2017 in first lines, and in pictures

I’ve been doing the year in first lines thing for a few years now – I think it was a post on Wondermark that gave me the idea?  Anyway, the idea is to summarise the year through the first sentence of the first post of each month.  As always, I’m cheating slightly by sometimes including a second sentence where the first wasn’t very long, or very interesting, and I generally skip posts that are just lists (like most of my 1 January posts…)
And the year in pictures is always a fun challenge, trying to pick a single photo that sums up each month.  Sometimes that’s easy, but life events don’t always neatly segment themselves into months, so some months there’s too much to choose from, and others I struggle to find a photo (especially if it was one of those times when I just never seemed to get my camera out). And of course, sometimes it’s just a pretty picture, without any particular significance other than I took it that month, and I like it.
So, in case you’re not bored with lists yet, here’s two more summarising my year:

2017 in first lines

January: Emerging, blinking, into the light

No, your eyes are not deceiving you, I’m actually writing a blog post.  And that can only mean one thing: I finished my thesis!!!!!

February: The new project

I finally made it to the fabric shop this morning, so I started work on my new project.

March: Scrappy bits

So much for my good intentions of regularly posting to my blog – that seems to have fallen by the wayside a bit!

April: Progressing

This new quilt is definitely slower going than the jelly roll race one (mainly because the seams have to be pretty accurate for it to work properly), but I am making progress.

May: Quilts in progress report

With apologies for the terrible photographs – I keep forgetting that the lighting in the study in winter isn’t particularly conducive to getting colour-accurate photos.

June: Progress, and not so much progress

My plan to use spare half hours to sew failed the moment the really cold weather set in, because I’d forgotten just how cold the study can get in winter (for some reason to do with the way the hallway bends just before the door to the study, the warmth from the fire, which happily heats the rest of the house, never quite reaches the study).

July: Off with their hair

Those of you who know me in real life (TM) will know that for the past year or two I’ve been muttering about how one day I’m going to suddenly cut off all my hair. Well, one day arrived…

August: Films and Flight

I decided it was about time I got round to finishing off the Birds in Flight quilt (which I feel like I started about a million years ago), so I spent the weekend working on the connecting bits for the strip of birds to go on the back. I didn’t get it finished, but I made pretty good progress. At this rate I might even get it quilted this year…

(Spoiler alert: I didn’t)

September: Out and about in Wellington

Wellington was wonderful (despite the less than stellar weather).

October: Playgrounds and Poetry

Brother and family were up at the weekend to go to a concert.

November: Wisdom in overrated anyway

A week or so ago, I had a toothache.

December: Possibly not for the faint of heart

The conference went really well – our talk seemed to be well-received (my boss was in the audience, along with at least three other people I know as experts in digital archiving, and all were nodding at the right places, so I don’t think I said anything too stupid 🙂 ), and (once the stress of having to present was over with, so I could actually just relax and enjoy the rest of the conference) I met all sorts of interesting people, and learnt all sorts of interesting things.

2017 in photos

January

February

March

April

(Like I said, some months it’s obvious which picture to pick 🙂 )

May

June

July

(Yeah, two photos of me in one summary post feels a bit excessive, but cutting off my hair was kind of momentous!)

August

(I seem to have spent a lot of time photographing craft projects this year…)

September

October

November

December

So that’s my year.  A lot of crafts, a lot of trying new things, a few adventures, a few revelations, a few new friends, a few successes, a few difficulties, but mostly a lot of learning and a lot of fun.  Which is pretty much how life should be.