2016 review and tidying up

Hi. Happy new year!

Today I posted off the Building Block Dress Book to Stephanie, the giveaway winner, and I'm excited to say that I've got another beautiful book to giveaway later this month. Meanwhile I've been tidying up both physically and metaphorically.

Every new year I like to make a mosaic (or five!) of the things I've sewn the previous year. First up is all the kid's stuff using only Oliver + S patterns.

And then this year, the number of things I made with "other" patterns took over and exceeded the Oliver + S count. Although that wouldn't be the case if I was to take out the Liesl & Co and Lisette for Butterick patterns, so it's pretty clear were my pattern inspiration comes from. Cheers Liesl!

There are quite a few unblogged items in both of those pictures that were completed in the mad December sewing frenzy that always precedes Christmas. I'll catch up soon.

Meanwhile I did some sorting out of my Oliver + S pattern stash, and my many, many traced off patterns.

I trace my patterns onto the cheap lightweight "trace and toile" interfacing from Spotlight. Then put them in a clear plastic pocket, label them and store them in folders. All the Oliver + S folders got a tidy up, were sorted alpahabetically and were labelled. Just try asking me to find you a size 3 tracing of a Sailboat Skirt and watch how fast I am!

I realise it will only last as long as I can use the less used patterns more, and the often used patterns less. Otherwise I'm going to get some very full folders!

But what is much more useful, and I thought might be of use to anyone else with an enormous Oliver + S paper pattern collection are these dividers I made:

They're designed to be printed on A5 card stock and are set up for those of us who keep our Oliver + S paper patterns on a bookshelf. Every paper pattern is included and the full files are available on my google drive site. Click here and help yourself!

What are my plans for this year? Well of course my kids do insist on growing, so there will still be plenty of kid's sewing. Naturally, heaps of that will be Oliver + S.

For me? I've thoroughly enjoyed my forays into challenging Vogue designer patterns (one, two and three) and I have a few more I want to try. I still have some fabulous coat and dress patterns I want to make for the first time. But right now, this hot weather is making me want to bust out another Butterick B6182 dress. Flipper has still never received the long awaited for perfect-custom-cargo-shorts and I'm excited to get back to the Lazo pants now that they're released.

But right now, the machines need to go off for a service. I'll catch up on blogging and plan for my Secret Valentine Exchange. Have you signed up?