Monday, 4 January 2021

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...




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