2024 Sewing in Review (+ video)

This is my 12th year in review post, my goodness. As usual, I've neglected this blog terribly this year, but I have done a pretty decent amount of sewing. (Link to last year's post.)

I have also made a video version this time! I've wanted to for a few years now, but didn't have the space to film it before. (I had to move SO MUCH furniture to film that 1730's dressing video at my old place, and I couldn't even get the camera far enough away to get all of me in the shot.)

The first thing I finished was this pair of plain lambskin gloves based on one of the patterns in Diderot's 1768 Encyclopedia.

I made these for the sewing portion of my striped glove video, since I was worried the stripes would be too much eye strain for some people to look at during the whole sewing process.

New and unworn.

As I talked about in the video I'm not entirely happy with the facings, but I learned some stuff.

Worn a few times.

Next I made a nightgown out of a lilac coloured figured cotton bedsheet. It's not bad, but I'm not entirely happy with it.

I somehow put the sleeves on wrong and they ended up 6 cm too short, and the fabric is quite thick for a bedsheet. The hem is also a bit longer than usual, which is annoying when walking up stairs.

Then a white linen shirt. It's mostly machine sewn with cotton Aurifil 50 weight thread, which I'm very happy to have discovered. I haven't done many machine sewn white shirts because I didn't have a thread I was happy with, but now that I have a cone of lovely fine cotton thread I'll do more.

And then I finished my longest standing UFO, which I hadn't even intended to finish! 
I started and abandoned this silk dupioni petticoat in 2013, and I still had it in my stash because I thought I might use the fabric for something else someday.

But then I realized I could put it on my mannequin, Mr. Fibreglass. (He used to work a the same clothing store as I do, but was retired a couple years ago and now stands in the corner of my room.) 

I took the petticoat to work, picked apart the little bit I had sewn, serged the raw edges, and sewed it up. The scalloped ruffle was incredibly time consuming.

Finally decently covered up.
And much easier to put on a mannequin than pants.

I made a teal linen shirt, which was the main character of my machine sewn shirt tutorial video. Every shirt included in this post has the same basic construction.

I also made some ruffle samples for that video, and was surprised by how much people loved the gathering comparison one! I think that was my most popular instagram post in the whole year.

And then I made a shiny gold cotton (I think?) & lurex blend shirt.

The fabric was from the thrift store and I found it shortly after The Closet Historian posted a fantasy lookbook containing a shirt made from similar fabric, which I think is why I made this one.

It's cut smaller than usual because I didn't have very much fabric.

The front slit reinforcement was in part of my written shirt tutorial.

Then I made a pair of brown leather gloves. The lambskin is from ItalianSkins on etsy, as usual, and the thread is an olive green silk twist that I found at the thrift store.

I mentioned in my glove video that I wanted to tighten up the top of the hand and angle the fingers together more tightly, and I did that and it did improve the fit.

I did decorative feather stitch on the backs.

And then I made another shirt, this time in sage green linen, which I photographed for the written version of my shirt tutorial.

These black wool breeches were in The Pile for a couple of years, and are made of leftover wool from my black & white coat.

It's a fairly loosely woven wool, and I would not have chosen it for breeches now. I added some machine topstitching for extra reinforcement, and covered the buttons in a different wool, but I don't expect they'll hold up to wear super well. The lining is plain black linen.

One of my favourite things from this year is my purple jacket! Technically it's more of a mid 18th century sleeved waistcoat, since the back and sleeves are a different fabric from the fronts, but I made it to wear as a jacket.

The fronts are a picked apart wool pencil skirt (formerly navy but I overdyed it to make it purple) and the back and sleeves are 6 striped cotton napkins I found unopened in the package at the thrift store.

I did metallic leather buttonholes, and used some vintage metal grape leaf buttons. I'd had 7 of them in my stash for as long as I've had a stash, and I found 6 more of the same design on ebay, which was just the right amount for this jacket.

The lining is partly light purple silk taffeta, but I didn't have enough, so there's also some white taffeta and white cotton/silk blend satin.

Then I made a red velvet mite brooch, which had also been on The Pile for some time, despite being very small.

The velvet is synthetic and has been in my stash forever, and the body has buckram in the bottom and cotton wadding in the top.

Around this time I started working on a bag of 4 summer nightgowns that had been partially cut out in The Pile for a couple of years.

They're all rayon.

The construction is super simple, just a little bodice on a gathered rectangle skirt, and the arm and neck holes are faced with bias strips.

I might do a post on the construction the next time I make one. I've written practically nothing on this blog for most of the past year, and as I write this post I keep thinking "Dang, I wish I had a blog post to link to".

French seamed centre back because it's easier than flat felling such wiggly fabric.

The pattern has a negative space cutout for the bottom of the armhole, since the skirt is just a rectangle but sits a bit higher than the armpit.

Then I made a polyester underpetticoat for Mr. Fibreglass, because I bought a piece of fabric from the thrift store thinking it was rayon bemberg but it turned out to be polyester. Normally I re-donate such fabrics, but this was just the right size and colour to go under the other one.

Then I made a second velvet mite, and this time I made a video about it.

It's chunkier than the first one, and so looks much more like a real mite.

Then I made another underpetticoat for Mr Fibreglass, because I once again bought a piece of polyester from the thrift store thinking it might perhaps be rayon. Alas.
Even with two petticoats there isn't any noticeable increase in skirt floof, since the silk one is very heavy and limp. (Foolish 18 year old me prewashed the fabric.)

And then a pair of pants that had been on The Pile. I'd cut these out a year or two earlier, and the fabric is the same printed cotton twill I used for the striped pants I made in 2016. Looking back at that blog post I see I had left those ones in The Pile for a year as well. Oh dear. Those ones have long since been worn to pieces, so it's nice to have some new ones.

I've also made a pair of breeches out of the same fabric, and given a couple metres away to a friend, and yet I still have so much of it. I remember it was on a buy 1m get 2 free sale at Fabricville over a decade ago, and I think I ended up with something ridiculous like 14 metres.

And then I made the first of my 3 leaf bolero vests! 

It's green textured cotton from the thrift store, and the veins are painted on.

Oh gosh, I thought I'd done a blog post for this one but I just realized I didn't?? I did do a video though.

Then I made another in dark green, and this one is free motion quilted with corded veins. 

I was honestly pretty disappointed in this one. I'm very happy with the techniques, but the fabric is so dark and barely contrasts at all with the thread, and it looks flat and boring from a distance despite having a lot of texture.

I wanted to only use stash material for the 3 leaf vests, and if I'd bought fabric specifically for it I would have chosen something lighter.

Then I made a very simple cotton flannel hood to keep my head warm at home.

It's entirely machine sewn, and the hood is 2 layers while the cape is one. It's all simple geometric shapes, which I would like to experiment with a bit more. This one could definitely use some improvement.

And then the third and final leaf vest! This one's a rotten leaf, so it's 2 slightly different brown cottons patchworked together with veins embroidered over the seams, patches of venules embroidered here and there, and beads added to part of the bottom edge to imitate slime mould.

I am very happy with how this turned out, it's one of the best things I made all year.

And then another shirt, this time in black voile. Just like the red one I made the year before, it's from the thrift store and was woven a metre wide, so I left the sleeves and body a metre wide.

And another waistcoat from The Pile! This one is dark green wool lined with striped yellow silk taffeta.

The back is some linen scraps which I pieced, and the fronts were a picked apart pencil skirt, so they're also pieced a bit. The wool was originally grey and I overdyed it with green. 

Some of it's sewn by machine, but most of it is by hand. I'm glad to have another wool waistcoat for my everyday wardrobe.

Then I finished a linen neck cloth which had also been on The Pile for a few years. It's just a long rectangle hemmed on the sides with whipstitch, and with some weft threads pulled off the ends to make fringe.

The fabric is unfortunately too bulky and stiff to be a nice neck cloth, which is why I became discouraged and left it on The Pile in the first place, and why I'm not sure if I'll wear it. I may if I soften it up with enough washings, but that may destroy the fringe.

And a simple cravat, also from The Pile. Just a big square of black cotton/silk blend which I machine hemmed with my narrow hemmer foot, except for the ends which I had to hand sew because hemmer feet are tricky to start smoothly.

And the last thing was this blue silk waistcoat, which had also been on The Pile for several years. It had been mostly finished for a long time, but I put off finishing it because I can never get the shoulders smooth on this style of waistcoat and it frustrates me.

The fabric is from Puresilks and they still have it, but it's gone up about $10 in price since I bought this piece 4 years ago.

The back is linen twill from Pure Linen Envy and the lining is a couple different scraps of glazed cotton.

The shoulders are wrinkly, as I knew they would be, but the rest of it looks good and you can't see the wrinkles under a coat.

I finished it just a few hours before midnight on New Year's Eve, motivated by my desire to get the number of The Pile as small as I could before the year ended. While the shoulders annoy me, it's not as bad as I expected and I'm glad it's finished.

As for non-sewing things, in the summer I made a backdrop! It's pretty big, but youtube videos are quite wide, so I still have to fill out the sides with .png frames.

It's a big dropcloth which I painted 3 layers of increasingly dark greyish brown trees on.

I should do a blog post about making it...

I put together a cork board. By which I mean I found a framed piece of particle board at a rummage sale and glued some dollar store cork tiles to it. I also left it under weights overnight to flatten out the warping before re-framing it. The tiles were a nice thickness and it just barely fit back in the frame afterwards.

Not quite ideal to have it hanging on a wire instead of screwed to the wall like sturdier cork boards are, but it works.

I painted my bedroom walls light green!

SUCH an improvement on the miserable light blue that they were when I moved in. 

It's not an awful colour on its own, but it was a very cold colour for bedroom walls, and it clashed horribly with all my furnitures and fancy objects.

I also painted the ceiling because it had a water stain, and I learned that painting ceilings is not fun at all and makes your arms hurt.

Time to see how I did on my list of goals for 2024.

• Make a very thorough machine sewn shirt tutorial video, and an almost equally thorough tutorial blog post.
  Yes! I did both of those things! A very large task that I've wanted to do for several years, and now it's done!
• Start that 1720's suit. I don't have to finish it this year, but I at least want to start the pattern drafting.
  Nope. Didn't even do any drafting. I tried to dye some fabric, but it didn't turn out dark enough and I have to redo it, so the only thing I did towards that costume isn't even progress.
  I've been trying to focus on The Pile, and also my everyday wardrobe, so I'm ok with this. I do really want to make that suit eventually, but I need to finish up some other more pressing stuff first. 
• Make a new winter coat. I've been wearing my Grandpa's old coat for years and the lining is in increasingly bad shape.
  Nope, and now the lining is in even worse shape. Hopefully this year!
• Buy more silk twist, and actually USE it. Yes, I did well enough on that! I only want to use it on things like waistcoats and jackets, not on shirts and cotton pants, and I didn't finish many of those this year.
  The only thing I did silk buttonholes on was the green wool waistcoat. I also used green silk twist to sew the brown gloves. I would have done silk buttonholes on the blue waistcoat, but I'd already done the cotton buttonholes the year before.
• Take stock of everything in my wardrobe and have a good think about what it's most in need of, and then make more pants.
  I finished one pair of pants from The Pile. and it was already mostly finished. Alas.
• Finish the design for at least one printed to shape thing.
  Didn't do that either, ah well.
• Reduce the total number of unfinished sewing projects in The Pile.
  YES! On January 1st it was at 25 (not counting mending & alterations), and on the night of December 31st it was 12. More than half! I'm so pleased with the progress I've made, and look forward to getting it to single digits soon.
• (Extra goal added in late March) Try to limit my buying of new materials as much as I can. Mainly to cut down on spending, but I also have a large stash and would really like to use up more of the stuff in it.
  Ehh, I think I did decent but not great. I bought about 21.6 metres of *new* fabric, 6 lambskins, some cotton lace, and of course some thread. And a fair amount of other various bits of fabric from the thrift store, plus a little from estate sales. Most of the new stuff I bought was shirt linen, or stuff for linings, which is at least practical. Not a terrible amount for an entire year, but still. Much more than the 4 metres of new fabric I bought in all of 2023.

I may not have stuck very well to my specific goals, but I'm overall quite happy with the things I did do.

Goals for 2025:

Get The Pile down to 5 things at most.
I got it down by just a little over half last year, so I think this is going to be quite achievable. I've done most of the smallest and easiest things, so there are some very time consuming ones left, but I don't need to finish absolutely all of them this year. 

I'm going to try my absolute best to actually finish new projects one at a time, so hopefully The Pile will only shrink.

Draft a new pants pattern.
I think the reason I didn't make more pants is because I'm not happy with my pants pattern. It's old and it's been altered a lot, and I don't even remember exactly when or how I drafted it in the first place. Time for a new draft, and hopefully then I will sew more pants.

Make a new winter coat. (How did I miss this one in the video? I copied and pasted my list, what happened??)
I really really need to actually do this one. My poor Grandpa's coat lining is so so sad, and it's getting caught on my jacket cuffs when I put it on now. I want to someday take it apart and give it a whole new lining, but I can't do that until I have another coat.
I have some very dark green coating wool, I just need to get some lining fabric to go with it. I'm thinking 1790's with a shoulder cape or three.

Use more stash material. Limit buying new materials. 
I still have a pretty big stash, and I still need to save money, so I will try to be more strict this year! I wrote myself a list of rules and pinned them to my cork board:

• Do not buy *new* fabric unless it's for finishing a project that also uses stash fabric (like the aforementioned coat lining).
• Thrifted fabric is ok, but you must be more picky:
• No more sateen bedsheets until you have used up at least one full box of the ones you currently have. Not even if they're a really pretty colour.
• Be more selective about small bits, and consider how useful they really are. A nice piece of pants fabric doesn't count as pants fabric if there isn't enough for pants.
• Old silk obi from ebay DO count as thrifted as long as they're under $10, but please have some restraint.
  Don't look at that shop too often. Don't think about that shop too often. Log out of your ebay account so you aren't tempted to go bid on more beautiful, beautiful, crisp, heavy, shiny silk brocade obi. 
  Make more of an effort to use and wear some of the silk you already have, including the obi silk you bought a few years ago.
• In the unlikely event that you finish the designs for enough printed-to-shape things to fill a metre of custom printed yardage, that is an acceptable purchase of new fabric.

Make more nightgowns.
Simple enough. I have too many soft comfy cotton bedsheets in my stash, and not enough long sleeved nightgowns.

Work on more digital prints.

I added zero new repeating patterns to my Spoonflower last year, so any number above that counts as "more".

Make more time for home decor stuff.
Not quite a sewing goal, but it will include some sewing. There are sooo many things I want to paint, cover, repair, etc. and all I did this past year was paint my bedroom walls and get most of the way through a braided rug. Come to think of it, I painted a picture frame and mirror frame too. That's not very many things!
Two things I especially want to do are to paint some vines or trees or something on the slanted parts of my bedroom wall, since I can't hang pictures there, and to paint a pair of sconce lamps & re-cover the shades. 

Alrighty, I think that's it. I am going to defeat The Pile!