Me Made May Debrief

I feel pretty good about my Me Made May!

First the Pledge:

• To wear me-made separates three times per week
  Tick!
  I wore separates for 16 out of the 31 days. The rest of the time I still wore me-mades, obviously, but they were dresses.
• To mend, make, upcycle or embellish something, anything!
  Tick again!
  I mended my nightshirt sleeves that were horrendously worn.
  I made two tops, a skirt and three dresses (two from scratch, one upcycled).
  I upcyled a dress that I was no longer feeling the love for. I think it will be more wearable now.
  I also did a Stash audit and donated about a third of it that I knew in my heart I was never going to use. It felt good!
• To document my outfits on Instagram, follow 10 new MMMers, and comment positively on other MMM posts daily
  More ticking!
  I posted every day, in my Insta Stories, and followed lovely new people and commented pretty much everyday.

Onto the Learnings… I used Zoe’s MMM Workbook, to keep track of how I was feeling as I went along. I’m reasonably self-aware (I like to think!) and on the whole there weren’t any horrors.

Of the Good:

• Fabrics: soft, drapey, stretchy, comfortable, non-restrictive.
• Colours: Teal, minty green, navy, purple, plum (black is a given!)
• Silhouettes: long-line, straight dresses and skirts

Of the Meh:

• Fabrics: structured wovens.
• Colours: nothing that I regret, but some garments need to be paired more carefully than I actually did.
• Silhouettes: sacky sacky dresses.

I’m happy with my wardrobe. The challenge of wearing separates was illuminating – for me, the key was the bottom half. If I got that right, the top would follow quite easily. If I started with the top, it didn’t always work. That’s a good basis for me to carry on with wearing separates more regularly. I was able to identify which garments I was not happy with, and I’ve got plans in place for fixing them or upcycling them or making them into something that I’d be more willing to wear.

The only wardrobe gap that I’ve got is Outerwear. I’m going to try making a jacket this summer, to see how I get on.

The workbook asks about “Proud Moments”. I’d say it wasn’t so much proud as happy. I got the inspiration to get my Repro Tee pattern drafted, toiled, adjusted, finalised and in use, which I’ve been meaning to do for months, I met my challenging but achievable goals, and I’ve got my strategies in place to move my Me Mades forwards. I reckon that’s a pretty good MMM!

Here’s the video I made of the month’s pictures.

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A post shared by Béatrice Curtis (@missbeacurtis)

MMM Thoughts

Not gonna lie, this one was not a super soaraway success. It started out ok…

“I Béa of BeasSewingAdventures.wordpress.com (aka @missbeacurtis on instagram) pledge to wear Me-made clothing and jewellery/accessories throughout May 2022…”

That was all fine. But that was the easiest of all the pledges, since I wear MM pretty much every day.

“…to document my daily outfits on Instagram and to comment positively on at least 10 other people’s MMM posts each day.”

That’s where it all went a bit meh. I don’t know why, but I lost my Insta mojo two thirds of the way through, and skipped nine days. I managed to pick it up for the last couple of days, so we’ll call that a qualified success. But this:

“I will also do some actual sewing.”

Absolutely failed this one completely. Not one stitch stitched. I knitted – the ongoing Temperature Dress and a cardigan. But no actual sewing.

The Temperature Dress – this pic is from the end of June, when we’d had a little heatwave

Ah well, next year, I will hopefully do better.

And what did I learn? That I’m still happier wearing dresses than separates. That I need a couple more late-spring/summer dresses (and even though I know this, I still haven’t sewn any yet).

And weirdly, that even though I’m much more into dresses than separates, I still feel like making tops/shirts. I suspect this is partly as a result of having top/shirt sized pieces of fabric in my stash. But also, it could be that one of the reasons separates don’t speak to me right now is that I don’t have many me-made tops that I really love. Maybe having more nice tops and shirts might get me back into wearing separates more regularly.

What I have (kinda, sorta) decided is to revisit the Sew Over It Alex Shirt/shirtdress pattern (from their City Break E-book). This meets my need for more summer dresses, and scratches the tops/shirts itch. I made this shirt at one of their workshops a few years ago, and I wasn’t that happy with the way the pattern worked for me. However, I’ve used it as a nightshirt, and the chambray has softened up and become more drapey over the years, and that’s made the things I didn’t like much less noticeable. Also, I have learned by now that making a new-to-me pattern at a workshop is essentially making a toile. If it’s wearable, hooray! Either way, I end up knowing what I need/want to tweak. So I’m thinking a) I could make a shirtdress in a more drapey fabric and it would probably be ok and also b) I could work on amending my pattern so that if I’m making it in a more structured fabric, I will have incorporated the changes I think it needs. My instinct is to make it as a dress first, in something floppy from stash, and if that makes me happy, then I can make it as a shirt, and see how that goes.

I’ve also found new people to follow on instagram, so that my feed isn’t full of thin, flat-chested people looking gorgeous but who will never make me think “actually that would look great on me”. Instead my feed has a lot more people who have a body type closer to mine, looking gorgeous, in clothes that make me think “that looks like something that would make me happy to wear”. I love seeing my non-curvy friends on insta, and I gain inspiration from them as well as the curvy girls. But it’s good to have representations of different body types for inspiration.

So that was my Me-Made May 2022. Roll on next year, and hopefully by then I’ll have a better, more motivating pledge worked out.

Very late MMM thoughts and goals arising

I think I must be the very last person commenting on their Me Made May! It went well – I wore Me Made outfits every day, including for my dance teaching. I posted every day’s outfit (except one). I was pleased that I had a lot of choice in my clothing, throughout the month. I didn’t have any “Oh lordy, I haven’t got a thing to wear today!” moments, so I feel confident that my me-made wardrobe is adequate to my needs and wants. I didn’t observe any glaring gaps. That is possibly a strong contributory factor to the lack of sewing that has been happening this year. My personal challenge had been to dress with a bit more care than usual, which was my way of telling myself to think about wearing jewellery or accessories, but I didn’t brilliantly on that. But I’m not going to beat myself up about this, because I did ok.

Having said that, May was quite a warm month, so I didn’t feel much need for long-sleeved tops, or coats and jackets, or jumpers, which are the gaps that I do know need to be filled at some point, so: Goal #1 – make a couple of jumpers ready for the cooler weather. This is actually the most hard-to-achieve of all these goals, just because I’m such a slow knitter. I’m half way through a turquoise cardigan, so maybe over the summer hols I should be able to finish it.

Looking back at MM17, I relied quite heavily on refashioned or embellished RTW t-shirt tops, and I found I didn’t need to this year, as I have a better selection of actual me-made tops to wear now. Again, since most of them are sleeveless, or short-sleeved, I think I need Goal #2 – make a couple more sleeved tops. I’m already working on this one, with my next Simple Sew Blog make, so watch this space.

Coming soon…

With the dance teaching, I found I was lacking in me-made hip scarves, but I don’t really feel I need to make any, because I’ve got plenty of hip scarves already and I don’t need any more. To be fair, all my hip scarves are hand-made, because you just can’t mechanise that sort of crafting, and even if you could, Cairo tends to prefer human labour to mechanisation! It’s helping women to work, when it can sometimes be hard for them to do so, because of family/societal pressures to stay home. So no goals needed for my dance kit.

The one clothing item I am reproaching myself for is a RTW swimsuit. I went swimming a few times and I have no me-made swimmers – what’s a girl to do?! Skinnydipping was not an option. So that is leading me to Goal #3 – make my own swimsuit. I see no reason why I can’t – it’s perfectly possible. I have plenty of lycra fabric left over from my costume making days, so I’ve got the basics already. The question is – can I make one in time for my hols, which start 11th August? It would be great if I could…

So overall, it all went ok.

I can’t help thinking, though, that next year, I need to give myself a proper challenge, or take time out from MMM. It was all too easy this time around. I wear me-made almost every day anyway, so unless I change the nature of the challenge, to focus on mending/fixing *which is a chore* or something else that focusses me on making, I can’t think of how to make it more ambitious or stretching. Any ideas out there?

 

 

Creating a holiday wardrobe

I’m off to France for 2½ weeks next Thursday – I can’t wait! I’m trying to plan for two things, firstly I want to take a capsule-ish wardrobe, and secondly I want to take some sewing/knitting to be done there.

The holiday wardrobe doesn’t need to cover formal events, it’s going to be seaside and family visits. I’ll have access to a washing machine, so I can happily repeat wears. I’m a shocker for over-packing, so I’m trying to limit myself to 4 skirts, 5 tops and 3 dresses. I’m going for a blue based colour scheme, because this year I seem to be drawn to blues. However, in order to take the garments that I want to take, I do need to get down and make some of them. That’s ok, I’ve got a week, right? And any hand finishing can be a holiday craft project.

What I want to take

Skirts: grey birds, royal blue jersey, paisley leftovers, black denim
Tops: white dot shell top, watercolour floral shell top, mournful leopard, blue-grey t-shirt, black lace top
Dresses: Teal dress, royal blue & mint lace t-shirt dress, denim/lace jersey dress

Making stuff to take

I started last night with a royal blue jersey pull on skirt. I was using the lovely soft viscose jersey I got from FC Fabric Studio back in April.  This is another of my self-drafted numbers, mostly done on the overlocker, nothing special about it. I took trouble to make the elastic waistband nice and I used the mock-bank hem finish with my overlocker. And it’s got a lovely little “Handmade” charm inside the waistband to show me which is front & which is back.

A straightforward tube skirt

I’ll be honest, this project took considerably longer than it needed to, because the overlocker took a bit of umbrage about something, I don’t know what, and decided to break threads for no readily discernible reason. This meant proper re-threading from scratch. Which is fine, I totally know how to do that now, but it was a bit of a faff. And then it decided to break a needle. This was rather more of a learning experience. I had a spare, so no problems there, but this was a new thing to learn how to do, and for a while I got all fingers-and-thumbsy and couldn’t hold the needle *and* tighten the little screw both at the same time. But again it’s all fine, it got done, it was just time consuming. Incidentally, the broken needle pinged off quite a distance! I’m glad I wear glasses – if I didn’t I might be looking to invest in safety goggles!
I’ve got enough of this jersey left over, to make the dress I’ve got on the list.

While I was in the groove, I even got around to sewing a buttonhole and a button on the Grey Birds skirt waistband, last night, to replace the hook & bar that I first put in. This is something I’d been meaning to do for ages. So that’s another easy win. 

This means the skirts are all done! Hooray!

For the tops, I’ve got a lot to do if I’m going to take all the tops I want to take.

The Watercolour Floral top is under way. It’s nearly finished except for the hemming, which I will do by hand as a holiday project.

I’ve got a t-shirt to make, and I’m going to be using the Simple Sew Shannon Collection pattern for that. I’ve also got all the doings for a lace back top. I don’t have a pattern for this, although I think I’m going to use my shell top pattern as a starting point. I can’t use that exact technique, though, because of the lace element. It’s going to require a bit of thought and research. I’m quite excited to see how far I can take it!

And finally, the dresses… I need to make all of them! They will all be partially made, to be finished by hand while I’m away. The teal one is all ready with only sewing bias facings to be done on my hols. The other two will probably end up being self-drafted, on the fly!

I’ve also got to spend a bit of time this weekend on my next Simple Sew Blog Make, because I want it to be done before I go away. But I think I’ve got time for everything I’ve got planned, particularly as I’m leaving all the hand finishing as Holiday Sewing Projects. Which leads me to…

Holiday Sewing Projects

I know I’m lining up a fair bit of hand finishing for myself, but it will get done pretty quickly, I reckon, so I need more projects to work on. I’m going to take some knitting, but I suspect that will be the last thing I pick up, because sewing is much more my default crafting activity! Knitting is too slow.

I will take a couple of my plain t-shirts to embellish, for example there’s one that I started a while ago, that would handily fit well into my holiday capsule wardrobe, so it would make sense to take that one and get it finished.

I’ve also been researching a few haberdasheries, to do a bit of sewing sightseeing, especially for those days that aren’t so hot and sunshiny.

So that’s my plans for the next few weeks. Happy holidays! 

Blogiversary thoughts

Sunday was the four year anniversary of this blog starting. I was just looking back on my first post and I realised that I’ve done quite well in learning the things I thought back then that I would need to learn:

“Things that I will have to learn for this adventure to start being successful:

• zips
• buttonholes
• proper fitting
• finishing
• neatness
• patience”

Zips – check! I can do a centred zip (was my default from my teenage sewing days), a lapped zip (with or without protective placket, machined or hand picked) and concealed zips (thanks to the wonderful concealed zip foot). I don’t know if there are other kinds of zips to try, but if there are, I will not fear them!

Buttonholes – check! Although I haven’t really used buttonholes in series (for example, down a shirt front), I know how to use my machine’s buttonhole foot, and I’m no longer scared of them!

Proper fitting – I’ve learned that this is going to be a life-long learning process! But I do not fear the FBA, nor the swayback adjustment, and I can grade a pattern (though I may grumble about doing so!). So I think that’s another check.

Finishing – check! I’m happy with the finishing of my me-mades. Sometimes, the finishing has been more functional than pretty, but none of them have frayed. And with my lovely new overlocker, it is only going to get better.

Neatness – check! Well more or less – again, sometimes my neatness is more a matter of functionality. But I do a lovely invisible hem, I reckon.

Patience – Ah well, that’s another life-long learning process… But I’ve definitely come to understand and accept that the pattern adjusting and the cutting and the marking, while not technically “sewing” are key to the process of “making”. And I’ve learned to be a bit more Zen about that.

So overall, that’s pretty good going.

That led to me wondering where I go from here, in terms of my sewing ambitions and goals. I’m not at all competitive about this, and I’m happy just to be making nice clothes that fit me and suit my style. But I’d like to think my future sewing would involve making more complex garments than I’ve tackled to date, and improving my fitting skills. So I’m hoping that in the next two or three years, I would have made:

• some button up garments such as shirts and blouses
• some lined garments, including skirts and dresses
• some more complex garments, such as jackets and coats. Especially if they are lined!

As well as getting better at the fitting and the patience.

I’ve got plans brewing for learning more about shirts. I’ve booked myself onto another Sew Over It course, but that won’t be for a while yet, so I’m not getting over-excited right now. I found the Zoe dress course to be a really positive learning experience, so I have high hopes that I will learn a whole lot more again.

Joining the Moneta party!

There’s a party planned for February and I’m determined to be there…

Party Time! Excellent!

One of the things I learned from Me Made May last year was that the Moneta pattern was calling out to me. So I got it, but haven’t got around to doing anything with it so far. So when the Triple Stitchers (Abigail of Sew Abigail, Elle of Sew Positivity and Rachel of Rach Against the Sewing Machine) announced their Moneta Party, I jumped right on that bandwagon. It was meant to be.

I’ve been through the Stash, and there’s only one piece that I can do it with if it’s going to have sleeves (and thereby be suitable for the cold weather) – the massive red floral ponte. It was already on my #2017UseNine list so it’s an all round winner. I’ve got all the other notions I need for it already, so I’m good to go…

Anyone else out there going to be partying with us at the end of February?

#2017usenine

The insta-sphere is great for getting a load of New Year ideas and challenges. I’ve been seeing a lot of #2017makenine posts, inspired by Rochelle of Lucky Lucille with fantastic ideas of patterns and garments that people are planning on making in the year ahead. But the gorgeous and creative Rhiannon of More Blue Fabric has taken it a step further. As soon as I read these words, I knew this was the right approach for me:

“One of the things I am acutely aware of at the moment is that my stash is getting bigger and bigger, and that I keep buying new things with plans to use them, but then a new favourite comes along and pushes it to the side.” 

She’s created the #2017usenine hashtag, and I’m jumping right on board with that. It totally tallies with my Stashwatch plans, and my aims to use my stash before adding any more to it. So here is my collection of nine fabrics I want to get sewn up this year.

#2017usenine – four plains, five patterned

Let’s start with all those plains. I decided in May last year that I need more plain tops that I can wear with patterned skirts. So I bought a whole load of plain fabric last year, and this year I need to make it up. The white Swiss dot cotton (top left) is already cut out, although I’ve still got to piece a front facing for it to work, and I just need to sew the beggar up. The black peachskin (bottom left) is also going to be a top, but I haven’t decided what kind – possibly a variation on the batwing dresses, but it’s not a knit so I’d have to be more thoughtful about how I make it up. It’s lovely and slinky, but could be a bit of a nightmare to wrangle. The navy (top middle) is also quite slinky and was bought with the notion of making into a shell top, but I might turn it into a Juliette blouse.

But I can’t work purely in plains, I need me some floral print! The red ponte (top right) was supposed to be a Christmas dress, but that didn’t happen. But it will! There are two other floral jerseys there – the pale blue with a pretty meadowflower print, bottom right, and the olive-y pink next to it, which seems much more exotic. They will both be tops. I may need to run up a couple of plain black skirts to wear with them through Me Made May, though!

This black & white & pink sateen has been begging to be made into a skirt since I got it 2½ years ago. It’s cut out, and I’m planning on making it properly lined by way of a little challenge to myself. The bonkers pink and purple scuba (middle row left) will be a simple dress, because there’s no point in trying to use a fancy pattern to try and shout that print down.

And finally the plain white jersey in the middle row right, is going to be at least one scarf, possibly more. I’ve got ideas for at least eight. One of the things I do need more of are interesting accessories, and my selfless sewing of scarves for others has triggered a desire to make some for myself. I probably won’t use it all up, and I doubt I’d use up all my ideas, but I’m going to see how far I can take it.

So, those are my current ideas. I think I’m going to go for the red dress first, because who wouldn’t want a massive floral red dress?!

Stashwatch 2016 – How did I do?

To recap, my goals for 2016 were:
– to catalogue the stash. ✔️
– to use 10 pieces of stash fabric, of which 5 would be used *up*. ✔️
– to fix/mend/refashion 10 items. ✖️ Only 4.
– to not buy any new fabric until I’d used at least 5 stash items. ✔️

So I would say overall I did pretty well. I’m calling 2016 a Stashwin.

Moving forward into 2017, I need to consider new goals.

1. The cataloguing was really beneficial in making me more conscious – about what I buy and what I use. I’m confident that I will keep this up. However, if I’m being brutally honest, I cheated – mea maxima culpa. I only applied this to one of my stashes. Truth is, I’ve got an additional Costume Fabric stash, which contains fabrics for making dance costumes. Plus at least 2 costumes in progress. I ought to investigate whether any of the fabrics in that bag could usefully be transferred to the Real Life Fabric stash. Most of it wouldn’t work, but there’s probably a couple of fabrics that I might be able to get away with for everyday wear. I don’t know when, but I’ll say:
* To catalogue my costume fabric stash and transfer suitable fabrics to my real life fabric stash.

2. The using stash goal is a good one to reprise for next year. I’m happy to work with 1 item per month for now, but with a mid-year review, in case I’ve made it too easy, or in case I’ve built up a bigger stash than I’m feeling comfortable with. This will also tie in with my intended #2017usenine aim. So let’s say:
* To use up 12 items from stash and to review this aim in the summer.

3. I’m thinking more about the refashions and fixes aim. I’m going to separate these two areas, because I do view fixing/mending differently than I view refashions. The fix-ups are chores that aren’t creative or fun. At the moment I’ve only got 3 in the pile, and it’s not worth making this an aim by itself. I’ll get round to them eventually. My refashions are usually quick and easy and they tick all my boxes on making my clothing more personal and unique, so I don’t know why I don’t work on those more. I’ve still got a few plans and ideas for refashions so I do want a goal for these. I want to keep these aims achievable, but also challenging. Based on my refashioning output this year, I’m going to say:
* To refashion 6 garments. 

4. Despite having called Stashwatch 2016 a win at the start of this post, I can’t avoid the fact that I have ended the year with a bigger stash than I started with, which feels like a massive fail, but really isn’t. I’ve used up a lot of long-standing stash items – only 10 items now date back to earlier than the start of 2016, the majority are this year’s acquisitions. I’ve fabric-swapped those items I wasn’t ever realistically going to use. And I’ve attended two fabric swaps and had three fabric splurges, so I reckon my stash ending only 3 items up is pretty good going. It now feels like my stash is more “curated”, it’s fabrics that I love and know will fit in with my wardrobe.
Having morally absolved myself, though, I’m still left with the practical issue that one of my main drivers for starting the Stashwatch in the first place was my lack of storage, and that problem has not gone away. So I’m renewing the no-buying commitment:
* To not buy any new fabric until I’ve used up at least 6 stash items.

5. For a new heading, I want to address the issue of Works In Progress.
My catalogued stash includes a few works in progress which need finishing. I’ll sometimes start a project by cutting the fabric, then fail to do the sewing part. Which is bonkers, because the sewing is the fun part! On the positive side, the WIPs I had at the start of the year did get finished in 2016, and the WIPs I now have are new ones, so that’s quite heartening. But in general, knowing I’ve got WIPs waiting on the shelf, makes me feel stressy and guilt-ridden, so in the interests of my personal wellbeing, I need to get a handle on them:
* To keep WIPs to no more than 3 throughout the year. If I feel like starting a fourth, I need to consider whether I should finish of any of the other three first, or let one of them go. 

I think those are all manageable, and will keep things under control. I’ll update the Stashwatch page shortly. It’s handy to have that Internet accountability! 

I’ll also be posting more about the #2017usenine, when I’ve had a bit of a rummage around the stash and made some decisions about what I’d like to sew. 

Four things for the Summer

I have four things I want to get done in the next month. I’m off on my hols on 18th July, and I want to have these items done before then. Not necessarily for my holiday packing, but because I want them done! In order…

First of all, I *have* to do the Frozen cloak for littlest niece and it *needs* to be squee-worthy. I’ve got pale blue mesh and matching sequins, I’ve got rhinestones, I’ve  got detailed measurements, I’ve got a load of Disney Princess inspiration…

Els-piration

So that’s good to go.

Secondly, I received the beautiful chambray from K of Sew Much 2 Learn and I don’t want it languishing, unused and forlorn, in my stash. So I am going to make a Belcarra blouse with it. This will be a bit of an experiment for me, because it’s potentially a shapeless mass of fabric, and I do need my clothing to have *some* structure to be in any way flattering for me- I can’t do sacks! But I saw Ruth’s and it seems to fit nicely on her, so I’m going to give it a whirl. I will need to do a bit of pattern futzing, including an FBA, plus I may find I need to add some darting or other shaping, for it not to look too much like I just cut some squares & sewed them together.  There will be a trial run (aka a wearable toile), using the floral print cotton I got at Goldhawk Road.Then, assuming I can make it nicely enough that I want more of the same, I will have a go with that delicate cloudy blue/grey cotton. This will definitely help with my existing wardrobe.

Thirdly, having signed up for the Summer Sundress Sewalong, I’m going to treat this as the impetus to finish the teal dress from last autumn. I’ve got everything I need for it, it’s cut out and partially sewn, I know what changes I need to make to it, and I know what finishing touches I want for it (and have all the necessary gubbins), I just need to blooming-well do it. If I can get it done, then I might think of some other summer sundress project, but I’m Keepin’ It Real for now.

And last but by no means least, I received the Style Arc Belinda pattern from the lovely Fiona at Seams Straightforward, and again, it seems rude not to take advantage of it sooner rather than later. Plus this is a driver for creating some more useful wardrobe basics. This top looks flattering and well within my personal styling preferences. I’ve got some plain black jersey and plain white jersey to try it with. She also sent me another Style Arc pattern, the Amy top, which I also want to use, but being realistic it’s going to have to wait a little while- I’m not that prolific in my sewing!

That’s the plan for now. It’s possibly a bit ambitious, because I may be taking on some extra work (in addition to my day job, my volunteer job and my dance teaching job) and I may be more tired of an evening. But let’s see just how far I can get with this.

Planz- I haz dem

I’ve written out a list of the things I want to make this year. It’s an ambitious list. Actually, no, that’s being far too kind. It’s a completely unrealistic list! I can’t possibly get all those things done. Well I might if I didn’t have a social life and if I didn’t mess about online. Or work. Or possibly waste time with shopping and eating.

The list isn’t really a list of specific goals. It’s just a reminder of all the things I *want* to make. It’s my usual attempt to get the ideas out of my head, where they were buzzing around bothering me, and onto a page, where they can be recorded and controlled. I’ve written down all the things, and I’ve organised them. Just that fact alone puts me in control of those vague buzzy bothering thoughts. Now I can refer to my list and decide “Ah yes, I see it’s January, that means fixing the waistband on that pesky circle skirt, making something with that tomato coloured jersey I nabbed out of Dad’s ancient stash, and making at least two contributions to Jungle January”. Or I can refer to my list and decide “Stuff the circle skirt waistband, I’ll leave that till February”. The whole point of a list is that it’s malleable, manipulable (is that a word? It must be a word, it felt like a word.), adaptable. It is a Starting Point. That’s all it needs to be.

Once I’d worked out all the things I wanted to make, I allocated each of them to either January, February, March, Spring or Later (that’s all sounding a bit “this year, next year, sometime, never”!). I can review it later in the year. The things I don’t get round to doing in their designated time can be redesignated. Or ignored. Easy come, easy go.

So, in the interest of internet accountability, and having a record somewhere other than my laptop, here is the List of Unrealistic Plans:

January – Jungle January will mean a grey leopard print top (using one of the Plus Sized Pattern Pyramid patterns) and an animal print skirt (it depends on what fabric I can get). In addition, as I mentioned above, I’ve got some red jersey off my Dad to make into a skirt, and I need to fix the waistband on Squares & Triangles Circle Skirt. Are you seeing now how wildly overambitious I’m being?

February – I want to get that Tweal dress done. I have designated this Skirt Month, because I want to make at least three more skirts- a scalloped hem one, a border hem one, and a circle skirt, preferably one with the right sized waistband- I’m going to have to brush up my maths to get the Pi calculations right for this.

March – This month has been set aside for trying out Renfrews and using some of the jerseys in my stash. I can see this being a very useful pattern, and if I can crack this one it could sort out a lot of my top half wardrobe. If not already done, fix the front seam of the Jif Lemon Dress.

Spring – I want to make Cambie dresses, I love how they look, and I’ve got at least three pieces of stash fabric that would work with this pattern. I want to make a blouse, a proper one with buttons and buttonholes, this is my personal challenge. I’m planning on using a New Look pattern I’ve already got, but haven’t got any fabric in mind yet.

Later – In a further personal challenge, I want to make a jacket or coat. I’m thinking of the New Look 6162 coat that I got from the Plus Sized Pattern Pyramid, since I absolutely fell in love with it, but I’ve also got a yearning for Pauline Alice’s Ninot Jacket, because I do love a swing coat, and my pattern buying moratorium will be over by then. I’m also thinking I’d like to try making knickers out of all the scraps of jersey and lycra I’ve kept. I’m not knocking M&S, but it would be really cool to have my very own personal pants!

So there you have it- my ludicrously naive and impracticable plans for 2014. God bless them and all who sail in them…