which means I can batch create a lot of video content, which will then see me through the later part of the year.
Not that I need any new video content. I recorded so much in 2024 that is still unseen, but you will start seeing that this year! Exciting!
Getting Ahead For The Year
I had hoped that I would be getting ahead for the year this quarter so that I would have a quieter period over summer to join D on his research trips.
This is because I find that the summer is too hot to create visual content, whether photo tutorials or video tutorials. The home we have here has tall windows that do not open on the front of the building, which limits air circulation, and the sun beams through for most of the morning.
By the time the sun has moved around to the back, the front rooms are too hot to work in (even if the curtains have been kept closed) and we then have the windows, doors and curtains closed on the back rooms to keep the heat at bay there.
The ‘in between’ area is often low in light to actually film or photograph content. Catch 22!
This year, in February the light just wasn’t good enough to start the video content, so I have been working on product creation which is actually desperately needed to top up my income. If you didn’t see it, I wrote a post about how Ai and continual harsh Google Algorithm updates have decimated the income I earn via ads – which is how I have kept my blog tutorials and guides free for so long!
Product Creation Plans
The products I have been working on in February and March are sewing patterns! People are buying the two I already have available:
- Charlie Circle Skirt: a set of templates for different circle skirts that take the math out of making a circle skirt.
- Rowan Roll: created because I needed something to organise my drawing supplies for when I draw outside, it’s loved by artists for their art supplies and sewers for the sewing tools!
So it makes sense to add to my library of patterns, and the first two I’ve been working on are a newborn onesie and a hip/sling bag.
The Newborn Onesie
The Newborn Onesie pattern is something I created as I was making one for my new great-niece who was born in February! I already wrote about how excited I was for my niece who was expecting her first baby, and the inner struggle after learning last year that I wouldn’t be having any children of my own…
One of the things I will miss from not becoming a Mum myself is making clothes for a daughter or son, so being able to put my skills to use and create for Baby M has brought me so much joy!
And as Baby M grows, I can keep making my children’s clothing patterns bigger in size, which means they’ll be available to others to buy in the future.
The adorable newborn onesie pattern was a great test, and has been downloaded more times than I expected! Yay!
The Hawthorn Hip Bag
The other pattern I’ve been working on is the Hawthorn Hip Bag, which I also plan to sell as a sewing kit.
It’s been a little frustrating as just when it was ready to go to the final sample stage, I saw in an email from another indie designer that they were also working on a hip bag pattern that looked very similar to mine.
With this in mind, I changed the design and went back to prototyping, so it isn’t ready to be released this quarter, but should be available soon!
What’s Next?
And the brings us to the end of March!
I do feel like it has been a full on three months. With D back teaching full time, it has been non-stop keeping the business running, the house in order, and making sure he has the support he needs to do what needs to be done at work. Academia is BRUTAL as a career, and anyone that thinks it’s a walk in the park is having a laugh!
I do feel like I’ve succeeded in getting to the end of the quarter in one piece and am more than ready to push forward creating more products.
I also wonder if this update on a three month basis is too long and wordy, and whether I’d be better off sharing at the end of each month instead? I’ll test it for April, May and June to see what you think, so remember to let me know in the comments! 🙂
Right, off I pop to make a coffee and crack on with the rest of my workday. Thanks for reading, and see you in my next update!
Big hugs,
Eve
