Well it’s New Years Eve and I can’t believe this year is over already! Time has been flying.

I received my end of year email from WordPress and it was pretty cool seeing my year of blog posts summed up like that. I am slightly disappointed that I didn’t post as frequently as I set out to, but I guess it was my first attempt at blogging and using social media properly. I am still a bit useless to be honest, but I’m working on it.

My three posts that got the most views in 2015 were:

1. Beginning my sewing journey My first ever blog post and my first attempt at making the Lilou dress by Tilly and the Buttons. I love this dress, I still wear it a lot  and I went on to use this pattern twice more here and here. The fabric for this dress was bought during my first experience of online fabric shopping, I managed to incur a hefty customs charge on receipt of this fabric…but I still think it’s gorgeous, so it was worth it. I remember being really embarrassed taking these photos, I am not at ease in front of the camera, but I am improving on that front, thank god.

2.  Velvet bridesmaid dress This was by far the most challenging thing I made this year. Working with velvet was so tricky, but it was a great feeling to finally finish the dress and see Marjolein wear it to her sister’s wedding. That was probably my sewing highlight this year.

It’s a shame I didn’t manage to get better photos of it, it was quite hard to photograph as the light wasn’t great that day and velvet is tricky to photograph, it looks a bit dull in this picture sadly, but  the fabric was beautiful in the flesh, it reflected light and had great movement.

3.  A Coco in the wind  Ha! Oh man, this was a funny photo shoot. I really wanted to blog this dress, but it was so windy that day. I thought it was going to be a disaster, but I actually loved how these photos turned out.

It really can be tricky to photograph sewing makes in Shetland, with the wind and lack of sunlight in winter, but I do think it can make for some interesting shots. Plus the scenery is beautiful when you do get a fine day.

Here’s a quick look at the rest of my makes this year

Not bad really 🙂 It’s nice to see them all together like this, as I often feel like I’m not doing enough, when you look at it collectively it feels like an achievement.

I am starting to feel really excited about sewing in 2016 now. I did a really great course in pattern cutting in August, so now I am focussing on designing my own patterns. I have drawn up blocks using my personal measurements and I have started trying out some basic design ideas, but I have a lot more work to do refining them and hopefully coming up with something I really like. I will of course still be making garments using bought patterns too, so next year will be a bit of both.

Happy New Year Everyone, thank you so much for reading.

See you in 2016 🙂