Resolutions and Plans for 2017

I’m planning to be a lot more deliberate in 2017. While there will be goals for weight, body fat, meditation, writing and home organization, this post is all about sewing.

I’ve been sewing again for about 18-months. I wasn’t much of a deliberate sewer in my teens and 20s, everything was slapdash and haphazard. I didn’t work on skills, I didn’t plan, I just hacked up fabric and flew as fast as I could at the machine. My wild and carefree youth (rolling eyes).

In 2017 I want to sew more, but also sew smarter.

Goal 1 – Work on Skills

I’ve got about 3 reusable shopping bags of fabric scraps and small remnants. I will use these to build skills, just for the sake of improving my sewing. Here are the skills I plan to work on:

• Welt pockets
• Lapels and collar points
• Sleeve caps (gathered perfectly and evenly)
• Buttonholes (my machine does perfect button holes, but I’d like to experiment with adding cording, or using contrasting threads)
• Lapped zippers and fly zippers
• Blind Hemming using that foot on my regular machine
• Rolled Hems on my serger
• Different types of seam finishes

Goal 2 – Use the Good Fabric

I took a few minutes tonight to pull out my fabric stash and here is most of my ‘precious’ fabric:

There are a few more pieces in project boxes with patterns and notions ready to go, but this is the bulk of the good stuff. Why didn’t I sew it when I bought it last year? I was unsure of my skills and whether I could do justice to ‘real’ fabric.

Think about it – it’s a waste of money for good fabric to just sit in my closet – especially the woolen that could be attacked by moths. So this stuff will be sewn. If it’s not used by next Fall, it’s going to the ASG Atlanta fabric sale. That’s a vow!

Goal 3 – Stop the general stash buying

Like many sewists in the U.S., I bought a bunch of fabric at Hancock Fabrics when they were going out of business last year. Much of what I bought was really useful (zippers, thread, stabilizers, interfacing), but some was just impulse purchases.

Some of the fabric will go for skill building (Goal 1), and others for projects like Kennel Quilts for animal shelters, or little home dec items like hamper liners or placemats. But this year, if I don’t have a specific purpose for a fabric, I will not buy it. Period. I honestly don’t want to be one of those people who has a closet full of stuff that sits for decades. I’ve done the Marie Kondo on the whole house- fabric will not be my downfall!

So where to now?

First project to complete is hand stitching the edge of an old Hudson’s Bay Blanket so it can be used on the screened porch this winter. Perfect project for this weekend when we are expecting snow, and there are 4 NFL wildcard football games. Next is a cozy for G’s French press, and then a weekend of skill building. Only then will I jump in to a garment, and for it I will use a piece of fabric I already own (even though I really could use a new bathrobe …)

What are your sewing goals for 2017?