A mid-year goal update

At the beginning of 2014 I set myself some sewing goals.

The first two goals were the most important:

• Stick to my sewing budget
• I am just about 8% under budget for the year so far. \o/

• Use more fabric than I buy
• So far this year I've used 42.8m and bought 25m, meaning an overall stash reduction of 17.8m. It's not quite the stash reduction I'd hoped for from the first six months, but it's the first time I've managed ANY kind of reduction, so, go me? :D? I still want overall to use more than I stash for the rest of the year, but I've reached the point in some categories of fabric where I will need to replenish a bit before the end of the year (knits in particular).

  I also came up with some skill stretching challenges:

• Complicated bags (2 or 3). I've thought about this a lot but haven't quite got my act together to actually make anything yet. I have felt a lot more interested in bag making lately again after a period where I wasn't all that bothered about it, so I will probably come back to this later in the year.
• Garment sewing challenges: The basic answer to this is that I haven't done any of them. However, I have plans for ALL of them in the second half of the year and I've actually made progress towards them all one way or another. So: collared blouse - definitely in the plan. In fact, in July's plan, if you count the Carme as a collared blouse, but the proper, full-on collared and buttoned and everything shirt I plan to make in August. TNT woven dress pattern: again, no, but The Great Dress Trying-On Experiment was a useful thing to do to work out what I wanted that pattern to be, and again, the fitting work I've done for tops should help when I get there. More likely to be an autumn sort of project. Lined jacket or coat: Lined jacket is in the plan for the autumn. So too are trousers, although I took a huge step in the right direction by making shorts this month, and I also put a fly front into a couple of skirts to try that out. I'm pretty sure all of my garment goals are achievable this year, even though none of them are yet complete.
• Knitting: Ha, well, at the beginning of the year I said I wanted to make a sweater, and then I decided actually, I DON'T want to make sweaters, or even finish the sad purple monstrosity sweater, and at the moment I just knit socks never-endingly. I'm OK with that. So, my new and revised goal is: Make 6 knitted items this year. So far I've finished two pairs of socks and I'm ready to cast on a third pair.
• Other: Progress on the World's Slowest Quilt: Actual progress: non-existent. I haven't even opened the bag since I moved in Ireland /o\. Take better photos for this blog: I mean, I don't think there's been a HUGE improvement, but I have been working on getting the lighting better and no blurry shots etc. I am hoping I will have a better photography space in my new place, though, and I want to buy a remote for my camera. Wardrobe planning: Although I haven't talked about it much, except for my imaginary summer wardrobe thing, I have actually been doing LOADS of this, so all the things I've made in the last six months I've deliberately tried to make in colours and styles that mean that e.g. every time I make a new skirt I have 3-4 tops that it will go with, etc. I will probably be boring about this at length at some point.

All in all, I am pretty happy with all that, especially considering how sick I've been for most of the last 6 months! :D