Search Results for: before new year s

Before New Year's…

… I want to make:

  • Clover jeans – I love the fit of my Clover trousers so much, but I don’t like the pockets or side opening. I’m altering the pattern to be more like jeans! (oh yeah – I did fix the zipper in the end…)
  • Ruby Slip – The pattern is printed and taped, but not yet traced. I have the perfect silk in my stash, and I bought some to-die-for wide lace at MacCulloch & Wallis on Friday
  • Paco’s Drape Collar Tunic – This is already traced and I’ve got the perfect purple sweater knit hanging around from last winter. This should be a quickie on the overlocker
  • Holly’s maternity maxi-dress, Burda 08/2008 #125 – The bodice is traced, I’ve done a first muslin, and the fabric is ready to go. Her birthday’s on Boxing Day, so I’m aiming early!

I’ve got to go into work on the 27th-29th, but I’ve still got a lot of days off to hole up in my sewing cave. Most years I end up making a coat over the Christmas break, but I don’t really have much need this year so I thought I’d focus my attentions elsewhere instead.

Happy 2024! (Year in Review)

Sigh. For the second year in a row I’m left thinking “ugh, good riddance to a rubbish year!”. And for the second year in a row I’m facing an unknown future of post-viral fatigue stretching out before me, then months and months of rebuilding my body (and my life) once that finally ends. And life feels unbearably bleak.

But hey, part of the reason I write these posts at the start of every year is so I can look back and at least appreciate the good things that happened – and there are always at least a few things! It’s human nature to remember the negative more clearly than the positive I think, and this reflection and reset helps me remember things in a more holistic way.

Even if I did only have 7.5 months in my year when all the rest of you got 12 to accomplish everything… (yes, I tallied it up and I was sick and bedridden for 4.5 months of 2023.)

Happy 2023! (Year in Review)

For the past 15(!) years I’ve posted my year in review on 1 January, but not this year. I lost my sewjo around the end of September so I didn’t really have much to blog about. I waited for it to reappear (as I learned a long time ago there’s no point in trying to force it) and prepped a few projects, tidied a bit, planned a bit, and then fell into a massive “Interview with the Vampire” fandom hole (more on that later), and generally was happier in October and November than I’ve been in a long time (completely unrelated to the sewing) but that’s not the reason this post is late.

This post is late because, despite my best efforts (cycling to/from, FFP3 masking indoors with my CO2 monitor and otherwise staying outdoors) I caught a virus of some sort at the office christmas party which left me practically bed-bound with post viral fatigue for 4+ full weeks (no, not Covid, not flu, not RSV, not anything they swabbed for at haematology, but thankfully not EBV either). Like, 21+ hours a day in bed, and if I sat up for more than 15min to eat or drink, I’d have to lie flat for another hour. So sitting up to type was impossible, and I wrote this in pieces on my phone when I could, not being able to put it all together until I started improving a little bit in the past few days.

So apologies that it’s late, and for the blog silence for the past few months, but hey, 2023 can only get better from this dismal start, right?? Without further ado, let’s have a look back at 2022…

Happy 2022! (Year in review)

Happy 2022! As is traditional, I like to take the chance on the first day of a brand-spanking new year to have a look back at the year before, step back, and reflect on the good (and not-so-good) things that happened. 2021 was always going to be a strange struggle of a transition year, but I kinda feel like we had a bit of practice going into it, so my outlook was a little better than in 2020. But as this is a sewing blog, let’s first take a look at this year’s output…

Cushion covers for our glam new interiors

It was probably inevitable that I’d be sewing more home dec projects – after all, I’m pretty sure it’s a natural next step after finishing renovation work, and we’ve just had nearly our whole boat rebuilt! This time around we wanted cushions for two very specific benches that we inherited…

Actually, we inherited a set of three storage boxes/benches from my longtime running coach, Barbara. When she had a studio in Shoreditch she had them built for the space, but after she closed the studio to go freelance they were taking up a ridiculous amount of space in her flat but she really wanted to see them rehomed together. So I said we’d have them for the boat, and two even ended up in our temporary flat while we were in drydock three years ago, but they’ve been in our storage unit ever since.

One is quite small, maybe a foot and a half wide, and that one is now near the front door in the Saloon, storing woollens inside and acting as a plant stand & drop zone for keys and masks. The next one is 1.2m long, has a hinged top, and lives in our corridor, storing guest bed linens for the time being. And the third one is a whopping 2m long (it barely fit in our estate car!), also has a hinged top, and is storing all of our life jackets and nautical flags. We thought it would be great for extra seating for our Saloon dining table, so we’ve placed it against the window to also give Nishi a place to sit and peer out the big windows (which will be getting wooden blinds when we get around to installing them).

Happy 2021! (My year in review)

What. A. Year! I’m not even going to attempt to sugar-coat things, and any attempt to try and put things into perspective just sounds like a cliché after all this. But for a year where I was essentially under house arrest since March, it’s surprisingly not all bad. Above all else, I’m grateful to have spent the time with my husband and that we both were able to continue our office jobs from home at full pay and remarkable support. My sewing was both a welcome distraction and a balm in this year of chaos and uncertainty.

I’m going to try to use my usual year-end format again, though this was clearly a year that broke all attempts to contain it so let’s do what we can (clearly a motto for the year!)…

A new cave for Nishi

For the last few years, Jalie Patterns have released a “Galaxie” pattern around the holidays that is usually gift-themed. One year it was cooking-focused, another on travel, but this year the focus was on pets, and, reader, I bought it immediately! Galaxie 4 contains several little projects for pets – collapsible bowls, zippered pouches, a poo-bag dispenser, and a pet bed – and one for humans, too – a bum bag. My Instagram followers will know that I made some of the other views of this pattern literally the next day, but as those are presents you’ll need to wait to see those!

Today we’re talking all about the “Coquette”, a pet padded bed/cave/house/etc. It comes in a range of sizes that would be suitable for a guinea pig, rabbit, cat, or small dog, but you could likely scale it up for larger dogs if you really wanted to. After some deliberation, I ended up using the second-to-largest size, 35cm, and I think this is the right size for an average sized cat, though you could probably go down one size further in a pinch if you had to, too.

Happy 2020! (My year in review)

Happy new year! I always like to take the opportunity on the start of a bright new year to look back on the year that was – what I made and loved, what I made and swore at, and other big life milestones that will make 2019 stand out in my mind. And because I love stats, I also like to take a step back and get an overview of what I’ve been making to get an eye for any trends that may have escaped me at the time…

Happy 2019! (My year in review)

Happy new year! It’s traditional for me to reflect on the year that’s just finished on the first of a new year, and this year’s a weird one because I’d love to just say “this year sucked”, but there were some fantastic things that happened this year amoungst all the sickness, disappointment, frustration, and hard work. So let’s try and focus on those.