This is feeling a wee bit pointless as I feel I’ve made very little this year. But there’s been some stuff and I feel I’ve still learned things, although I feel there’ve been very few unqualified successes.

• Gradually improving the fit on the Union Street Tee pattern. I’ve now made four of these and they’re all wearable (and the latest one the most wearable, so that’s definitely progress!) but there are still fit issues to be addressed and I’m not entirely sure what the problem is yet.
• As a result of all these Union Street Tee versions, I’m feeling almost confident about making V-necks, although they are clearly to be categorised under “pain in the arse” forevermore
• Made my first trousers! I absolutely adore my Hudson Pant rehearsal pants with the cheerful birdies on them, even if our producer keeps asking me if I’m wearing pyjamas. Want to make more of these because it always distresses me when they’re in the wash.
• Learned how to make buttonholes and was delighted to find it was a lot easier than I’d expected.
• First attempt at making stagewear. This was one of the Union Street Tee attempts and while it’s definitely not perfect, it was certainly OK for on stage and the sparkly synthetic was a lot easier to work with than anticipated
• First time sewing with stretch velvet – again, fit issues (to the extent that I think I need to pull it apart and completely reshape the armholes) but it was wearable for Christmas Day and I felt I handled the velvet quite well – got the nap the right way round on the turtleneck, even!

There’ve been a lot of things I intended to make this year but didn’t – the Heather dress and the Bonn shirt for starters – but instead I’ve mostly remade the same patterns:

• Union Street Tee – 4 V-neck tops: 2 with elbow-length sleeves, 1 with short sleeves, 1 with long sleeves
• Papercut Rise turtleneck – 2 long-sleeved tops, one in rayon jersey, the other in stretch velvet
• Papercut Fall turtleneck – 1 long-sleeved top in cotton jersey
• Hudson Pant – 1 pair in tshirt-weight cotton/lycra jersey, with contrast trim from scraps of rayon jersey

So that’s seven tops and a pair of pants. I guess that’s not too bad! Not much going on with the knitting: just a blue cowl which has seen a lot of wear, and a red alpaca beret I knitted mostly in Australia which I’m still kind of working out how to wear. And half a cowl to go with the beret.

2018 goals

Realistically, while I plan to do more sewing and I’d like to try all sorts of new things, time is going to be very limited this year and I’m recognising that the fit issues I’m encountering aren’t merely to do with adding an FBA and take several attempts and a whole lot of thinking to sort out! With that in mind, I would like to:

• make another 2 long-sleeved tshirts before the end of winter, then another 2 short/elbow-sleeved tshirts for the spring/summer, all from the Union Street Tee pattern (although they may not all be V-necks – there’s a crew neck option in the updated pattern that might make production a bit easier and faster, especially for the winter tops)
• make at least one more pair of Hudson Pants, probably in plain black, in case I end up going to Darmstadt – will definitely want some comfy clothing for that
• learn how to do a princess-seam FBA (Heather dress, I’m looking at you)
• get to grips with what’s going on with my shoulders and armscye in these tshirts and what the implications may be for pattern-fitting in general.
• fit and make up the Bonn shirt – I’ve really missed button-up shirts in my wardrobe – or the Sewaholic Alma blouse, which may be simpler but very useful in the wardrobe.
• I’d quite like to make another skirt – probably from the Nita wrap skirt pattern, but I’m not totally committed to that
• try making some knickers with the many jersey scraps I have left over from all the tshirts I’ve made!