Happy New Year!

Happy New Year everyone! I hope everyone has had a relaxing and fun break over the holidays.  I had planned to do a round-up post as I've so enjoyed reading all the Top 5 posts, started by Gillian of Crafting a Rainbow (thanks Gillian!  However as you can probably guess from the above photo I've been a bit preoccupied! Let me introduce our new arrival.  Our little baby is just the best and most perfect creation I could ever have imagined and I'm absolutely besotted with him!

Looking back over this year's posts I'm pleasantly surprised to see how much I've made, especially considering I haven't done any sewing for months.  This year I've made 3 dresses, 4 skirts, 4 tops, and 2 t-shirts, plus 2 baby blankets as presents (using Handmade Jane's great tutorial).  My most worn makes are the 'sailing I am sailing' scout tee, Wildwood Flower skirt, and my two Kirsten Kimono tees - here and here.  The stripy Kimono tee is already in the bin as I wore and washed it loads and the fabric didn't really last.  The bird one has a few stains on it - I suppose I better get used to that now haha! So I need to get to making some more t-shirts soon. There are only a few things I've made which haven't been worn much so I think that's pretty good going - the Winter Ginger doesn't fit great and I just don't think it's quite my style even though I love the fabric.  My Spring-time Elisalex was a great learning experience but I cut it too short and ruined the effect of the shape.  I'm so pleased I make things I wear a lot and am proud of myself for successfully taking part in Me Made May and wearing me-mades every day (my Flickr set from May).  New techniques I learned include lining a bodice (on the Elisalex) and french seams (on my Scout Tees and Tiny Pocket Tank).  

All in all this year has been a great learning year for me with sewing and a very eventful year in our lives.  As well as welcoming our wee one we also bought our first home and moved in the summer, on one of the hottest days of the year and with me 6 months pregnant!

So no big round up post here, instead I'll set out a few aims for 2014 - but I'll not be to hard on myself if I don't get round to them!

1. Andrea and Gail have started a Stash Diet which sounds great to me! It's quite loose which suits me as I don't really have many fabrics for making clothes for Harris and I'm sure I'm going to want to buy some! Anyway I'll lay out my Stash Diet rules in another post.

2. Take part in some sew-alongs.  However, so this doesn't clash with the Stash Diet I'm only going to do this if I already have the pattern or suitable fabric for a theme (such as the Sewcialists Pink April)

3. 2013 involved a lot of repeats of patterns and that is going to continue this year as my sewing time will be very limited.  I'd like to make some more Scout tees, have another go at the Elisalex, try and make a few Anna's for the summer, and maybe even attempt some Juniper trousers though I realise that's probably being very over ambitious!

4. Make something every month, whether for baby, for me, or for the house

5. Of course most importantly I'd love to start making some clothes for baby!