Hi, Reader,

How is your first working week of the year going? Have you started something new this year?

If you are still looking for a daily practice to add to your routine, consider journaling with stitches. It is a great way to merge daily stitching with journaling, gratitude journaling, or other daily mindfulness practices.

Some years ago, I used to embroider one word daily as my gratitude journal. I used to embroider the words with a single strand of black embroidery floss on working days and with red floss on Sundays. At the end of the year, I had a cloth filled with meaningful words that made my year memorable. The final cloth looked lovely, but it's too personal to share online.

By the way, my lettering and embroidery skills got much better, too.

Here are some journaling with stitches ideas to consider:

• Daily words. Embroider one word that suites your day mood the best. You can separate the words with a French knot dot or a Straight stitch slash to add visual interest. Also, you can start each month with a new paragraph. For lettering, choose simple stitches like Backstitch or Split stitch.
• Daily images. Embroider an icon or a small, simple image that reflects the mood of the day for each day. You can position the images in random order or draw the circle divided into 12 parts and add the names of the months to each part.
• Temperature charts. Assign a color for each temperature and embroider a square with this color. You can also combine temperature tracking with the moon phase or track how sunny the days are.
• Mood tracker. You can make it as simple as the temperature chart or more elaborate and complex.

More ideas for daily stitching practices:

Daily journaling is a mindfulness practice that helps you reflect on and evaluate the day. You can track anything that makes sense to you, from the number of pages you read to the number of people you spoke to or the number of steps you walked.

If you want inspiration, enter the "year in pixels" search phrase on Pinterest and browse the trackers people are making to measure their lives.

If daily tracking is too much for you, you can opt for weekly or event-based monitoring. For example, you can track the countries or states you visit and the books you read or embroider one flower a day.

I want to track the temperature with a simple pixel chart this year, so this weekend, I will prepare the pattern, choose the colors, and catch up on the past days.

See you next week!

Tatjana

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