Okay, so I know I’m super late to the Sewing Top 5 party but that’s okay. Also, I realise I haven’t posted here in… some time, so there’s lots of catching up to do. I’m not going to apologise, life just got busy, but I do love reading and writing blog posts, so it’s about time I got back to it. I have been sewing, by the way. There was a bit of a hiatus a couple of times during the year but I know how important it is to me to make time for sewing, so I’ve been doing more of that the last few months.
I was going to start with the sewing catch up posts first, but thought this round up of the year might be better first. Here goes!
Top 5 Hits
Zebra Dress 
Red Jenny Trousers 
Metallic Raincoat 
Spotty PJ Bottoms 
Lauren’s Mermaid Dress
- The Zebra dress (Sew Over It Heather Dress). Honestly, I’ve been wearing this all the time whenever the weather has been cold enough. So cosy and so cute. I love it. So much so I’m wearing it right now!
- The Red Jenny Trousers (Closet Core Patterns). These were a surprise hit, as at first I thought they were too wide and bright for me. But they’re so comfy and they make me feel happy, so they’ve ended up being in regular rotation. I think it’s largely down to the fabric being superb quality. I do love me a bit of corduroy.
- The Metallic Raincoat (McCalls 6517). I still don’t love it when it rains, but I do love the fact I can now wear a properly waterproof raincoat with a hood that fits when my hair is up. Total win!
- The Spotty PJ Bottoms (not yet blogged, Simplicity 1504). The fabric is the star here. A Robert Kaufman Cosy Cotton flannel that feels absolutely divine to wear! These get worn as loungewear on a pretty much daily basis.
- Lauren’s Mermaid Dress (not yet blogged, the Twig and Tale Petal Wrap Dress). I love this on Lauren and Lauren loves it on Lauren too. Again, the fabric makes it. How wonderful is that Art Gallery Fabrics mermaid print?!
- Honorable mention: the altered self-drafted sequin dress. I didn’t sew it in 2021, but I did make a major alteration that drastically improved it. More on that below, as I actually got to wear it to a posh event!
Top 5 2 Misses
Art Gallery Shirt 
Flutter Bud Tee
- The Art Gallery Shirt (Butterick 5526) – I think this failed because of the structure of the fabric. Poplin just isn’t what I want in a shirt. It might end up getting worn this year under dungarees or open as a shacket, though. We shall see when the weather warms up.
- The Flutter Bud Tee (not yet blogged, Knit Sweetheart Tee pattern from Gertie Sews Vintage Casual book). Nope, the fabric and style just isn’t me anymore. I ended up giving this one to my daughter as she loves it, so not a total fail really.
Top 5 Non Sewing Highlights
The house 
The garden 
NYE 
London 
Lyme Regis
- Finally sorting out the new floor in our living/dining room. Oh, it was hard work laying all those narrow engineered wood boards, but totally worth it. We got some new bits of furniture too and the room is now my favourite place to be.
- Getting an allotment with my Dad, and vegetable growing in general (I expanded the beds in the back garden, pictured above). The garden is now my happy place rather than being a bit of an eyesore.
- Seeing lots of our friends! The pandemic might not be over, but we definitely got to socialise a lot more in 2021 than we did in 2020. Particular highlights were going camping in the New Forest in August with a whole group of friends to celebrate my best friend’s birthday, another friend’s wonderful wedding in an old railway station in Wales, and spending New Year’s Eve at a fabulous party thrown by stupidly wealthy friends on a fancy yacht in Bristol (picture above). I finally got to wear my sequin dress after making a dramatic low cut back neckline and adding some bra cups to the lining.
- Going on a couple of trips to London. We still didn’t dare risk booking a holiday abroad as the Covid rules were changing constantly, but Andy and I visited London in the summer, and we took the kids just before Christmas. We did some proper touristy things I’ve never done before, like going on the London Eye and a river boat trip.
- Family days out on the beach. We went on a few, but the September trip to Lyme Regis was particularly memorable as the weather was absolutely amazing. The kids had a blast with the inflatable we bought, and now Lauren is a bit older, beach day trips are so much easier. We hope to do many more this next year.
Top 5 Reflections
- I lost my personal style direction a bit this last couple of years, and experimented with different things (not always successfully). I’ve learnt lots in the process, though, and after going through the initial exercises in the Curated Closet book I feel like I’ve got a much stronger sense of my style going forward. I’m actually really excited to go through the stash and get rid of fabric and patterns that don’t work for me.
- I’ve really enjoyed working on some more involved, technical sewing and doing problem solving (like sorting out that sequin dress). I need to do more of this in the future. Outerwear! Lingerie! Maybe another corset!
- There was definitely less time for sewing during the spring and summer, what with all the home improvements and gardening going on. I hope I’ll manage to make use of my time a bit better this next year as I do love sewing regularly.
- I love my pared down and better organised sewing area. It’s still in the same place but I now have an IKEA Kallax unit for all my supplies and have made matching sewing machine and ironing board covers. It’s so much easier to use everything and it looks better too. Handy when it’s right in the main room of the house.
- Better lighting would mean I make more, especially during the long winter evenings. I must get a sewing machine light (LED strip on the machine) and some proper task lighting in both the sewing area and by my end of the sofa.
Top 5 Goals
- Practice fashion illustration and start intentionally designing my own clothes more. I have the skills and experience now to make substantial pattern alterations and even draft some things from scratch, so I’m planning to more of this. Making good technical illustrations first will be an essential part of the process. I’ve already started on this by watching most of the Drawing Fashion Flats class on Craftsy and trying a couple of the exercises.
- Continue to declutter all my sewing supplies and fabric/patterns. I want to have a digital record of all patterns and fabric yardage, as well as swatches of all the fabrics downstairs (the stash is in the loft, so not super easy to access).
- Use up my stash fabric and scraps as much as possible. Work on some scrap busting patterns like kids’ clothes, cleaning cloths, quilts, lingerie, rag rugs, etc. I want to work through all those crates of fabric offcuts in the interests of sustainability and creating more space.
- Incorporate more hand sewing in my garments. I’m good and hand sewing and I actually enjoy it. It would be good to have something portable I can work on away from the machine. Failing that, knit socks!
- Aim to blog at least every other week so I can finally get that backlog of projects shared here. I do still love reading blogs and longform posts suit me so much better than Instagram style ones. I might start doing a quick monthly round up post again as I like reading that sort of things from others. A making diary, charting the progress of more involved makes and so on.
So, that’s all for now, folks. Hopefully I’ll be back to more regular blogging from here on. Expect to hear from me soon!
Anna x
PS, it would be lovely to hear how everyone’s doing, so please leave a comment if you are able and so inclined 🙂
Glad to see you are doing well! 2022 looks like its going to be a year of highs and lows for me so far, but I’m doing a fair bit more sewing than I did last year. I’m excited to see what you are able to accomplish this year, and I’d love to hear more about your sewing space updates – I need to seriously put some time into dealing with the re-organization I only got half-done at the start of the pandemic and never really finished.