It’s the last day of the year; the day in which tradition demands a bit of looking back on the year gone by and pondering on what I would like to do for next year. First of all, I’m picking my fave outfits/photos for 2019, one for each month. Some pictures are of new creations or outfits, others I’m just remembering a really nice day…
January
just a really nice day. I’d just dyed this dress, previously a pale grey and I was newly in love with it all over again
February
wearing my new jasika blazer to head out to lunch…
March
playing on the turtle stepping stones in the Kami River, Kyoto
April
visiting the studio Ghibli museum with Yoshimi!!
hiking up in the Kizo valley
May
just dyed this top too
June
Kelly in the wedding dress I made for her
in my mother of the groom ensemble
July
wearing my new Clementine dress
August
my new pink pinny
September
new pietra shorts
October
at stone mountain fabrics in San Francisco with Yoshimi… such a wonderful holiday here and in New York with a dear dear friend, and meeting so many other dear friends for the first time too! 
at the famous garment district statue in New York City
November
a new dress
December
old bathers, but a really beautiful and blissfully lovely day at the beach
What did I make?
phew, here we go. This is usually where I found out how intensely I’ve been indulging my making obsession during the year… so adding it up it turns out I’ve made 73 items this year… that number includes 18 dresses, 2 prs shorts, 1 pr jeans, 8 tops, 7 skirts, 1 pr pj’s, 1 bathrobe, 1 tie, 3 bags, 4 lingerie sets, 3 petticoats, 1 pr shoes, 5 jackets/coats, 12 prs hand-knitted socks and 7 baby things – onesies, beanies and the jungle mobile. Out of those things, 29 were for others, so I don’t think I’ve been too selfish actually. The major-est of major makes for the year, Kelly’s wedding dress was an entirely self-less affair, so I feel pretty good about that!
What did I wear?
so, the most worn items for this year can be summed up in the following pictures… number one spot goes equally to my mustard raincoat, and my baggy blue cords with 22 wears each, and my olive suede tunic and my dark green Sienna jacket had 16 wears each. All the other items pictured here got at least 13 wears, most more.
When I started counting and reporting on the number of wears my clothing got, well it was all a bit of an eye opener… inevitably someone will comment “that doesn’t sound like many wears to me! I’ve got things I’ve worn a hundred times this year, at least!” to which I usually think – did you actually count? The only things I would wear a hundred times in a year are my black tights, of which I have six pairs, so even those are not getting one hundred individual wears. I do tally my black tights up too but don’t ever include them in my summary here, to be honest… if you’re interested, my black tights got 108 wears in the past year. Oh, I expect a few of my sets of underwear might be getting about a hundred wears each too, but I’m definitely not profiling those!
Favourite creations?
Hmmm, well let me think… haha, kidding! the amazing and beautiful fabrics, the importance of it, the care, the love and the sheer number of HOURS spent in making Kelly’s wedding dress catapulted it straight up into number one position of anything I’ve made for a looooong time!
I loved every bit of making this exceptionally special garment, though to be sure there were some very stressful moments and at the end of it I was completely and utterly exhausted. It’s back living in our spare room wardrobe while they’re renovating their house and I’m looking forward to dropping it off to her permanently!
Personal favourites for myself include: my colourful Ariane dress, my unicorn skirt which got itself into my most worn items of the year too! and my own mother-of-the-groom outfit
Special mention to my box of socks too! which is so pretty I don’t know if I can even bring myself to start wearing them
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What are my plans for 2020?
Oooh! the fun bit! SO as I’ve mentioned, I have just one or two things (haha) in the work, because Cassie is getting married to her man D this year. And I will be making her dress. I am also making my own outfit, obviously. And my three nieces are going to be her bridesmaids, and I am making their dresses too. So yes, I have my work cut out for me, just a leeeeeetle bit already!
But as far as future, “for me” plans go… so there’s a thing “make nine” where people choose nine things to make for the year… and the pretty thing about it for instagram purposes is that you can make up a nice, 3×3 cube of plans to post on instagram. Obviously I love the idea of this! and have decided to give it a go, although I’m making mine more of a sort of “make 12” actually, giving myself one thing to do per month. I think it’s been well established here on my blog that I like a one thing per month project for a year! I’ve kinda gone for a range of ideas, but nothing’s particularly set in stone, I’m allowing myself some flexibility as to specific deets. I’ve thrown in a pair of shoes and underwear, because these are definitely things I want to making more of this year too…
Also! I’ve nominated fabrics that are already in my stash… to make it a good stash-busting exercise for myself too. I’ve actually already got one cut out and halfway finished… so maybe I’ll make them all up in the first few months?! on the other hand there is wedding sewing to be achieved and traditionally this always turns out to be way more stressful and time consuming than I originally anticipated, hmmmmmmmm…. So we’ll see…
Anything else?
Of course the most important thing; a big thank you thank you thank you! to all who still read my blog and take the time to leave a kind word every now and then… I appreciate it so much. I’m taking this opportunity to wish you all a very happy and successful 2020 ahead, filled with time to do the things you love to do too.
Cheers!
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