From 2010 to 2011

Yes, I know, I did sort of promise to do a round-up of 2010, before the new year...

I was really planning to do that on December 31th, but I was sewing a dress which just had to be finished first. And then there was a party to go to. And then there was a nasty little stomach virus which kept me in bed for two days.

So here, we are, on Januari 3rd and although I haven't done this sort of thing before and although I don't really like the somewhat forced looking back and making of resolutions which the coming of the New Year always seems to inspire, I'll have a go.

(a note up front: I am not going to include loads of links to older posts here. However, you should be able to find them by typing the key-words, which I will mark, into the handy google-thingy in the right hand sidebar)

2010 was my first full year of blogging, so it was also the first year in which I can sort of trace what I've made. Sort of, because I haven't always documented the more boring stuff.

I would like to think I got a bit better at this blogging-thing. At least I dropped the 'weekly outfit' posts half-way through the year, partly because of time-by-daylight constrainsts and partly because I felt I no longer needed them as 'space-filling'.

(I have to say I'm grateful to blogger for improving the spamfilter, I used to get lots of spam, especially if I hadn't posted in a few days... So space-filling used to be functional)

I also made appeals to your sense of style in my fairly long and well-documented struggle with pinstripe and, more recently, with velvet.

In general, I've tried to stop simply dumping pictures of finished garments on this blog and instead, go step-by-step and show you some of the process behind the making. Because I make my own patterns, that isn't always easy. Until I sort of mastered Illustrator, I couldn't show a tech drawing and I will, with this way of working, never be able to show pictures of what the finished product should look like. Or make useful recommendations to others wanting to make something similar.

I have made a few tutorials of projects which don't require a full set of tried and tested slopers and quite a bit of experience and/or background information on pattern making.

Of the longer projects, I think last summers' dreamt-up dresses were nice. I didn't make all of them, partly because I didn't have suitable fabric for some.

I think numbers 1,4 and 7 of this second line-up may still make it into reality at some point in the future.

And they, without me realizing it, already started me on the way towards the colours I would embrace for autumn/winter. Which, as you may know if you've read this blog for a while or remember me from Burdastyle, was quite a step for me. No black but rich, saturated colours...

And of course, there were the dress

and the jacket from re-used leather.

And my bathing suit.

All in all it was a good year for sewing. I didn't do anything groundbreakingly new, but I did master my new sewing machine and serger, I made a lot of clothes I like, got more experienced in making patterns and more adventurous in trying out new shapes.

I'm going to show you my-just 2010 dress tomorrow and I have several, as usually not too well-ordered, plans for sewing in 2011. I would really like to make 1 or 2 suits before winter is over. And I'm thinking about a quick 60's dress, a mini, with long sleeves, just because.

Happy New Year, everyone! And I'd love to read about your sewing plans.