Knitting and sewing plans for 2021

This is my last day of holiday before I return to work so I thought I'd better get this post published today otherwise I can see it will languish...(I started writing it about a month ago).

Sewing

I plan to make more floaty dresses and having totted up the sewing patterns I bought last year (21), I will aim to use more of them this year,

although repeats of three of them (McCalls 7969, McCalls 7948 and Tessuti Felicia) will probably also feature.

I've decided that I'd really like to make inroads into my stash of gingham, 

lawns and voiles, 

chambray, Indian cotton and linen.

I may also feel the need to make something really bright...

Although there is no chance of me sewing all this up in a year, this will serve as a useful visual reminder of what I have!  There is a possibility I may buy more linen, because (i) I've loved the look of many of the dresses other sewing peeps have made from it and posted on Instagram, and (ii) I have some ideas in my head which cannot be realised with what I already have.  I also love that it doesn't stick to tights in winter.

I've already finished one dress this year, and will try and cut out a couple more at the weekend - I much prefer to do this in daylight - I find the shadows from electric light on fabric when cutting out disconcerting.

I am also going to plan my sewing so that I'm not forever changing the thread on my overlocker - it's not too much of a hassle, but I'd rather keep it to a minimum.

Knitting

I hope to only knit from stash again this year and would also like to get back to my Home Fires knitting project which stalled during 2020.  There is a new book being published soon (I think it's already out in digital or audio format, but I like paper books) so that will be a perfect excuse to watch the two series (again) and probably re-read the two books already published since ITV pulled the plug.  I've tracked down and bought a few more patterns for knitting which featured in the show.  Two of these I've blogged about already, but didn't own them at the time, 

and the third is what I think was probably used for this jumper, it's more similar than the other two patterns which I thought I might use.

Other than that, more vintage, probably fairisle or colourwork, to use up partially knitted balls and skeins, 

and a few plain coloured cardigans and jumpers as palette cleansers from all the sewing in of ends that multi-coloured knitting generates.

Navy micro-spot dress

So for my first dress of 2021 I wanted to try out the non-tiered skirt option of McCalls 7948 and I've had this fabric stashed for ages so decided to use it for this - although the photo seems to show a slight check pattern, this doesn't notice at all in real life (it's just small white dots on navy), so it might just be a trick of the camera?  I cut this out on New Year's Eve and finished sewing it on Saturday.

I lengthened the skirt by six inches and used the same bodice modification as for this one + pockets from Tessuti Felicia.  This was a quick sew, I didn't do any pattern matching when cutting out - I wanted to see what the minimum fabric requirement would be (2.2m of 110cm wide fabric) and there are no darts or fastenings (or sleeves).

I like how this has turned out, there will be more of these this year I'm sure!

2020 knitting and sewing review

Well 2020 was a very topsy turvy year - all my plans for visiting places and events went out the window because of Covid-19.  I've also been working at home since March and had no work-related travel, which you would think would have given me more crafting time, but I ended up using the time gained to do a lot of sorting out and recycling of stuff rather than creating more.

During this I came across this piece of fairisle knitting.

I knitted this many years ago and the top of the piece has some shaping at the sides so I can only think that I was intending for it to be a jumper for my daughter (who now has three children of her own...).  I recognise the colours as being leftovers from things which I did actually finish knitting for her when she was a baby / toddler.  Memory fails me as to which wool I used - possibly a John Lewis own-brand or Patons - it's 4-ply which has stood up remarkably well to the passage of time, with no holes or thin bits.  I'm pretty sure it wasn't from a pattern, and I didn't have any stitch dictionaries at that time either so I suspect I just made it up as I went along.

Anyway...back to 2020... the first knitting FO was a cardigan (as will be the first FO of 2021...).

This was followed by four vintage tops - two 1940s rainbow jumpers, another Greta top and a fairisle sleeveless pullover.

On the sewing front I made three maxi dresses - two from McCalls 7948 and another Simplicity 2886 / 1801 mash-up. 

 There was also a loose sleeveless dress (Tessuti Felicia), a long-sleeved dress which was a modified McCalls 7969 and a skirt from a vintage New Look / Maudella pattern.

So significantly less sewing and knitting than in previous years.

I'm very pleased that I got through the entire year without buying any yarn at all - this hasn't happened for at least a decade!  I also destashed a fair bit and the money and space this released persuaded me to break my self-imposed decision at the beginning of the year not to buy any fabric or patterns.  Because of this I've ended the year with more fabric yardage that I started with.  I've only made up one of these fabrics so far (the brown gingham), and because I bought 5 metres of it and it's wide there is enough left to make another dress.  On the pattern front I added to my collection of vintage knitting patterns, and probably bought about a dozen, mostly current, sewing ones.  I've just checked and the tally is actually eight indie, three vintage, one vintage repro and nine big four, so 21 in fact - oops...