Well I managed it. I can't quite believe it now, but as I scroll back through the pages and pages of posts and the pages and pages of photos I am very happy with everything I achieved last year.
But it was hard, particularly as the weather changed and the cold chased me out of my studio, finding somewhere to set up a project was difficult.
On the whole I would have to say that it was a positive experience. Even when struggling with a lack of motivation, knowing someone was bound to ask me why there was nothing new on my blog really focussed my attention, and I got a whole lot more done last year than I would otherwise.
My garden looked good and we had a really good harvest, the birds flourished, and we had a rabbit population explosion. We ate well and frequently with friends who got to be the guinea pigs for all sorts of recipes and I have been left with a wider range of basic meals that don't require a recipe book for dinner times.
The hardest part of all was my no new clothes vow at the start of the year. All was going swimmingly until I ruined a couple of pairs of trousers in the summer and there was no way that I was going to be able to run a pair of combats up, and even though the blog in general created an air of activity, it did not really help me to fit into those 'just in case' clothes at the back of the wardrobe that I have not worn for years.
Not counting underwear and shoes I managed to pass a whole 12 months without indulging in any new clothes, however, I was lucky enough to receive some donated clothes and I did grab a few charity shop bargins while in the UK. And now do I feel the pull of the shops - not really - but the sales have not started yet! The ban did mean I built on a shaky pre-existing skill - I learnt to make clothes from patterns, rather than just the bits and pieces of refashioning I had done previously - and pretty badly on the whole - but that upskilling makes the doing without worthwhile.
And of course my knitting and crochet skills grew exponentially too, particularly crochet. I am moving onward and upward with this into clothes now, rather than just shawls and scarves and hope to have a few vests to augment my next winter wardrobe with by the end of 2011.
Providing a shot or two to demonstrate my blog entries meant my camera got a good work out last year too, and I got a lot better with it, learning its settings and foibles, as well as being more confident with my own view of the world and how it is I want to capture an image. At times I thought I could have done with a bit more of focus there, and followed several 365 images/an image a day groups on flickr, but with a project a day already on the go 2010 was not the year for that for me.
So what did I learn?
- that I am basically a lazy person who needs a boot up the backside to get up and do something every day. But that it is easier to get up and do something if you have a definite idea of what that something is, fill your life with short term goals and suddenly you find you have a life and a very good one at that, which makes getting up the next day and actually physically achieving something a good deal easier.
Am I any less lazy? - no - but I hide it better these days.
OK - for those who may want to review last year's blog entries I have included a search box at the bottom of the main home page so you can look up any of last year's recipe entries or crochet and knitting patterns without having to trawl through pages and pages of entries.
