January Kit - mura gcuirfidh tú san Earrach, ní bhainfaidh tú sa bhFómhar
Our first kit of 2026! Mura gcuirfidh tú san Earrach, ní bhainfaidh tú sa bhFómhar - which means if you don’t sow in Spring, you won’t reap in Autumn. A sentiment I thought made for a good start to the year, do you agree? At this stage you probably know how much I love a good seanfhocal. I do at least one each year.
I started with this phrase and knew I wanted to represent those two sides - Spring and Autumn. I played around with using different plants for each one, something to represent Spring, and something else to represent Autumn. But if felt a bit too busy. I also knew I didn’t want to make this one too complicated, since the last kit (Sheela na Gig) was such a stitch-heavy one. So I thought about a sort of yin-yang effect. The same thing repeated, just one in lighter colours for Spring and the other in darker colours for Autumn. So here we are!
So, I had decided on florals, but how do I decide on which plants to include? Well this tie, I decided to let the stitches help me choose. I didn’t want it to be too similar to my other floral kits, so I had to make sure I included some new stitches. The leaves could be done in leaf(fishbone) stitch. And tassel flowers would add dimension!
After that, it was picking stitches I knew looked good for flowers. Satin stitch petals are always beautiful. Lazy Daisy (Detached Chain) literally has a flower in the name. Stem stitch is fairly self explanatory. And what would florals be without French Knots!?
So I let the stitches guide my design for this one. Do you think it worked out?
