Knitting and sewing review of 2019

Knitting

Well, I managed to knit only from stash and not buy any wool at all this year apart from some Drops Baby Merino to knit a Christmas jumper for my grandson (and a couple of other colours to make the order up to value for free p&p), and I justified that because I didn't have the right colours in stash.

So this year's tally is
yarn bought = 2,275m
yarn knitted = 11,021m

Overall 8,746 metres less in my stash than at the beginning of the year - hooray!

I knitted quite a few things from my plan for the year which I'm pleased about - I got stuck in to my Home Fires knitting project, I blogged about the individual knits here, here, here, and here, and wrote a general update on patterns and my visit to Bunbury (where it was filmed) here.

I also knitted two jumpers and three cardigans from my 2019 plan and one other, a baby cardigan for my newest grandson

and a Christmas jumper for his older brother (I ran out of time before I could knit one for my granddaughter, so if she'd like one she can have one next year - the Rudolph jumper was specifically requested!).

The cardigan is from a vintage pattern that I've used before.

Although I didn't knit the dress (again), and two cardigans are carried forward to Spring 2020 - by the time I got around to thinking about knitting them autumn was well on its way and I knew I wouldn't wear them for months if I started them in September - I'm very pleased with the total output.

Sewing

This year's sewing has consisted entirely of sleeveless dresses all of which, apart from the navy daisies one, were sewn from fabric I already had.  And all except one (Anya) had a pleated skirt.

Bodice patterns used
Sew Over It Betty (10)
Butterick 5748 (3)
Simplicity 2444 (3)

Skirt patterns used
Simplicity 3749 (7)
Butterick 2248 (2)
New Look 6824 pleated version (6)
New Look 6824 straight version (1)

It turns out the most popular combo was Betty bodice and Simplicity 3749 skirt - I made five of these,

closely followed by Betty and New Look 6824 pleated - four.

These two both have Butterick 2248 skirts - only suitable for 56"+ width fabric (Betty bodice on the left, Butterick 5748 bodice on the right)

And here are the rest - the three dresses with Simplicity 2444 bodices (bottom left and the two on the right) and the other two with Butterick 5748 bodices.

I bought 5.5m of fabric this year - daisy print poplin which quickly became this dress, and some bee print corduroy which I have yet to sew up.  I also took quite a few metres of fabric to Sew Brum for the swap table, so much more out than in!

Overall I'm pleased with what I've sewn, having made good inroads in to my stash, although the output bears little resemblance to the original plan beyond the first paragraph!

Round up of my knitting and sewing year - 2014

A bit late to the party for this, but I've enjoyed reading other bloggers' round-ups, so here is mine!

Knitting

I've knitted three cardigans for myself and two for my grandson (all blogged).  I've also knitted him two jumpers and a hat.  And that is the sum total of my knitting output in 2014 - not really very much!  The second jumper is another incarnation of the striped Debbie Bliss pattern I blogged about here, just different colours and a larger size.

Another Debbie Bliss striped jumper

And the hat is from the same Debbie Bliss book - a straightforward 1 x 1 rib with a pompom on top.

Debbie Bliss baby hat

I've also knitted the body of a cardigan for me, but still need to knit the sleeves.

Another Toshsock cardigan for me

I spotted this pattern either on bygumbygolly's blog or instagram feed, can't remember which now, and decided that I really wanted to knit it - I bought it from Subversive Femme on etsy.

However, I wanted to use 4-ply wool (from my stash of Madeline Tosh sock yarn) so I haven't actually followed the pattern at all, I've just used the lace pattern instructions - which I charted because I find it much easier to follow charts than written instructions when it comes to knitting lace.

I don't really enjoy knitting sleeves, but they do provide an ideal opportunity for TV knitting, so I plan to sit down with a boxed set or two and just. get. them. done.  And since they will be top down once the sleeve caps are done the knitting will get quicker because I'll be decreasing steadily down to the wrists.

Sewing

I completed 21 dresses, all of which I've blogged about except this one.

Christmas trees Emery

My sister and I had a day visiting various London fabric shops back in November (at least I think it was November - it was whenever the new Islington Sew Over It had their opening weekend) and I spotted this fabric at Fabrics Galore in Clapham.   It isn't on the Christmas section of their website so I don't know whether they still have it.  I've bought from them before at shows - they've always had a great selection of fabric and really friendly and helpful staff and I was very pleased to find that the shop was just as good - a treasure trove in fact, and I bought three more dress lengths and a couple for my sister too as an early Christmas present.

The dress is an Emery by Christine Haynes - a great pattern to show off a print because of its clean and simple lines.  Nothing to say on the construction front - it's a straight size 6 with no modifications made, although I traced the front bodice and front skirt pattern pieces so that I could cut them on a single layer of fabric rather than on the fold and be picky about pattern placement.

I also made a skirt for my mother which I haven't blogged yet - details will follow.  :-)

I finally sewed a couple of dresses from my vintage pattern stash which goes from one extreme - unprinted, just cut tissue with holes, to the other - printing with seam allowances and all sorts of other instructions on the tissue, far more detail than current patterns have in fact.  The two I have sewn from fall into this latter category, but I aim to use some of the others in my 2015 sewing.

Overall, I'm very pleased with what I've made this year - I've really enjoyed both the knitting and the sewing.  I've also joined instagram and pinterest.  It's been great to follow other knitters and sew-ers on instagram and meeting up with some in real life has also been good fun and is something I'd like to continue with in 2015.  I have yet to do anything with pinterest though, I suspect it may be an enormous rabbit hole...