The Cup of Fortunes: Week 1 (January 1-4)

Welcome to my 2025 stitch journal project! I'm excited to get started on this year's journal and share a small collection of mine with you as I stitch along. 

When I started planning for 2025, the only thing I knew I wanted to do was one large piece like I did in 2022. While I enjoyed working on 12 and 52 separate pieces in 2023 and 2024 respectively, I think I enjoyed the 2022 piece the most of the stitch journals because of the story it told in one year. It's also the most abstract piece of art I've ever created, so I also knew I didn't want to go in that direction for 2025. Originally, I was going to focus on places of importance to me. As much as I love this idea, I don't know that I'm ready for it artistically. I started jotting down other possible ideas but nothing really stuck for me.

Then one day in October, I was cleaning my kitchen and I moved a small measuring cup to dust the shelf and realized it was full of fortunes. Since I moved into my house in 2019, I've been putting the fortunes I get from fortune cookies into this small cup. I dumped out the cup and realized I had over 70 fortunes. I've lived in my house for 5 years (as of last month) and that's a lot of fortunes. Could I embroider all of them into one large piece? Why did I keep all 70 (now 84) fortunes in my kitchen? Why do people collect fortunes? Why do people collect anything? Once I started asking myself these questions, I knew I had the subject for my 2025 stitch journal. 

The cup of fortunes. I've since moved the fortunes to another vessel to make it easier to select a new fortune. The cup is still being used to hold the thread for this year's project.

Did I need to buy a ceramic food container from Michaels? Yes, I absolutely did.

I like to collect things. What I collect has shifted over the years, but two constants are quote and fortune cookie fortunes. I used to tape the fortunes into whatever journal or notebook I was using at the time. The below page is from a 2017 journal:

I have a little stash of them in a memory box I have and occasionally find a fortune in a random spot like the bottom of my recipe box. I love them. I love the combination of ominous positivity and vagueness. I enjoy the moment of finishing dinner and having a little bonus item waiting for me. They bring me joy, much like keeping the horoscope on my birthday brings me joy. 

This year's journal will explore some of these themes: collecting, joy from random things, ominous positivity, rituals, and the comfort of food. I've been reading about fortune cookies and will try to share some of the history and fun things I've learned along the way. 

This year's journal isn't about food writing or anything related to the history of Chinese American cuisine. I have no authority in that area. There are a lot of great writers out there who do focus on this and I hope you'll check them out. I'm currently reading Curtis Chin's book Everything I Learned, I Learned in a Chinese Restaurant and I read Jennifer 8. Lee's book The Fortune Cookie Chronicles as research for this year's project. I hope you check out their work and the work of so many others if that's of interest to you.

For me, this project is a literal journal come to life. My previous stitch journal projects have been very different in terms of what a stitch journal is. A stitch journal is whatever the creator wants it to be, but this one is the closest to an actual journal for me. I keep my fortunes. I store them in a vessel and I look back on them from time to time. This year's journal is the result of five years worth of collecting and I'm excited to share it with you over the course of the year.

I like to set up guidelines for myself for each stitch journal. These aren't hard and fast rules, just ways to help myself make time for the journal but not allow it to consume my life (I'm looking at you, 2021 journal). Here are the basics for 2025:

• Randomly select a fortune from the box at the start of each week. If I finish that one before the week is up, I'll select another one. 
• There are 84 fortunes. I started with 80 but found four more fortunes this week that were from 2022 (they fell out of a 2022 journal I moved). So now there are 84 fortunes.
• Record the lucky numbers. I'm going to record them in my written journal as well as on the border of the actual stitch journal.
• Use thread in the colors of the fortune text. I'm using DMC 310 (Perle 12 - black), DMC 3760 (single strand - blue), and DMC 666 (single strand - red). Most fortunes I have are in these three colors. I did see some lucky numbers in green today, so I'll have to identify a shade of green when I get to that fortune.
• Stitch 5-15 minutes per day. This is mostly to help me manage my own time and allow space for a daily embroidery practice, but also have time to work on other projects.
• Post a weekly blog. I've found that weekly is the best cadence for the recap post, so I'm keeping to that cadence. 

That's it. I'm sure I'll add things to the list as the year progresses, but this one's pretty straightforward. I'm using a beautiful blush colored fabric from Matryoshka Doll Shop (also used in 2022) and it's so wonderful to work on. I'm only four days in and I love how easy it is to embroider on in contrast to the fabric from the 2024 project.

Let's look at the first week of the 2025 Stitch Journal:

January 1

January 2

January 3

January 4 - I was going to hold off on stitching the numbers until the end of the project, but I think doing them after I finish the text makes more sense.

The first fortune. I started with the 80th fortune (the last one I got in 2024).

The complete fortune and lucky numbers.

WIPs: The Nightmare Before Christmas, Woodlawn, and Groundhog Day Cards

I've made so much progress on my Nightmare Before Christmas LEGO build since last week. I completed the Town Hall and Jack's house. All that's left is the graveyard and to figure out how to add the dew drop lights.

We're under a winter weather advisory this weekend, so I'm going to use the weather as an excuse to stay home and work on my Woodlawn entries. I would like to have them completed by January 19 so I can get them entered and dropped off well before the deadline. I think once I get started, the pieces will come together rather quickly.

Groundhog Day is coming soon and I've already started working on my cards. If you'd like to receive one this year, please fill out this form so I have your information. The link will close on Friday, January 16 so I can get everything mailed on time. I have a new stamp and am planning to paint all the cards this year. Here are a few cards I've already painted:

I've also set up my first pile of books I'm reading this year. I read 36 books in 2024. I'm not setting a goal for 2025, but I would like to work through the multiple To Be Read piles that exist in my house and on my Kindle. 

Lastly, a few things that brought me joy this week. 2025 is off to a very rough start, so I hope that you're able to find some joy in small things.

This little rock dinosaur I found in my Christmas decorations bin when I was putting everything away. How cute is he?

A tiny village from Snow Pond Ceramics.

There was a snow squall, complete with thundersnow, yesterday. After it ended and the sun came back out, the local murder of crows flew toward my house. I love them.