Happy New Year

Happy 2015!

I hope you all had a lovely Christmas (assuming you celebrate it!) and New Year. We spent Christmas entertaining my family, and last night went to a small party at a friends house to see in the New Year. I'm feeling very lazy today, and in fact didn't get out of bed until 10.30 this morning.

I've read a lot of blog posts over the last week with reviews of 2014 and goals for 2015. I thought about doing my own, but decided against it.

I do have a few thoughts about my "creating" in 2014, which I'll share with you briefly.

The thing I enjoyed most was teaching free motion embroidery. I did one one-to-one workshop at my home and then a taught a class of 6 at Fabric HQ. It was such fun! All my students picked up the technique straight away and they created some gorgeous pieces. I'm teaching 2 more classes at Fabric HQ over the next couple of months, and I'm really looking forward to them.

The thing I've enjoyed least this year has been my procrastination. I've often felt like I wanted to sew, but didn't know what I wanted to make. I think this has been partly to do with my stash - although I have a fairly small stash compared to many people, I seem to have lots of fabric that I don't really like, or don't know what to do with. I think I need to get out of the habit of buying fabric without a proper idea of what I'm going to do with it.
My indecision is also partly because my style appears to have changed. You may remember I followed Colette Patterns Wardrobe Architect series last year, and although I identified the types of things I would like to wear, I haven't really been sewing them. And since I cut my hair short a couple of months ago, the fact that I'm not sewing (or buying) things I really want to wear has seemed even more apparent. I seem to be much more drawn to darker, plainer items than I was previously, and separates rather than dresses.
I've been trying to find some new patterns that appeal to my new style, and have come across OkiStyle, in particular the Salt jacket.

I'm really keen to try this one, it has an almost Vivienne Westwood style to it that I love, and I have a couple of pieces of fabric in my stash that I think would work well for it.
I desperately need to work on getting a well fitting trouser pattern sorted out so I can fill some gaps in my wardrobe. I've identified that my problem is with excess fabric in the back thigh, but I'm unsure how to solve it.
First I have to finish the coat I started about 6 weeks ago. I'm procrastinating again... it's time for the bound button holes and I'm putting them off.
Wow, this post has turned out completely differently to how I thought it would when I started writing it!
Do you have any tips on fitting trousers, or can recommend a good slim legged trouser pattern I could try? Or any tips on overcoming procrastination?