Saturday, December 24, 2011

End of year post 2011

My main goals for this year were to keep sewing plenty of things for myself and to use more fabric than I bought.

In 2011, I made 73 items, including 41 pieces of clothing for me and 23 for the kids. I made the same amount of things for myself last year. Considering I am working an additional day each fortnight and am volunteering slightly more, this result is pleasing.

Woven tops/blouse: 7
Knit tops: 9
Jumpers: 3
Jackets; 2
Shorts: 3
Pants: 4
Dresses: 2
Skirts: 3
Other: 8


Favourite item: Chantilly dress – maybe because it is fresh on my mind. I spent a lot of time on it, and was pleased to take it from something I was too scared to start to an elegant, swishy delight.

Most unexpected enjoyment: pink Swiss-dot Taffy top. I actually made it as a muslin but love to wear it.

Biggest flop – a tee that stretched out of shape straightaway. Honourable mention goes to a lovely sheath dress with the shrinking lining – twice i have washed it and twice the lining has pulled at the hem funny.

Most time consuming: I was going to say my fuchsia wool jacket, but I actually think the Chantilly dress took longer.

Most frustrating project: jeans. They launched a real desire to acquire a vintage beauty to do the tough stuff.

Okay, so how much fabric did I buy, and how much did I use? In the end, I bought 81.55 metres. Wow, and that was trying to be careful. My biggest downfalls was a 40% off sale and some fabrics on ebay that came in 5m lots.
Of that 81.55m, I used 60.2m of it this year. That is a conversion rate of more than 73%. It makes it seem less bad that only 21.35m was added to the stash from the fabric I bought this year.
I sewed up 94 metres in 2011.that includes fabric for 5 muslins. I worked out that 63% of the fabric I used came from the fabric I had bought this year and 37% came from the stash. There is one UFO of 90cm plus I donated 7.3 metres to my daughter's class for costumes, so that brings the total up to 102.2m.

Keeping tabs of how much I bought and used was a useful motivation tool,so I plan to keep it up but it will not be my main goal for next year. I will have to think about what I want to achieve next year. I have a few ideas of what to enter into competitions, and need to start earlier than normal to meet the deadline.

2 comments:

  1. That is impressive all round. I bought a lot less fabric this year than in the past 5 years- because I am knitting so much. But I certainly didn't use 73% of the wool I bought (or even the fabric)
    Very productive of you.

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  2. I like how you've kept track of how much fabric you've bought/used. The fabric sales are what brings me down too, that and the clearance table! I might start keeping track of my stash next year too and I only want to buy when I have a project in mind for the fabric otherwise I end up getting extra "just in case"!

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