Resolutions Review

Since I am a planner and a big fan of new year's resolutions (I do have 10 of them every year and manage to fulfill 7-8 of them regularly), let's review the list from 2020, shall we:

1. Stash reduction - decrease stash by 10m

Almost there - I reduced my stash by exactly 9m, which represents 10% of the total stash at the beginning of 2020, so definitely a win. I am proud of 2020 being the 4th consecutive stash-reducing year.

I managed to use up some old fabrics, mostly cottons, as well as some cotton scraps, as I sewed 130 face masks from my own stash this year. I do not want to say "thanks covid", however, it helped :)

Also, I sewed up all fabrics bought in 2018, please do not ask how I managed that. For all other years, the split is quite even, except the purchases in 2020 where I did not have time to use up everything.

2. New sewing skills - learn sewing with jerseys

A big win. Because of covid and working from home for the most part of the year, sewing jersey was THE THING to do this year.

Merino t-shirts for our winter trip to Iceland, merino shirts for my family for x-mas (I actually made a big order of merino jerseys which helped not achieve my 1st goal completely), casual jersey dresses were the best thing of this year, as this is what I wore the most, so it was the most logical thing to sew. I still have quite a lot of things to blog about, including kid's clothes and velvet x-mas dresses for me, as well as my new sports outfits.

It definitely helped that I purchased a combined overlock/coverlock machine in January. It took me some time to learn to thread it properly and start really sewing with it, but once I have mastered it, I cannot stop. Sewing jersey is just super quick and nice with this machine, I do not even mind switching from overlock to the coverlock mode.

3. Follow the wishlist

• Black winter coat (Burda) - done, not yet blogged though
• Black mid-season coat (Burda) - not done, but I sewed another midseason coat from Burda 
• Pair of jeans (Closet case) - not done
• Black jumpsuit (McCall's) - done, even though not worn as much as I have imagined

2 out of 4, but with me staying at home all the plans got somehow changed, so the result is not so bad in the end.

4. Burda challenge

Hmmm, so I sewed a lot from Burda this year (detail to come in my hits&misses post), but for the exact 2020 number, not so sure. I had to check my sewing excel and the result is actually better than I had thought:

2020 Burda used: March (2x), April, August, September, October (4x), December (2x)

So that is half of the issues received. I have however, had quite some issues with receiving them and they also arrived later than they were available on the newsstands which is quite a disappointment and which means that I am no longer a subscriber and will continue buying an occasional issue now and then.

All in all, that was a great year, sewing wise. I spent a lot of time at home, and sewing actually helped me stay focused and concentrated and as usual, it was a great way to destress after work. In general, I do not consider 2020 such a horrible year, as everybody is trying to suggest, I managed not to catch the virus, and still have my full time job at the end of the year, I feel rather privileged, as the only constraint to that was not being able to travel as much as I would have wanted and staying at home. 

I do not want to go too much into detail, as this is a sewing blog and in terms of my sewing, I have really expanded my skills with my serger, I sewed some more kids clothes and some sophisticated and complicated garments as well.

(beautiful inside of my spring coat)