2015 in Review

Let’s talk about crazy years!  This has definitely been one of them, full of ups and downs.  On this first day of the new year, I want to take some time to review my 2015 sewing journey.  December is always my craziest busiest time of year for me between work stuffs and Christmas stuffs.  I barely had time to sew the handmade Christmas gifts I wanted to give, let alone any personal sewing I wanted to accomplish.  With  that I just did not have the time needed to put into blogging.  I feel like this past year has been exceptionally more busy.  Eric would have me point out that I do it to myself because I over schedule my time.  I am not going to disagree with that point and, in fact, I realize I do this at work as well.  I am going to try to work on that in 2016.

That’s enough about December, what about the rest of the year?  I have sewn a fair amount this past year, considering it is also what I spend my working hours doing for others.  I have sewn a total of 55 garments for myself and others in 2015, 29 for myself and 26 for others.  As much as I like to call myself a selfish seamstress, I think that these numbers show I am not.  Those 55 garments account for 141.75 yards of fabric used!  Now not all of that came from stash, 83.5 yds was stash and 58.25 yds was new.  I have a couple of goals for 2016 relating to these numbers.

Sadly, even though I used 141.75 yards, I added 194.5 yards.  That’s a gain of 52.75 yards into the stash this year.  Boo! 🙁  There are definitely some goals pertaining to this and I did such a better job at tracking this year thanks to my handy spreadsheet tracker that I will do it again.  Some of the trends I noticed for my 2015 sewing included lots of dresses were sewn (10 for me), chevrons and more chevrons, and my go to fabrics were knits.  I am not sad about any of these things!    I am sure I will make a ton of dresses for 2016 using a lot of knits.  Chevrons may not be so heavily used this year, but I am certain it will be replaced with some other print, like polkadots maybe.  Who knows, I like to sew where ever the wind blows me and I don’t know where that is yet.

This past year, I have learned a few of new things about my personal sewing. First, I do not like the baggy loose fit dresses.  I made 3 year using different patterns and none of them are in my favorites.  I just feel sloppy wearing them when they are so loose in the top.  Second, I hate wearing scuba!  Scuba is easy to sew and easy to care for, but man is it hot!  It is pure 100% polyester, so I get the breath-ability of it is just never going to happen, but as someone who gets hot easily this makes me uncomfortable.  Also, it reminds me of 1970’s leisure suits and we just cannot do that.  Third, pockets in dresses are the best thing since sliced bread.  Yep, I said it!  Since sliced bread!  Seriously,  I love them so much that I will be adding pockets to most future dresses.

I am going to write out a my goals for 2016 hopefully tomorrow or Sunday for the whole of the sewing community to see.  If I have it out there then I make it more real and feel the need to accomplish it.  You can probably guess on a few of those goals based on this post, but I want to be inspired by yours.  What are your goals for 2016?