Wow, doesn’t time fly. The 1st of April and a quarter of the year already gone.  I thought I’d take a quick look at my sewing goals for the year and see how I’m tracking.

1. Reduce my fabric stash

This is going fairly well.  Excluding interfacing and pocket linings,  I’ve almost used 50m. Mainly due to the shirts and pants for DH in January and the SWAP.  Only one fabric purchase for the quarter.  How is that for will-power?  It’s a divine Jacquard which I’m itching to stitch as soon as SWAP is over.  I was told only 20m was brought into Australia, 10m of which came to my favourite fabric store an 2.5 followed me home.

While I haven’t gone though and had a cull of my fabric stash, I have rehomed a number of patterns (mostly McVoguericks) that I know I’ll never use.  Still need to go though my traced/drafted patterns and weed out the ones I won’t use again.   I’ve purchase three patterns, and all have been used.

On balance, I think I’ve made a huge leap forward with the stash ( so far ;-)).

2. Track my purchases and stick to a budget

Ha, tracking my purchases lasted most of January 🙂 But, with the exception of the Jacquard, all of my purchases have been notions for the projects I’ve been working on.

I went back and had a look at purchases from previous years, which was an eye-opener. Last year was particularly bad on the spend:use ratio.   Craftsy classes was one of the stand outs with a lot of unused classes. Their switch to subscriptions was a bitter pill, considering my investment in paid classes. However, I made good use of the free weekend, and DH enjoyed the woodworking classes.

Cancelled Subscriptions: Threads, Knipmode and Handwoven. Added Ashford Club (The Wheel magazine)

Ditching Threads was a no brainer as I’ve usually gone through the magazine before my coffee is cold and rarely go back to articles.  It’s a shame as I’d learnt a lot from this magazine when I first got into sewing.

Knipmode was also easy.  Three of my magazines for the year failed to arrive, one being resent.  It took 6 weeks for their helpdesk to respond to my help request on the lost Jan and Feb editions. Still haven’t received them and the March issue was without the supplement. With the exception of the August issue, it was ‘more of the same’ and lacking in the edgy styles that I used to love about this magazine.

Handwoven was a little harder to part with and I may pick it up again. I’ve joined the Ashford club, which puts out a really great magazine each year, regular newsletters and PDF access to back-issues. Lost of variety in the projects – spinning, weaving, felting, knitting – and published at a rate I can do something with. There is a hand-woven bomber jacket project in the magazine which I’m tempted to give a go.

3. Specific projects

1. Participate in SWAP 2018  The swap is coming together and I’m actually sticking to the plan.  You can track my progress on this page.  This weekend, I’ve sewn one of the t-shirts and almost finished the hiking pants, so look out for those in an upcoming post.

   

2.   Sew a handwoven fabric. The lace weave should be off the loom today and I’ve been researching seam finishes for open-weave fabrics. It is going to happen!!!!

   

3. More activewear Not much happening on this front as yet but stay tuned. Inspired by the winter Olympics, I made a x-country ski outfit for the ‘Match your shoes‘ contest on PR.  I was genuinely surprised that it won. They were fun to make but feel a bit unworthy of the win as there entries I’d consider far better than mine.  A big thank-you to those who voted for me.

I must also confess that I’m not the best at sticking to my sewing plans. The main theme there is having a bit more will-power to resist the new-and-shiny and use what I have. On balance, I’m not doing to bad so far.  How are your New Year’s resewlutions going?

 

OK, now to finish that last bit of weaving …..