Hello,
HAPPY NEW YEAR
EVERYBODY! I hope everyone had a great time saying goodbye to 2017 and celebrating
the arrival of 2018. As I haven’t really been on any of my social medias much
recently, I hope everyone had a great Christmas and holiday time for whatever
you may or may not have celebrated. I’ve spent most of it just eating far too
much.
I thought I would
use today’s blog to look back at my 2017 and think about what I want to do in
2018. I know that I am late to the game with the whole best 9 image on Instagram
but since this blog post is all about 2017 and what happened I thought it would
go nicely. So below you can see my best 9 of Instagram that is if you haven’t
come from Instagram otherwise you would have already seen it. I was so shocked
to see the number of likes that I had got and how many posts I did, the number
of likes blew my mind. Thank you so much if you are one of those likes, it’s
crazy to see that people actually like my knitting. All of your support means
so much to me and I love sharing my work with you all.
My instagram best of 9 for karmannjean.
My best of 9 for karmannjb.
To summaries my
2017 I am going to separate the months up and briefly explain what I did. With
me only starting my blog in August this will give you can insight into what I did
in the beginning of the year.
·
January - The beginning of January was all
about finishing up my first semester which involved the handing in of my dissertation.
This was quite a stressful time, as on the day I chose to print the printer
decided it didn’t like me. To beginning with I knew it was low on ink but it
turns out I brought the wrong one, so because I was so stressed my mum rushed
up town to get me some more. But even with the new ink the printer decided it
still didn’t like and decided to print the odd line cut in half. This resulted
in us having to rush around town trying to find a place that would print off my
work, which wasn’t cheap as I had 48 pages. The rest of the month was
about moving back to my uni house and starting my final semester at university.
My dissertation all bound and ready to be handed in.
·
February to May - Here I found out about knitting
with loom bands, if you are new here, here is the link to that blog post (loomband blog post), so
that you can see the full collection as there will only be a few pictures
below. Within these months whilst exploring and knitting lots of loom band
samples I also knitted my first ever knitwear garment. This was an extremely
stressful time, full of tears due to the stress of it being the end of the year
and having to hand in. May not only brought the end of my journey to university
but we also had our degree show night, which was such a lovely night to celebrate
what we had all done, it was so nice getting to see everybody’s work as I only
really knew what the other knitters were doing I never got to see what the
printers and weavers were up to.
Some of my knitted loom band work, this was my Bradford Textiles Society competition entry.
My knitted loom band jumper.
My degree show display. (link to degree show blog post)
Degree show night with the three girls who made my time at university so much better.
University of Derby: BA Honors Textile Design.
·
June - The end of May and most of June
was about moving out of my university house and back home, which was quite a
struggle as I have lots of stuff particularly yarn, so a lot of my first few
weeks were trying to sort everything out and move everything back into my room.
Although a lot spent quite a lot of time in the dining room which my mum hated
but I couldn’t move in my room, as they were decorating my brother room so all
his stuff was in my room too. The rest of the time was just spent doing
nothing, I chose to have a break and relax, which was great when we had sun because
I could sit outside with my dog barney looking for baby newts in our pond. I loved being back home and getting to spend everyday with my little pouchie as I missed him so much whilst away at uni, hes my little baby.
Barney sunbathing whilst also looking for newts in the pond.
Little baby newt (i gave them all names and we had lots, you could tell them apart by their spots, colours and size. All the names began with N like Nelly, Netty, Neil, Nathan ect...).
Barney enjoying a bit of shade.
·
July - Was graduation, after 3 years of
hard work I finally got to wear the cap and gown. July is also when I decided
that I wanted to set up my own business, so I brought a shed, which would
become storage for all my craft tools and yarn (to the joy of my mum as she
would get her dining room back) and it would also become my working studio
where I could do all my knitting. I would put a picture up but I want to do a
blog post about this so you will have to wait, although I am not sure when. But
it’s something to look forward to if you like DIY, girl power, building and
being nosey as to see what my studio is like.
Graduation with my beautiful mum.
Graduation with the best brothers in the world (i am actually the middle child but you wouldn't be able to tell since i am so short).
Love my little family so much (we just need barney in the picture).
Graduations with my brothers, Nan and Grandad.
Barney paws in my new shed, this is all you can see till that blog post is up.
·
August - Is the month I was born and it
meant that I finally turned 21 and I say finally because I am the baby of the
group. I’d done a party for my 18th so for my 21st I just wanted to have a nice
relaxing time surround by my family and spending time at the beach. It has
become tradition that for my birthday we all go to New Brighton beach in Wallasey
and this was also the first time that my little cousin had ever been, so it was
lovely sharing her first time at the beach with her. She was only a few months
at the time, so this year we will probably be making sandcastles and finding
shells. The end of august was when I decided to start my own blog, as
part of our university course we had to create a blog, but it wasn’t a blog to
me as it was mainly just pictures of our final collection. Where as to me a
blog is something that is regularly posted and contains both text and photos, that’s
my interpretation anyway. So I wanted to make a new blog and use it has a way
of showing my textiles journey via my education and then to document me
starting my own business.
My 21st birthday cake.
Lighthouse at new Brighton beach.
Lighthouse at new Brighton beach.
·
September - This month was mainly about
exploring what I wanted my first collection to be and playing around till I
came up with a final product idea that I was happy with. This was also the
first time I had created my own punch card pattern. During this time I also had
my first few orders from family and their friends as all my mum and nan did was
show everyone what I was doing.
Planning how to make Christmas stockings.
Making punchcards.
My Christmas stockings.
My Christmas stockings.
My Christmas stocking close up.
·
October - During this month I received more
orders and I also opened my Etsy shop karmannjean and started a Facebook page for Karmann
jean. Most of the month was about knitting lots of Christmas stockings and
ordering lots of yarn.
Orders ready to be packaged and sent.
·
November - Early November I decided to finally
cut my hair off and donate it to the Little Princess Trust. I had secretly been
growing it with the intention of donating it but as it was a secret (in case I
chickened out which I did a few times) I had lots of people telling me I needed
a haircut and that my hair was too long. But I finally bit the bullet and
decided to cut it off as you’ll see from the photos I didn’t go really short
but for me it was a lot of hair. In November I hit 1000 views on my blog, I
never thought anyone would read my blog, I thought it was more for me to use as
an online portfolio but I am so grateful for everyone’s support around the
world and I love sharing what I do with you. At the end of November I had my
first ever Etsy order which was also my first ever international order and I
still can’t believe that something I have knitted ended up in America.
How much hair i donated in centimeters.
Before and after, my hair feels a lot shorter than it looks in the after picture.
My first Etsy order.
·
December - This month was mainly about
finishing the last orders before Christmas as well as working on a new product
idea (which will be announced very soon). The rest of the month was mainly
about celebrating Christmas, having lots of lazy days (the time after Christmas
and before new year when you don’t know what day it is) eating lots of tasty
food and enjoying family time. I was so happy to be home for the whole of December as this was the first time in three years that i was able to be at home for the whole of December getting all christmassy. Although with me knitting Christmas stockings at the end of August I had been christmassy for a while although I did wait till December to put the Christmas songs, which involved lots of singing and dancing whilst also trying to knit.
Walking barney in the snow which we had just before Christmas.
Looking back it seems like ages ago since I
finished uni but then it also feels like I’m still on the summer holidays and I’m
going back, I know that it doesn’t make sense but that’s the best way I can
explain it. I also can’t believe it has been a whole year since I did my dissertation.
I didn’t know what I wanted to do after university, so I am so glad that I have
been able to slowly find my way to starting my own business. All of your
continued support has really helped, because sometimes I knit something and
think is anyone going to actually like this but every like, comment, share,
message, order and view, helps to support me and it really does mean so much, I
cant thank you enough.
I hope you have all
enjoyed this little snapshot into what I did in 2017 and I can’t wait to share
2018 with all of you. I have lots of personal new year’s resolutions but in
terms of the business side of me my aims are to continue blogging, I would love
to make it to a year blogging (which will be in august) I just hope that I will
have enough to talk about and show you. I also want to make lots more products;
within knitting at uni all I really did was knit samples so I am really looking
forward to making lots more products and possible garments. Another aim is to
do my first craft fair, I was supposed to do one in December but it sadly got candled
so my aim for 2018 is to do at least one. I say one because I don’t really know
how they work so I want to start slowly, but I would love to do more and meet
other creative crafts people in my area.
I know that I’ve
already said this but thank you again for everything and I hope everyone has a
great 2018.
As always thank you so much for
reading,
Love Karmann Jean.
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