Top 5 of 2017: Goals
Happy new year folks!
I hope you’ve all had a wonderful festive season. I’ve had a lovely Christmas and Betwixtmas. It was mine and the manfriend’s 5th Christmas together and we’re finding our stride and traditions. Christmas Eve now features watching Arthur Christmas – I cry every time – and some veg prep. Christmas day my mum, nan, their dogs and sometimes my uncle come to us. There’s presents, booze, food, silly games and joy. Then on Boxing Day we go to the Manfriend’s parents’ house for more of the same with his giant family – he’s the youngest of five so if everyone is there I think there’s about 20 people.
Betwistmas is then spent hardly getting dressed, snaffling crisps, nuts and chocolate and watching TV, reading or pootling about. It’s wonderful. I’ve had a cold and a chesty cough so I’ve thoroughly enjoyed just being able to laze around and recuperate. We watched series 2 of Ultimate Beastmaster on Netflix this year and that was a fun addition to Christmas. I got the same sort of joy from watching that as I do from watching World’s Strongest Man – there’s just something I like about watching athletic feats whilst I’m stuffing crap food into my face and barely moving from the sofa.
I also got a pretty fantastic new sewing machine for Christmas. It’s a Pfaff Quilt Ambition 2.0 was a Black Friday bargain (nearly half price!) that I bought myself and then Aled and my mum gave me some money towards it so it got wrapped up for Christmas.
Anyway, goals. Let’s start by looking at how I did with last year’s goals.
2017 Goals
- Stashbust! – Big old fail. The stash grew again. Sigh.
- Make a shirt – I made two Sew Over It Alex shirt dresses (one for me and one as a Christmas present for my mum) so I suppose that counts but it’s not what I intended when I set the goal. I intended a collar stand and sleeve placket. So this is a half success.
- Become a wrinkle whisperer – Nope.
- Jeans! – I tried.
- Sew something with silk – Nope.
2018 Goals
1. Make things that bring me joy
The most important goal I think. I want to make more things that make me grin every time I put them on. It might be because I love the fabric, because I got a good fit or because I enjoyed the making. It doesn’t matter as long as wearing it makes me happy. (I made a festive sloth t-shirt on boxing day that definitely fulfils this brief.)
2. Put less pressure on myself
I didn’t have a great year with my mental health in 2017 and putting a load of pressure on myself with my sewing (touched on in my Reflections post) probably didn’t exactly help. So this year I’m going to make far more realistic plans and be kinder to myself about meeting them. No more lists of 28 things I want to make in three months.
Ooh, less “all or nothing” YouTubing too. It’s better to do one video every couple of weeks than get hung up on getting a video up every week and then falling off the face off the world for months when I burn out.
3. Try out a few new techniques
Maybe I’ll make a list like Fiona from Diary of a Chainstitcher of techniques I’d like to try so I can check them off as I go. I definitely still want to have a go at a shirt with sleeve plackets and a stand collar. I want to sew something with godets too and maybe I’ll brave a welt pocket this year.
4. Stashbust
I can’t not put this one on the list even though I’ve never managed it. I have started to be a lot more conscious with my fabric choices and I’m trying harder to only buy fabric when I have immediate plans to sew it.
5. Be a better blogger
Be a better photographer might be a more apt goal here as I’m fine with the writing bits, it’s the making myself presentable and taking photos of my makes that I’ve struggled with. I have so many unblogged makes now. I’d like to stay on top of that a bit better this year. I should probably start by taking photos of my top 5 hits and misses like I threatened to in my Reflections post…
So those are my goals. They’re a bit less SMART and a bit more fluffy this year but I’m cool with that as I generally seem to fail the SMART ones. Have you made goals this year? Have you gone SMART or more general like me this year?