Top 5 of 2016: Reflections

I feel like I never really know what to do for my "reflections" post each year with this since my highlights are kind of a reflection to me. So there are a few things I noticed throughout the year.

I need to give myself a break - This is the biggest message I've tried to drive home in my brain that just wants to make - make - make things all the time. Life is a busy business. It would be great to have all the making time I wanted, but that's completely unrealistic right now. I work full time, live alone (well, with my dog and cat that need taking care of), I go to support meetings once a week, go to singing rehearsal once a week, go to church every week, I have a house that is still not up on the market because I need to fix and paint a bunch of things, and I'm a functioning human so I have lots of daily necessities to take care of like cooking and cleaning and laundry. That's a lot of stuff to juggle! I'm lucky to even come slightly close to accomplishing the bare minimum with all those musts in my life, so I need to stop feeling guilty about not having much to show for my making this year. I accomplished a lot of big things that took a lot of time and personal growth, and I need to remember that. So what if my #2016makenine list was completely unfulfilled (lol, yup I didn't make a single pattern from that list). There isn't some all knowing making judge who is going to take away my sewing machine due to lack of output. I need to just be amazed that I made anything at all and be happy with that. And so should we all! To quote Carrie Bradshaw, "Why are we 'should-ing' all over ourselves?"

When I'm stressed, I reach for easy wins - This is pretty obvious given that almost everything I made this year was from a pattern I've used before, and even if it was a new pattern, I made it more than once to get the max boost from it. Also notice (when I post my year stats) that every single top I made this year was in knit fabric. And my skirts were fit and flare. So easy to fit! Sadly all this easy sewing has lead me to get frustrated quickly in woven patterns when things don't go my way (I'll be reporting on that soon too with my Regency dress saga). I've accepted that the simple projects are just what I need when things are hectic and it helps me do the first thing on my list and give myself a break for not pushing myself or whatever it is we feel we 'should' be doing. This is my hobby and it's meant to be fun :)

I am a fabric and yarn hoarder - There. I admit it. With my lack of productivity this year, you'd think that would mean I scaled back in how much fabric and yarn I purchased, right? In all honesty, I did scale back, but not as much as I should for the lack of output. My stash is growing again. I have high hopes of motoring through some of it in the coming months, but realistically I will just replace it with more. Sad but true. I'm working on being more grateful for what I already have - which is a crazy mountain of fabric and yarn. I could probably make something every week for the next 5 years and still have fabric sitting in that stash. I'm hoping that I will be able to move some of my stash on to a new home this next year. We'll see if that happens, lol.

Planning new projects makes me happy - This goes along with my fabric and yarn hoarding in that I LOVE to plan new projects. And when I plan, I plan. I make sure I have everything on hand and ready to go for when I want to make that plan a reality. I still remember the plans I made for every piece of fabric in my stash. Isn't that nuts? I can't remember where I put my phone several times a day, yet I can call this information up at a moment's notice. I also am pretty good at looking through my stash of patterns and fabric online since I set it up (Pinterest for my patterns, Trello for my fabric, and Ravelry for my yarn). I can plan on the go when I'm away and unable to make anything. This leads to lots of things I wish I had already made, but it's stress relieving just making the plans. So I'm ok with it :)

This blog helps me feel my creativity has purpose - I realized this year that I really enjoy the fact that I post regularly and have a voice - even if no one was looking at it, it still ticks all kinds of boxes for me and that's a good thing. Does it matter that I don't have "relationships" with people who read my blog? Not really. Blogging is more about the fact that I showed up and put myself out there than it is about bragging and making people like me. I love that my readership has grown, don't get me wrong, but I would still be blogging even if everyone went away. In that way it really is like a "live journal" for me, just one with a theme around making stuff :)


I'm sure I could 'reflect' some more, but I'm not so sure it's what the challenge really meant so I'm going to stop there, lol.

Next up: Goals! And year end stats! Stay tuned!