Happy New Year! I didn’t post at all last year but I hope you all had as good a year as possible. In a lot of ways 2021 felt worse than 2020 to me but I also had some nice things happen. For a start I got married!
I’ve started writing a post all about it and about sewing my outfit but I just seem to add a paragraph every now and then and never finish the blummin’ thing. I’ll try and finish it soon but basically we had a tiny pandemic wedding in our local register office, with just our parents there. Then we came straight home and drank fizz on the sofa and video called friends and family. My skirt is a multi-layered circle skirt and my top is a Sew Over It Eve.
Other than that I can’t really think of anything interesting that happened in 2021. We had a lovely Christmas. It wasn’t the one we had planned as the Manfriend was exposed to covid a couple of days before and even though his LFTs were negative we decided not to take any risks. My mum and nan were supposed to be coming but we decided to do Christmas with them at my mum’s house on New Year’s Eve instead. Which was lots of fun. Me and my mum take it in turns to make crackers for Christmas and whenever it’s my turn I put stick on moustaches in them, which delighted my nan.
Anyway, you’re not here for my whiffle. You’re here for sewing so let’s get into it.
2021’s Sewing
I sewed quite a lot this year – the most I have since 2017! I sewed 30 things and knitted a couple too but most of them are languishing in a box waiting to either be stitched together or have their ends woven in. I’m a menace for that! Four of the things I sewed were gifts and the other 26 were for myself. So some of my graphs will be based on different numbers.
Let’s start with what I sewed.
Tops were the runaway winner this year. Three of the four skirts were presents so there weren’t as many skirts as it looks like either, just my wedding skirt.
It was a fairly even split between knits and wovens this year, which is fairly representative of how I like to dress too.
It’s no big surprise here that viscose was my most sewn fibre.
I just can’t tear myself away from prints. I started a wear log in 2020 and I made it all the way until October before I ground to a halt so I just had a look at the data from that and lets just say I should really be prioritising solids more…
In terms of individual garments 54% of the garments I wore were solid but in terms of wears I wore a solid garment 68% of the time.
So in this graph the bars are the number of garments using that pattern company and then the line is number of patterns. So there were a few repeated patterns – Nina Lee Mayfair dress, Friday Pattern Company Adrienne blouse, Sew Over It Eve and Helen’s Closet Winslows but all the other were just one time uses. Though some were repeats from previous years. Bringing me onto my next one.
16 patterns I made were remakes and 15 were new patterns so 48% of what I made from new-to-me patterns. That’s, probably understandably, my lowest percentage of new patterns yet. I’m guessing that just happens typically as you’ve been sewing longer and have more patterns than you know you like and you aren’t as distracted by the new and the shiny.
Though I am clearly still a bit distracted by the new and the shiny! I bought 25 patterns this year and 2 books/magazines, adding up to a total of 32 patterns added to the collection. I sewed up 5 of them, which is 16%. That’s actually my best percentage since I started tracking that data even though it’s pretty poor. It made me look at how many of my total pattern collection I’ve actually sewn and it’s about a third. Which isn’t great but I was glad it wasn’t worse!
And while we’re on buying habits let get the fabric confession over with! I bought 70 metres of fabric, which is the most I’ve bought since 2017! I bought a lot of fabric for my wedding outfit that I didn’t end up using as my plans changed so much and I’m hoping to destash that this year. Anyone need 5 metres of ivory lace…?
Even though I added to the stash so much I’m quite pleased that I sewed up over 40 metres because it has pretty much all actually been sewn. Whereas some years it’d had just been cut out and I had loads of WIPs hiding in a pile.
It goes without saying that the plan is to do better and actually stash bust this year. I’m running out of space for it all so it’s a big priority now.
What this? New graphs? Gotta keep you on your toes/I stole the idea from @sewnbyele on Instagram. She recorded pattern adjustments she made, which I thought was really interesting so I went back and added that data to my spreadsheet. It’s quite interesting to see all my common adjustments. I basically have to shorten nearly everything and usually do something with the shoulder/upper chest area.
Another new one, again inspired by Ele. I had been tagging things hits or misses for a couple of years but when I saw that Ele categorised hers as meh, like, love that inspired me to add some more inbetween categories. So fails are the things that just didn’t work at all and I don’t wear.
This years fails were two too small tops, a knitted cardigan that I’m not if it’s the colour or the fit but I hate it and a failed pattern hack. The mehs are just that really. They’re not out and out fails but I wouldn’t say I’m happy with them/haven’t reached for them. Like and love are hopefully self explanatory and I’m glad that between them they make up two thirds but hopefully I can get that higher next year!
And that it! We’re done. Well done if you got through all that and I’m sorry if it’s interesting to no one but me!