Made

What I made in 2017

For 2017 I count twenty-one handmade projects! Surprising for me is that the majority are sewing projects, while I’m fairly new to the craft and thus less inclined to try something new.
The majority of these projects didn’t get an English blog post, but you can still see the pictures or use Google Translate if you’re curious 😉

  1. 04/02 – Metalart (de Banier)
  2. 04/03 – Princess dress (crochet)
  3. 26/03 – Cover for lipbalm (sewing)
  4. 12/04 – Pajamas (sewing)
  5. 13/04 – Golden cardigan (knitting)
  6. 18/05 – Mermaid blanket (crochet)
  7. 24/05 – Flamingo dress (sewing)
  8. 08/06 – Flamingo skirt with leftovers (sewing)
  9. 15/06 – Pencil case (sewing)
  10. 21/06 – Tule skirt (sewing)
  11. 28/06 – Pencil case (sewing)
  12. 07/07 – Japanese V-neck top (crochet)
  13. 21/07 – Blue skirt (sewing)
  14. 24/07 – Pax shawl (crochet)
  15. 12/08 – Fluo-orange Miette (knitting)
  16. 04/10 – Bigger on the inside (knitting)
  17. 05/11 – Mermaid blanket Liv (crochet)
  18. 26/11 – Fair Isle dress (knitting)
  19. 06/12 – Blouse (sewing)
  20. 20/12 – Elsa dress (sewing)
  21. 23/12 – Fairy doll (crochet

Achieved 2017’s wishes?

I never call it resolutions or intentions, but rather wishes. My crafting wishes for 2017 can be summarised as follows:

  • Clothing for me: pullover and/or cardigan
  • Learning a new technique: colour knitting, intarsia, stranded knitting or fair-isle (and learning the meaning of all these different terms)

And when I look back on all my projects from the past year, I have granted both those wishes in 2017!

I made four pieces of clothing for myself: two successful cardigans, one less successful top and a blouse of which I’m terribly proud. Eventually I gave one of the cardigans away, but I’m still counting it as made for me 😉 Then I also made a cool and a less cool shawl for me and I sewed myself a pencil case.
So I made a fair number of items for me, but the majority of what I made was still intended for others.

As far as the new technique is concerned, I granted that wish with the – even if I do say so myself – supercute Fair Isle dress. To be able to say that I really know this technique, I will have to make some more projects using it, but I’ve made a good start!
And I also think I’ve figured out the meaning and differences between all those names. Perhaps I should one day write a post about it?

Personal favourites

All my projects are a source of personal pride, but there are still a few I like more than others.

I wrote the above sentence before I actually went to choose my favorites. This turned out to be not so simple, especially for the sewing-projects, since every piece was a new milestone in my sewing-ability. But hey, I tried to make a top three sewing projects anyway:

  • Blouse
    This blouse was my sewing class project during almost the entire semester. I cursed, cried and cursed some more. It wasn’t an easy piece and the result is not at all perfect, but I’m so proud of this item! A blouse I actually dare wear outside the house.
  • Pajamas
    These pajamas were made in sewing class at the end of last school year. My first real item of clothing.
  • Elsa dress
    This dress made the top three mainly because of the reaction from the recipient. She was so extremely happy, that it made me melt (haha)

I thought that picking a favourite crochet item would be easier, since I have fewer to choose from. But in the end I was left with two projects that I couldn’t reduce to one.

  • Mermaid blanket
    Of the two mermaid blankets I crocheted last year, the first one is still my favourite. I was so proud that I managed to bring my idea into reality!
  • Fairy Doll
    Ah, this doll! This doll was such a joy to make. And anticipating the recipients reaction made it even greater. Making this doll was a real creative outlet.

Finally, choosing a favourite from my knitting projects proved to be impossible.

  • Golden cardigan
    This was my first ever knit cardigan. I learned so much and most of all, I gained the confidence to try out more patterns. This sweater is double special, because my sister-in-law wore it on her weddingday. If that isn’t a compliment, I don’t know what is 😉
  • Fluo-orange cardigan
    A risky colour, yes, but extremely happy with this cardigan and how it matches the dress for which I made it. It even matches other dresses in my wardrobe as well. A cardigan I already wore a lot and will get a lot of wear still!
  • Doctor Who shawl
    A shawl in Tardis-colour with knitted Tardisses along the edge. No further explanations needed. Also a project that I already wore a lot.
  • Fair-isle dress
    For a change I only knitted one dress for my nieces this year (I knit four last year!), but this dress is a special one, because of the fact that I successfully used a new technique.

Wishes for 2018?

Do I have special wishes for 2018? I don’t think it’s all that different compared to last year, but maybe a couple which are more defined than others:

First of all, I want to buy less yarn and use more yarn.
A year without buying yarn is no longer in the cards for 2018, since I placed an order last week for a project for which I ran out of yarn. Yes, rolling your eyes is allowed, I also rolled them when I wrote this down.
But anyway, I have bought a lot of wool over the years with certain goals in mind. High time now to realise a few of those goals. And now’s for hoping that the stashed yarn is sufficient for the project I have in mind, because we all know that this will not end well if it doesn’t 😉

Secondly, I want to make one or more sweaters for myself again.
A fair-isle pullover is the ultimate goal. Whether it will be for this year remains to be seen. Motivator, besides the fact that those sweaters are so gorgeous, is that it is also ideal to work up small remnants of colour. So in this case, one project could serve both wishes 1 and 2.
And then I want to extend my wardrobe with some more cropped cardigans to wear over dresses. I have a lot of dresses for which I do not have the ideal sweater, so I’ll like to work a bit more on that.

Thirdly, I would like to sew a dress for myself.
I am already doing well in sewing lessons. For the time being it looks really good and if it does end up like it looks in my minds eye, it will be brilliant. Literally and figuratively, because the fabric has glimmers 😉

Apart from these three wishes, I still have many plans and ideas that I don’t really want to pin down for 2018. I don’t want to overwhelm myself, since this is still my hobby and in the end I’m only going to make what I want to make at the time I want to make it. But wishing and dreaming is allowed, so I still wrote down the 3 wishes above. I’ll see you at the start of 2019 for the final score 😉

How was your creative 2017? Goals/wishes achieved? And what are the plans for this year?

Cheers,
Charlotte