One year in Blogland

Happy Birthday, dear Blog!

Yup, the day is finally arrived! As I had alluded to last month, my blog is one year old today.

It’s a touch odd to go back and look at what I was doing this time last year; I don’t think I could have imagined how much my sewing would progress (particularly since I barely knew what I didn’t know…)

What I’ve done:

Sewing! While I’m still pretty haphazard about a lot of things, I have many, many more techniques under my belt. And I’ve made lots and lots of clothes, to the point where my me-made wardrobe is probably bigger than my RTW—certainly in my everyday clothes.

In particular, I’ve mastered (ok, attempted more than once:)

Fun projects

• fly-front zippers
• topstitching (and man were the first few attempts at this traumatizing!)
• bound buttonholes
• coat-making
• pad-stitching and a few other tailoring techniques
• my particular fitting issues (short upper body, swayback, long arms and legs)
• linings
• underlining and interlining
• welt pockets (definitely not mastered, but at least attempted.)
• knits! man I was scared of these…
• interfacing
• facings (and the nifty finishing-with-interfacing trick.
• spending money on sewing: fabric, interfacing, notions, patterns… OK, maybe this isn’t a good thing to have mastered, but trying to sew without spending money on it really kinda sucks.
• Stash. I definitely have a stash at this point. Not a humongous one, but not teeny-tiny, either. Confession: I love my stash. It gives me a warm feeling to have certain basic fabrics on hand, so that when/if the urge strikes I can whip up what I want on the spot.
• I’ve had a lot of fun with photography, too (intermixed with plenty of boring, boring shots).

Quirky projects

What I haven’t done:

• I haven’t done as much pattern-drafting as I had initially thought I would, although I have really enjoyed my forays into altering existing patterns.
• invisible zippers
• double-ended darts
• lapped zippers
• bagged lining
• a little black dress. Everyone needs one, right?
• most of these dresses.
• mitred corners

Hmm, that list actually isn’t half-bad.

I’ll take this moment of navel-gazing to highlight a few things.

My first list of goals (some achieved, some not! 😉 )

My first posted project.

My first wadder! (well, my first blogged wadder)

My first wearable garment (for me, anyway)

My first comment

My “arrival” in the blogosphere. I really had no idea how to “promote” my blog, other than posting my projects

Plain projects

on Burdastyle and PatternReview. It wasn’t until I got that coveted link from the Selfish Seamstress back in August that I actually got a readership of more than a handful of people :). (To those of you who were there before—well, you just extra-rock!)

And lastly I’d like to thank you all, each and every one of you, who takes the time to stop here and poke through my ramblings. Your comments are one of the high points of my days, and the interaction, both here and on your own blogs, keeps me excited and motivated and itching to sew, design, create!

In celebration, I’m going to wear my circle-skirt/Ceylon blouse combo, despite the fact that I have nowhere to go except taking kids to the doctor’s office this afternoon:

Me Made March 15—one year of blogging!

All dressed up!

Ceylon Blouse
Casey Circle Skirt
Fluffy Petticoat
Oh, yeah, and a poorly-fitting knit tee underneath for warmth.