2016 Year in Review

Looking back at 2016, I can see my sewing plans were rather ambitious, perhaps a little too ambitious to be perfectly honest. I love planning projects, looking through my patterns and selecting the perfect fabrics and notions, but as many of you know, sometimes life just gets in the way and many dream projects never come to be. However, looking through my list of completed projects this year I am pleasantly surprised at how much I DID sew even if many of those thing were not included on my original 2016 Sewing Wish List.

OK, so what had I planned to work on this year? 

2016 Sewing Wish List

ALL THE 1940s PANTS! - Smooth Sailing Wearing History trousers and Simplicity 1306

Late 1930s Ike style jacket

Another 1940s hoodie

1930s/40s White linen dress or play suit

1920s Bathing suit

1940s Matching hat and bag

18th century silk gown

Revamp 1860s plaid cotton dress

Finish green stripe Regency dress, started oh so looooong ago

Bathing boots

An ambitious dream list to be sure! I've been itching to get back into historical sewing, and still am, hence the last couple of items. But with so few historical events in those eras to attend these days, those projects quickly took a back seat to other sewing, different projects and life in general. I took a look at the historical/vintage events I knew I would be attending and decided to focus on making/finishing things I would need for those.

So what did I complete this year?

Finished 2016 Projects

1940s White blouse to wear with my WAVES uniform

1930s Dress Simplicity 1945

1940s Red reproduction print dress Du Barry 2413B

Wearing History beach separates (here and here)

1940s Blue pants Simplicity 1306

Late 1930s brown linen skirt and matching bolero (seen in this post)

Long sleeve 1940s blouse

1920s-ish Bathing suit

I also made some good progress on my UFO pile. Mostly adding buttons and button holes to a couple blouses (Du Barry 5172), adding straps to my Du Barry 5296 skirt, finishing my 1940s red striped pinafore (McCall 5014), and putting the finishing touches on a few reproduction items for my Etsy shop.

Favorite makes and outfits from 2016 - 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 & 7, 8, 9

I didn't get to blog about all my sewing projects and I haven't been able to get photos of them all. But that's OK, you will be seeing a some of them later on I'm sure.

Blogging and sewing-related highlights of 2016 include...

Starting a newsletter (You can sign up here!)

Creating my very own YouTube channel and posting my first couple of videos

First guest post with Ester of Dolly Creates

I took part in the vintage Tea Cup Exchange

I got a vintage style hair cut for the very first time

I was a guest judge for 2 EvaDress Pattern sewing challenges (there is a new one starting in February)

I won $75 to Chronically Vintage's etsy shop

And to close out the year, my little blog was number 60 on the list of Top 100 Vintage Blogs!

Some of the vintage goodies I purchased from Chronically Vintage with my winnings.

 

This is completely unrelated to sewing but I started riding again and really look forward to riding more this spring when the weather warms up! Though riding in the snow is fun! This is Nicco, he's a 19 year Dutch warm blood. And at 18 hands, he's a big boy!

Well hello there!!

So what kind of things can you look forward to here in 2017? My main goal, other than more sewing of course, is to collaborate more with fellow bloggers. I already have a few things tentatively lined up but if you have ideas for guest posts, link swapping, etc. I would love to hear from you!