Half the year has gone and winter has finally arrived. There is a thin green tinge of new grass which really lifts the spirits and we’ve had our first ski of the season. Yay!!!   But also begs the question, what did I achieve in Autumn?

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

⭐ made steady progress on this with just under 25m of fabric sewn for the quarter.
🙄 acquired one piece of fabric, a shark print cotton, to make a woodturning jacket for DH.
☑ started sewing one of my ‘gunnawundae’ fabrics – a lovely bouclé knit
☑ cleaned out some of my old pattern tracings that I’ll never use again. Most of these are from Burda, Knipmode, Ottobre and Lekala.
☑ I’m actually in the habit of browsing my stash rather than through fabric stores!

 

2. Track my purchases and stick to a budget

☑ I’ve hardly needed to buy anything except for a bit of thread or a zip
☑ Haven’t been tempted by any Craftsy classes or pattern purchases

3. Specific projects

⭐ Participate in SWAP 2018. The final wardrobe was very close to what I had planned and I’ve been enjoying wearing it. For Me Made May, my goal was to wear each item at least twice, which I managed to do for all but the white jacket. Probably the most used item so far has been the self-drafted hiking pants

😕 TNT patterns. I had planned to work on a bodice sloper but that hasn’t happened yet.
⭐ Sew a handwoven fabric. Done! Yay! Check it out 🙂 Actually planning a second handwoven garment!!!

➡ Tour de France sewing frenzy! Just a week until the tour starts. I’m looking forward to this, especially the sprint stages. I’ll be staying up late to watch the live stages and will be able to get a lot of sewing in. Currently I need a lot of casual every day stuff and activewear so that will be my focus during the tour

Unplanned projects –

❣DH asked my to make some woodturning jackets, which was interesting to make a pattern for. Basically on oversized woven T-shirt with elbow length sleeves, partial zip front and a high velco collar to stop the wood-shavings dropping down the front, pencil pocket and rear pockets. A bizarre combination, but he’s happy with them.
🐻 Kayak spray decks. The deck for the TK1 was no longer waterproof so I made a replacement for it, complete with dragonfly artwork. Since then, I’ve had my arm twisted into making a custom deck for a very tall friend who has had to modify the cockpit of his kayak to be able to sit comfortably in it. It’s not as easy as it sounds, and I’ve had to resort to ‘draping’ a pattern on my kayak. I’ve got the pattern right for me, but need to make a couple of tweaks for his him. Still procrastinating on this and I really should do the second mock-up before I forget what I need to change.

Some changes on the blog

I finally forked up the cash to get rid of the advertising on this blog.  It really annoyed me.  I’ve also taken down my lingerie posts as it was attracting too many non-sewists and thankfully that side of things has calmed down.

In more recent posts, I’ve added a little sketch.  They aren’t very good, but I’m trying to do a sketch each day in the hope that with practise I’ll get better at it.  I’ll leave you with a couple of the latest attempts done after our ski trip last weekend.  My ankle held up OK but I could only do right hand turns.  Happy to be out and about.

Happy sewing!