This time of year I’m always excited to think about the changing of seasons and the turning of the year, which made this week’s prompt extra perfect (and I didn’t plan it that way: remember I used divination to help me come up with each prompt).

In this piece, I wanted to represent the path of the sun and the moon, and the way they light the day and night, in my work. So starting with a square of black upcycled linen, I used a scrap of gold and green shot woven silk to represent the light of the sun, and how the hours of daylight vary from one part of the year to the next. I used a scrap of white dupioni silk to represent moonlight, and how the amount of light from the moon varies over the course of each month. The bit of rust brown wool represents the land, with green seed stitch moving from dark to light along with the cycle of the sun. 

Working on this piece, I couldn’t help being more keenly aware than ever of my preference for the dark half of the year. When so many people are swapping tips on how to survive the dark months, I’m coming back to life after hiding from the sun and heat since July. The truth is, I don’t need help surviving the dark months: I revel in them. I love watching the leaves change, and then fall. I love the shapes of bare tree branches against gray skies.. I love the wind whistling through the Douglas firs, and the music of rain on the roof. I love the deeper sleep and stranger dreams the dark half of the year facilitates. 

I imagine it would be harder to love winter in a colder place: as a child, I enjoyed the deep snow and icy cold of Northern Michigan winters until the holidays, but after the New Year, several months of blizzards and ice lay ahead of me. By February I was starving for green leaves and warmer temperatures. But Pacific Northwest winters are my paradise.

Over the past week, the cherry tree outside my studio window has shed all her golden yellow leaves, giving me a better view of the sky from where I sit and stitch. The light has turned from the rich amber of autumn to the cool gray of winter. I light candles in the morning and watch the sky grow brighter behind the scribble of tree branches, and contentment enfolds me. Later in the day, the world will be as busy as usual and I’ll be as tired of adulting as I ever am, but something about late fall and early winter mornings fills me up with a pleasant peace I don’t experience anywhere else. It’s my favorite time.

I couldn’t quite capture that joy in this little piece of stitching, but it was still deeply satisfying to work on. The shapes and stitches are very simple, and I love the way they play against each other. I think I’d find the piece pleasing even if I had no idea what the story was behind it. 

I haven’t decided, yet, if the work I do for this year of prompts will go into some kind of journal, or will remain separate pieces of work, so for now this little bit of stitching will rest in a box while I wait for the rest of the year’s work to reveal itself to me.

If you decided to create with this week’s prompt, I hope you’ll share your work with me! Feel free to DM me or tag me on Instagram, or leave a link to your work here in the comments. 

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