Review of 2014

I’ve been wanting to do a review of 2014, especially my dressmaking for a week or two.  But I’ve been struck down with a nasty virus, and my head has been so full of ‘fog’ that I couldn’t think straight!  So now I’m beginning to feel better, here’s my review of dressmaking and other crafts.

My favourite dress was this purple one, worn for Christmas events.  It’s Style Arc Trixie dress, made with purple ponte from Fabricland.  I had plenty of help at my dressmaking drop-in with Laura at More Sewing.

Other favourites and most worn:

1. Lottie blouse.  Free pattern with Love Sewing magazine
2. Kimono.  Free pattern from Sew Caroline
3. Dress made last year and altered to fit since I lost loads of weight
4. Staple Dress by April Rhodes.  I really didn’t think I’d like this, but it turns out to be really comfortable on hot days!
5. Tartan skirt from a Kwik Sew patter.  The tartan fabric was very slippery and tricky to sew, and I challenged myself to line it.  I made it quite short which I like.  It’s too big now and I’m not sure whether I will alter it.
6. Deer and Doe Plantain top.  I wore this loads last winter, but it is too big now.  It’s in my pile of things to alter as it should be quite simple to do.

My least worn items are these:

1. Wiksten Tova top.  I just don’t like the neck line or how it looks on me.  Think I am better with more fitted tops.  The second one in green is on my pile to refashion. 
2. The broderie anglais blouse is lovely and fits really well, but I haven’t worn it as much as I thought I would.  It’s because it’s a bit see through!

I made a few other tops that I didn’t blog, and some trousers that I have only worn once and not photographed!

My biggest challenge this year was getting the fit right.  And then I lost loads of weight! I am lucky to have 2 fabric/sewing shops close by, and am attending dressmaking drop-in every Tuesday morning at More Sewing.  I am loving it!  I have loads more confidence to tackle more difficult items now I can get help from Laura.

Other craft successes include:

2 quilts.  First one is my scrappy quilt from Sunday Morning Quilts. It still needs backing and quilting. Second one is my own design and was made for a great nephew.  The fabric is fabulous!  I am not sure you can see it properly in this photo, but it’s retro little boys with rockets and space themed toys.

 

Cushions

1. I challenged myself to do piping round the edge and put a zip in it.
2. Letters cut out using my cricut machine and appliqued on to cushion.

Christmas ornament.  A reindeer garland.  I really wanted to make more of these but ran out of time!

Bags

These were all made for Christmas presents:

1. Sew together bag by Sew Demented.  It has 3 zippered compartments inside!
2. Scrap Happy Purse by Crazy Mom Quilts
3. I did follow a pattern for this one but can’t find it now!

Crochet

1. Happy Blanket for MIL
2. Owls form Crochet Gifts magazine
3. Flower Garden Blanket crocheted throughout the year along side my craft cabin pals

 

Scrapbooking has taken a bit of a back seat this year.  I have completed a Project Life style album for 2014 and

1. Completed an album of our holiday to Canada in 2004.
2. My mini adventures ‘art journal’
3. one swap: Home made project life style cards.  These are the cards I made.

 

All in all it’s been a great year for crafting!  I’ll do another post soon about my intentions for 2015.

Week in My Life

I love this project that is the brainchid of Ali Edwards.  Here is link to all you need to know about her project.  I have taken part over the years and love the fact I have a week documented for July 2011, April 2012 and now October 2014.  It will be great to look back on all the minutiae of my daily life. 

I love that this year’s week was in the autumn.  Although that did prove difficult for photography with dark evenings and grey days! 

I decided that as I didn’t have a lot of spare time, I would do the album as I went along, rather than write notes to be transcribed later.  So I filled Project Life album pages with cards, and wrote on them each day.  I also chose which photos I would want to print for each day as I went along.  Voila!  One finished album with very little time spent!

Here’s a look at some of the pages:

 

Some highlights of the week:

Autumn and Christmas at the same time in my fireplace.  I have been making reindeer garlands after seeing them on Facebook:

Getting Jason, our gym instructor to take a photo of us while we are doing 1 minute of plank!  This is our Wednesday morning core exercise class.  That’s me in the front in the black.

View of my kitchen table/desk:

A day out in Chichester with Mum on Friday.  Goodness it was busy!  Well it was half-term week and a beautiful warm sunny day. Here’s a photo of the cathedral and a view out of the car on the way home after dropping Mum home.  Love that the moon is visible!

 

Scrapbook crop on Saturday.  We took out usual Christmas photo.  This year we wore purple and made crowns!

 

A great evening out for dinner with friends on Saturday evening.

Sunday morning walk:

Nicholas buying a new sofa for his flat! 

September Mini Adventures

I decided to do a ‘mini-adventure’ every day in September.  It’s a bit like Shimelle’s Learn Something New Every Day class, which she hosts every September and which I have participated in from time to time.  My aim was to do something a bit different and out of routine each day.  I also got inspiration from Psychologies magazine which ran an article about mini adventures in August.  They chose things like ‘go home from work a different way’ or ‘try a salsa class’.   So I drew up a list and included things like:

Try a new fruit – I tried fresh figs

Wear a different colour.  I painted my toenails this pretty pastel green

I picked a few crafty adventures too, such as Paint!  I copied a technique from Alisa Burke’s blog and used these pastel colours to stamp with a feather.

Walk in my neighbourhood.  This is a little twitten/alleyway where I used to walk the dog regularly.  I hadn’t been there for quite a while.

Some adventures were really simple and didn’t take much time, like take a selfie, others were more involved, such as take a bus ride, or take a train ride.

My reasons for doing this project was to take me out of my hundrum routine and take my mind off my health difficulties (I am now injecting insulin for my diabetes, as it looks like it is a late onset type 1 diabetes.  I am waiting to see the consultant to find out.  Meanwhile I am having to stab myself numerous times per day to test my blood glucose levels and watch how many carbs I eat!).  I also wanted to kick start my photography again, so included ‘photograph a flower’, and took my camera on my walks.  And including different crafts, such as painting, drawing and doodling I was hoping to rekindle my love of paper crafting.

Of course, I have documented my adventures!  I wrote everyday on Facebook, and shared them with non-crafty friends who don’t read my blog.  Some of my friends were really interested and commented every day!  I really liked that.  I also made a book.  I bought a ‘Junk Journal’ pack from Julie Kirk and used it to make a mini book.  I am really pleased with the result!

Julie’s kit included 2 covers which I painted and doodled.  I bought myself a new white Posca pen, which is fabulous! 

The kit also includes papers you can include as pages.  I added in some postcards I had bought from Charleston, an old pack of children’s playing cards, and a piece of junk mail from an estate agent which was perfect for documenting helping Nicholas with his new flat/apartment.

 

I am really happy with the way the project went.  I only missed 1 day, the 29th, right at the end!  I had 1 disaster when I tried to bake scones.  I don’t bake very often, and have a new oven, so I am afraid to say they went straight in the bin!  But as my friend Cynthia said, to have an adventure you have to take yourself out of your comfort zone!  I did try another scone recipe a few days later which was successful. 

Since the end of September I have repeated some of the adventures, such as try a new recipe and try a new fruit (I bought a pomegranate).  Maurice has had the last couple of weeks off work as holiday but we haven’t been away.  He is keen to  spend time at Nicholas’s flat decorating – so my routine has not been much different to normal.  To try and shake things up a bit for me, I have thought of small things we could do, based on my mini adventures like go out for breakfast, and go to the cinema (we went to see ‘Gone Girl’ – I definitely recommend it!)

To sum up – it’s the little things that make me happy!

September Month in Numbers

It has been a lovely warm sunny month, just about 30 days of sunshine and 0 inches of rain!  Plenty of opportunities to wear my newly made  shorts and walk along the beach.

Rather than do Shimelle’s ‘Learn Something New Everyday’ class again, I made up 30 mini adventures to do in September.  I missed only 1 day.  More about my mini adventures in another blog post, but I did write 4 letters….

… and switched my radio over to BBC Radio 3 from my usual BBC Radio 2

I finished up with my Scavenger Hunt photos with a photo of 18 bird houses (you liked it so much I am going to show you t again!)

We made 1 trip to London to go to a concert in Hyde Park, at which 8 acts played: Chrissie Hynde, Bellowhead, Gregory Porter, Kacey Musgraves, Paloma Faith, Billy Ocean, Blondie and Jeff Lynne’s ELO:

It was a great day, Jeff Lynne played a fabulous set including all the classic ELO songs.  This was the first time he had played live for 26 years!

We made 1 trip to Birmingham to see some of my mum’s family; 2 uncles and 3 cousins plus their families.  There were 12 of us for lunch:

Nicholas got the keys to his apartment this month.  It needs lots of work, so we stripped the wallpaper in 4 rooms:

Finally, I know you have seen it before, but I finished the last of my 100 crotchet squares to make my lovely colourful, cosy blanket:

 

I am linking up with Julie for Month in Numbers.  Pop over and see what everyone else has done numerically in September.