Lately I’ve
been discouraged about the general lack of sewing since around September. However,
reviewing my completed projects for 2015 has been hugely inspiring and I’m
excited to see what I can accomplish in 2016! This past year, I made eleven
quilts, seventeen garments, thirteen scarves, a handful of small objects and
twenty-four gift bags.
Quilts
Wow! I’m
super excited that I made eleven quilts in 2015. That’s an all-time record for
me! Let’s break it down, shall we?
Garments
Apparently
seventeen is some sort of special number for garment making, because I made the
same number of garments in both 2015 and 2014. I was a little disappointed
about that, but then I realized that this year, I made all my garments in nine
months, instead of twelve. Between work, the stress of pattern testing and
holiday craziness, I didn’t make any garments at all the last quarter of this
year. I hope to rediscover my garment sewjo soon, because Me Made May will be
here before you know it!
Scarves
I find it
highly amusing that scarves get their own category this year. While I made the
two sewn scarves early in the year, the rest of them were made after I
rediscovered crochet this fall. Two scarves are not shown here, but I assure
you, they do exist.
Small
Objects
In addition
to all the other things I made this year, I also managed to fit in a few other
miscellaneous items:
One Cargo duffle bag (my first time sewing a piece of luggage)
One sashiko placemat
One improv
composition book cover (my first time sewing a notebook cover)
Four improv
blocks for various Seattle Modern Quilt Guild projects
Gift Bags
I really
need to up my gift bag game in 2016. Yes, I made twenty-four gift bags this
year, but last year I made thirty-five. I could see the difference quite
clearly when it came time to wrap Christmas presents. I was disgusted by how much
wrapping paper we used. I think that I didn’t sew more gift bags in 2015
because got bored. As you can see from the mosaic, I used the same pattern for
most of my bags, and the repetition wasn’t very stimulating. Now I’m on the
hunt for the next great gift bag pattern to reignite my gift bag making fire
and save my family from the dreaded pile of discarded Christmas wrapping paper
next December.
2015 Goal Progress
I don’t know
what I was thinking setting six large goals for myself in 2015. Even so, I’m
happy with the overall progress I’ve made this past year.
Use my
stash: I did really well on this goal in 2015. Most of my projects used fabric
from my stash. I only bought new fabric for four whole quilts and a few
backings. I used up a lot of apparel fabric as well, although I’d like to
continue to reduce my apparel fabric stash in 2016. I’m trying really hard not
to amass a large yarn stash now that I’m crocheting. In a perfect world, I
would use up most of my existing fabric stash and have a small stash consisting
of only solid and special fabrics. One can only dream!
Use my
scraps: Ah, scraps. No matter how much I use them, there are still more! This
past year, I made one garment and three quilts entirely from scraps, and have
several more scrap quilts in progress. I fear this will be a never-ending
battle.
Keep It
Small, Silly: All the quilts I sewed in 2015 were small wall quilts, baby
quilts, table runners or mini quilts, so I definitely accomplished this goal. Now
I’m itching to make a few bigger quilts.
Declutter My
Sewing Nook: While I did donate a couple bags of fabrics, and throw away some
scraps that were too small to use, I still have a long ways to go on this one.
Using up more of my stash and scraps would help.
Submit a
Quilt to a Non-Guild Show: In 2015, I submitted quilts to not one, but two
non-guild shows! My Scrappy Migration quilt was shown in the Microsoft Employee
Art Exhibition. I also submitted three quilts to QuiltCon, but none of them
were accepted. I’m going to keep submitting quilts to shows, by am not going to
have a specific goal around it in 2016.
Participate
in the Wardrobe Architect 2015 Challenge: I feel I completed this goal, even
though I didn’t do each and every assignment. I definitely thought long and
hard about my color palette, made a plan, and didn’t deviate very much from it.
However, I feel I took it a little too far, and my end of year mosaic is kind
of boring. Next year, I hope to make a mix of sensible items that I know I will
wear often and more creative, risky items that are more fun to make in order to
help me recapture the joy of garment sewing.
Whew! That’s
a lot! It’s taken me all evening to write this up, but it is well worth it. I
really enjoy looking back on my previous years’ review posts. Here they are,
for your reading pleasure:
Happy New
Year!
