2023 Recap

Indulge me a little, if you don't mind.

A few friends (the ones on the snarky scale) tell me that I worship at the altar of productivity. They're not wrong; they just mean it in a negative sense but I've always seen productivity as a positive. Maybe it's not healthy, but I've always judged myself by how much I've gotten done. I think it's the remainder of that bored only child - I can't be bored if I'm busy.

So, in writing/publishing, I put out two books this year: Coming Closer and Coming Together. I've assembled the ebook omnibus for the Ava & Claire trilogy, and that will be released on my birthday in January as Coming Home.

I've taken workshops on marketing and advertising; I've edited two books for other people; I've commissioned covers after trying (and failing, again) to design my own. The answer to the question, "Would I be better off writing?" is almost always "yes."

In animal news, we lost Harriet in February and acquired Rufus in April, after two very strange cat-free months. At some point, Rufus will get a friend because he's insistent upon being a cat and not a cuddly, non-verbal family member, and I want a writing and sewing buddy.

The garden was both out of control and very productive this year. I neglected to pull the volunteer tomatoes before they set fruit - and then I feel bad about yanking them - so I ended the season with eighteen plants, enough jars of sauce for the next two years, and a lot of happy neighbors. Produce and canned goods are currency in my town. The fig rree also put out its fair share, and that turned into nineteen half-pint jars of jam. 

There was no "real" vacation this year because we lost the credits for our thrice-postponed trip, but we did end up going to Vegas for my writing conference, which was a half-decent vacation when I was able to focus. I'd never want to go there for any other reason, though. I have nightmares that look like Vegas felt.

Even though I'm not usually the type to write it down, when I make my next day's to-do list lately, I've been writing down three things that I was grateful for during the day that just ended. It keeps me looking out for those good things throughout the day, and no matter how bad the day was, I can always manage to be grateful for my husband and coffee, and then I only have to find one more.

2022 Roundup

My word for 2022 was "push," partly to make up for what I felt was the sluggish pace of my former publishing journey, and partly, well, to push myself into actually doing all the things on my list.

How did I do? You tell me.

• Published Lady, in Waiting in February.
• Re-released Songbird's audiobook, finished edits for A Wider World's audiobook and learned to master audio so I could get that one up as well.
• Finished writing and editing Coming Apart.
• Formatted and released omnibus edition of the first Tudor Court trilogy in August.
• Wrote a prequel novella for Coming Apart which was released as a newsletter exclusive. Haven't read it? Sign up here. 
• Released Coming Apart in October.
• Wrote a novella (Princess of Spain) which was included in the Alternate Endings anthology, released in November.
• Six podcast guest appearances to talk about Coming Apart and historical fiction / writing generally. 
• Two in-person visits with writer friends, which were hugely inspiring for all concerned.
• Participated in a Zoom writing group (monthly until we fell off, but still keeping up by email) and a weekly writing salon on Twitter. Talking to other writers feeds the best, y'all.
• Writing the first draft of Coming Closer, which is the second book in the Ava & Claire series. It's done, it's resting, and I'll start in on edits in a week or so. Release is scheduled for April 18, 2023, so I'd better get on it...

Still thinking about my word for 2023, even though it's 2023. I can't repeat push, I might injure myself.

2011: Year End Review

Apparently, 2011 was the Year of the Dress, because I made a LOT of them.

Going back through my Month End Review posts for the year to try to pull together my favorites, I was surprised at just how many dresses there were. I felt like I'd kept it mixed up - pants, skirts, tops - but, no, dresses outnumbered everything.  By a considerable amount.

Oops.

I started off in the early spring with dresses, continued on through the late spring and summer with dresses, discovered Vogue 1250 and made knit dresses, and finished off in the fall with yet more dresses.

I'm so glad I managed to pull together my plaid jacket just so I can feel that I made a complicated, lined, fitted jacket this year. I thought I'd made a few of them, but apparently, no. I made dresses.

Did I say I made dresses?

Another thing that's difficult not to notice when looking at a selection of my garments:  I can't get excited about sewing with solids.  I'm a prints all the way girl, and I'm okay with that.  Face it, some of the prints I chose made those dresses.  My fling with scoop-necked, vintage inspired dresses wouldn't have been half as much fun if they'd been one color.  (Who'd give up that black and white border print for a solid?)

Stepping away from loud clothes for me, there is always the option of loud clothes for my handsome gentleman.  Mario got quite a selection of shirts this year - from black-and-white stock reports to parchment-colored vintage bamboo print to his alltime favorite, the Dr. Who "Exterminate" shirt made from a Spoonflower print.  He wears it entirely too often.  Then again, it's so memorable does it really matter whether he wears it once a quarter or once a week?  It's not as if his co-workers are likely  to forget it.

Patterns used this year were the full gamut: BWOF, KwikSew, Vogue, McCalls, Simplicity and Ottobre.  I think the only major pattern company that didn't make my "best of" list here was Butterick, and I can't think of the last time I sewed one of their patterns. 

I also tried out My Image this year, and really need to try another pattern.  They had some cute stuff, though their fabrics were such busy prints that it was difficult to make out the details of some of their patterns.

Ummm, pot? Meet kettle. Loud, printed kettle.

For 2012, I'm putting together a plan for myself.  (A plan which will be put into action after I finish cleaning up the workroom which, you will be glad to hear, is well under way so I will stop whining about it soon).  Somehow, it involves yet more dresses.

Today, there will be no work in the sewing room - at least not until this evening. We've been spending much of our time off working on the never-ending renovations at Mario's house, but now we're beginning to see light at the end of the tunnel that isn't an oncoming train. Fingers crossed that it will be finished and available for rent by the end of January.

Which is the only reason I'm spending my New Year's day plastering the downstairs bathroom instead of sorting fabrics. The things you do for love (and money).

I hope everyone had a wonderful New Year and are having a much more enjoyably productive day than I am.

I'll be back soon with a photo of the complete, reorganized and unspeakably tidy work space.

Really.

Best of 2010

Happy New Year, everyone. I hope 2011 has gotten off to a great start - mine has, and now I'm ready to close out 2010. For a lot of reasons, 2010 was a very good year.

Sewing-wise, 2010 was a very, very good year.

I went through the month-end reviews and picked out my favorites to share with you. Not every project made the top 10 for the same reason - some, like the piped Burda dress, are relatively simple, while others, like the plaid and leather jacket, were complicated patterns even before I complicated them further.

Leading off in January was a Burda pattern (4/2008 #128). It was a plus but I loved the twist front and decided to grade it down. Partway through, I realized that reinventing the wheel was silly and I only graded down the front, using the back and sides of my TNT KwikSew pattern. I've worn this really often and I think it's my favorite knit piece for the year.

February made me step out of my comfort zone. I have a love/hate relationship with ruffles (I love them; it's not always mutual) but I really wanted to try McCall 5522, and for some reason, the ruffled version really struck me. I decided if ruffles were good, then bias plaid ruffles were better. And in orange! I had a lot of fun matching the plaid and playing with the bias, and while it's not something I wear often, I got a good fitting blouse pattern out of it and I've come to accept that while ruffles may not be my best look, I can get away with them once in a while.

Especially in orange.

April's notable garment was the BWOF 2/2009 #104 V-backed sheath, a great dress on its own, but it apparently made a good impression because it's the basis for my frankenpatterned wedding dress. In its original form, it wasn't a difficult project - unlined, no sleeves to set in, but it's one of those projects where the end result has very little to do with the amount of effort put into the construction.

Sometimes it just happens that way.

In May, I finished a project that I'd been thinking about since some time in summer 2009, if not earlier - a Chanel(ish) jacket, based on KwikSew 3258. I'd made a muslin, tweaked it and put it down. When I found some black boiled wool, I was inspired to pick it up again. I paired it with the almanac-printed silk which had been in stash for another year or two, and had a lot of fun playing with buttons and trim.

It was definitely more labor-intensive than its predecessors on the list, but that was part of the fun for me - I like all the fiddly steps involved in making a jacket, and unless I'm pushing myself, I'll linger over it a few weeks so I can enjoy the process.

And I finally got Chanel out of my system. Though I can feel a relapse coming on. Can anyone say boucle?

Sometimes the best patterns are the simple ones, styles that you can customize to your heart's content. For me, the Burdastyle Fatina dress is one of those. I've made it 3 times now, but the Chocolate Swirl dress is a good example of how to take a basic pattern and tweak it to get the result you want. I saw a RTW black and white dress (knit) in a store, but by the time my dress made it out the workroom, it had turned cream and brown, and linen. Not where I started, but definitely more me.

Another repeater, and another simple pattern, is BWOF 2/09 #113. I've made it 4 times now, but this version was driven by the bright floral fabric I chose - fabric that had only been in stash for a week.

This was also a year of using my newest fabrics first, and only fishing into stash when I'd exhausted the more recent purchases. My stash deserves to be treated better than that, and I have apologized.

When I first paired this fabric with this pattern, I was iffy because there was no way that the seamlines weren't going to break up the floral and look funky in all the wrong ways. I hit on the idea of piping the seams and the neckline, which turned out to be the great choice, and a royal pain to actually do. I love piping; I just haven't used 5 yards of it on one project before.

This summer I also tackled an engineering project. Literally.

Back in January, I made a strapless dress for my actress friend. Even though I didn't like the dress that much, I was intrigued by the challenge it posed. I'd never used boning before, and I wanted to see what actually made the dress stay up besides will power. That dress stayed up through 20 performances, which gave me hope, but I wanted to try the theory out on a figure a little closer to home.

The pattern I chose was an older one, BWOF 5/2002 #111. There's a lot of boning - front darts, side seams, back darts - but it was comfortable, and it stayed up. Actually, it barely shifted when I wore it, which was a pleasant surprise after years of watching girls in strapless dresses tugging and adjusting and looking, well, tortured.

August's effort was a remake of a skirt I'd made years ago and outgrown. When I ran across the perfect pinstripe during Deepika's post-PR Weekend visit in July, I decided to recreate my lost skirt. Instead of normal ruffles, I used a technique from the 7/10 BWOF which consisted of lots and lots of circles, cut and folded and hand-sewn down to approximate ruffles. I lgot really tired of sewing those little circles but I loved the effect!

One of my absolute favorite projects for the entire year was also one of the fastest. Andrea wore an embroidered, appliqued skirt to work on a Friday, and I took one look at it and knew I had to have one of my own. I took a few pictures, drew out a diagram of the embellishments and spent some quality time playing with the photocopier to enlarge the design to the correct size.

That night I transferred the design to some distressed linen from my stash, and then the games began. I embroidered the stems, cut the leaves out of scrap leather, and made yo-yo flowers out of ivory lining fabric.

And I wore it to work on Monday, totally confused my co-workers, and made Andrea smile.

Things like that are WHY we sew.

Last but not least is the BWOF 1/2008 #127 shawl collar jacket, otherwise known as the jacket that made me face my fear and just sew the damn welt pockets already and stop whining. And I did sew them, and I stopped whining, and then for good measure I figured out how to do bound buttonholes in leather as well, and they worked, and now I have to find something new to complain about.

I left out a few categories when making this list, like men's shirts and baby clothes, one a longstanding like and the other one quite recent, because, after all, it really does come down to sewing for ourselves. That's where most of the hard lessons are learned

I'm calling the projects above my 10 best, though they aren't necessarily the "best" I did all year. For one reason or another, they're my favorites, either because it's a pattern I know well and can turn into something flattering without tearing my hair out, or because it's as project that challenged me to learn something I previously thought I was incapable of learning, or reminding me that I enjoy fiddly hand sewing while watching Mario watch TV.

That's my roundup. What about you? Did you have any projects last year that were particularly memorable? Did you learn something from them, or did they make you learn something about yourself?

The Best of 2009

A lot of fabric went through the machine this year. A lot.

I looked at the numbers for the year: garments made, yardage in and out, and I decided to concentrate on my favorite pieces for the year, and why.

Like numbers on the scale, yardage and numbers made don't mean all that much, so long as you're happy.

I'm happy with what I made.

In and amongst the 10 jackets that made their way out of the sewing room this year, one of my favorites was the raspberry iridescent trench jacket. It's not one of the most frequently worn pieces, but I enjoyed the process on this one more than the result - wrestling the sticky-backed vinyl, the quilted lining, adding the trench details, finding just the right buttons.

Sometimes it's about the process.

Though it's better when you wear it, of course.

One of my other good moments this sewing year was conquering jeans. There was definitely a run on jeans sewing over at Patternreview, and I caught the bug a little late. I also never got around to trying the famous Jalie jean pattern (I'll get there yet), but I made several pairs of the Ottobre jeans, and I like how they fit me. Considering how hard it is to find a pair of jeans that fit, this alone makes these worthy of the year-end list. Finally, a pair of black jeans that fits.

Wahoo for sew-yer-own.

Quite a few things for others got sewn this year as well. The final numbers were 7 pieces for Mario, shirts and t-shirts and, of course, the Christmas jacket. 'Nuff said on that particular project.

Most recently is the BWOF zip front jacket that literally was the last project of 2009. Nice to end on a high note. For those who wanted to see it on me, here you are. There are a few more pictures over at the PR review, as well.

I love this jacket. Not only is it part of my pledge to use the good stuff, it's made more meaningful because I bought the fabric while we were on vacation in Florence, so it's a wearable souvenir that is exactly what I wanted.

As far as using up the good stuff, I think that was covered by the vest I made with the Versace embroidered velvet I purchased at A Fabric Place during the PR Baltimore shopping day in summer 2008. It was, hands down, the most expensive fabric I've ever purchased, and I couldn't even afford a yard. So it stayed in the stash for a while, partly because I was afraid to cut into it, but it also needed a very specific pattern. I haven't worn this a whole lot, but now that it's cold out - and cold in my office - it will be a good extra layer. I'll take it out of the closet so I remember to wear it this coming week.

2009 was also a big year of refashioning and recycling for me. I can't help it; I have a great thrift store down the street and recycling gives me an excuse to buy lots of stuff made from beautiful fabrics that aren't my size. The jacket pictured here is a BWOF pattern constructed from a pair of men's tweed pants and some remnants of leather. And it has my only successful welt pockets to date (okay, so they're faux welt, because there's no depth to the jacket to add a pocket bag, but still, the welts are there, and they're relatively even. It counts).

Another favorite this year, which has gotten worn a few times but not as many as it deserves, is the black and white pinstriped Fatina dress from Burdastyle. It's a cute little pattern that I made twice, but what makes this one special to me is the trim. And since I'm generally embellishment-challenged, I was really pleased that I took the risk and decorated the hell out of the neckline on this one.

Most summer clothes aren't as challenging, and since one of the things I really love about sewing is the challenge, not many summer pieces make it onto my year-end personal best list. My cherry dress did, because it also encompassed a challenge - making my own piping, and inserting it everywhere without blowing a blood vessel.

I made this dress twice, once without the flounce and in a more subdued pattern, and then I made this. Every once in a while you just need to make a dress that makes you smile every time you put it on. This is one of those dresses. It cracks me up, and it makes everyone around me smile.

So there we have it. My personal best of 2009. There are a few runners-up that didn't make it on to the list, but while they were good - and while I wore some of them (like the lined cardigan) more often than a lot of these pieces, they didn't have the challenge factor involved. Every piece pictured here caused me to sweat for one reason or another, and that's a big part of what I love about sewing, the mental challenge.

Though right now, after 2 fitted, lined jackets - his and hers - I'm all about quickie knit tops. It's the first of January, and I'm on my 2nd top.