Two easy things to finish January

Having made some things that were challenging this month (the coat, my plaid popover shirt) I finished off January with a couple of very easy things: a tote bag and a very easy knit garment.

Tote bag and navy knit gilet

The tote bag is in the oddest fabric that I purchased way back at the very start of my sewing adventures -- long before I got into garment sewing. It's a weirdly splotchy dyed, sequinned brown corduroy. I don't even know why I bought a metre of weirdly splotchy sequinned brown corduroy, and 2011!me did not keep a note of what it was for, so this weekend it became a tote bag. This is an old favourite pattern, the Ava Rose by ArtsyCraftsyBabe.

The navy knit waistcoat/gilet/bodywarmer/whatever-you-want-to-call-it is an actual clone of a garment I made in 2016 and wore/washed so much that the fabric completely disintegrated in the first wash of 2018. I definitely got my 30 wears in -- and more! At any rate, my new one is made to the same pattern (New Look 6251) in the same type of fabric -- a quilted knit, although this time the quilting has a geometric rather than floral pattern -- and it's the same colour. In fact, the only differences are that (a) I did a tiny fit adjustment (shoulder width); (b) I used emerald green rather than blue and white bias tape to finish the armhole, which you can just see peeking out above; (c) I used a plain ponte rather than the quilted knit for the inner collar to reduce the bulk of those seams and (d) I bought a longer zip. The instructions say to use a 61cm (24") zip, but this was definitely too short and in the original garment I had a gap at the hem and at the top of the collar. A 66cm (26") zip is exactly right.


My plan for February is a mix of my February Magazine Challenge (very probably a wacky top again), woven shirts in some long-hoarded fabrics, and some other random stuff around the edges to keep things interesting.

Giant striped wrap of doom -- now well over halfway done :D

One more update: knitting! I took a pretty long break from knitting most of last year. I wasn't feeling very enthusiastic about it after several very lackluster sweater outcomes and realizing I owned more knit scarves than any one woman in a mainly temperate climate can possibly wear. The only thing I had on my needles is a very pick-up-and-put-down sort of project: the Purl Soho Seed Stitch Wrap, which is an enormous stripey thing in, as the name suggests, never-ending seed stitch. It was last seen on my blog in April 2017 at only 3.5 stripes long. Between April and December I worked on the scarf occasionally, adding another 2.5 stripes in total. This month I felt much more keen on knitting overall, and I've chugged my way through a further 2.5 stripes, for a total of 8.5 (out of a planned 13). I've found it's perfect knitting for in front of the TV, because it requires virtually none of my attention.

In which a wacky top is somehow not wacky enough

I've been been busily sewing since I finished my navy coat last week, and here are the results.

First, my January project for my 2018 Magazine Challenge. As a reminder, I challenged myself, as many other sewers have done, to make one pattern per month from the 2018 isues of the magazines I receive. I'm a bit more relaxed than most because I allow myself use any 2018 magazine in my collection, and of course I have three active subscriptions: Burda, Knipmode and Ottobre.

Alas, for some reason Knipmode 01/2018 never arrived, although it should have been here in early December. I am actually somewhat furious about this, because I have e-mailed their helpdesk three separate times to tell them the issue did not arrive, and they haven't made any kind of contact with me in response. >:( Admittedly, I have to e-mail them in English and it's a Dutch company, and I would understand if the response were delayed because of the language issue, but not delayed by 3 weeks! Also, let me tell you they've always been able to make themselves understood when it came to billing! I am paying too much per issue to just let this go, but I'm kind of at a loss what to do next given that they just aren't responding in any way on the only contact e-mail address they offer.

Anyway, the non-arrival of my January Knipmode meant I actually only had Burda 01/2018 to choose a pattern from when it came down to it this month. Luckily, there were several patterns than I liked, although, being me, of course I eventually chose to make a wacky top, specifically Burda 01-2018-106:

Burda 01-2018-106 knit top with back drape -- image and technical drawings from Burda.ru

This top is very boring from the front, but on the back it has almost too much going on -- a keyhole back! A weird drapey thing! Thumbholes in the sleeves! I went with the whole design, despite my doubts about the keyhole, except for the thumb holes in the sleeves because I just don't like them. I made a size 40 through the shoulder, blending to a size 44 at the bust and hip. My current measurements put me in a size 44 bust (ish, I am about 101cm compared to their 100cm measurement) and size 42 hip (my measurements are within 0.5cm).

I made a couple of fit adjustments: the sleeves on this are very narrow and so I did a 2cm large bicep adjustment; and I did a 1.5cm rounded back adjustment above the keyhole.

I have to admit while tracing out this top I did a certain amount of whining to myself about the number (6) and size (unusually large) of the pattern pieces, and then I complained to myself some more because you have to cut on the single layer which takes a bit more time. I made my top in a pleasantly drapey white viscose with an animal print pattern in mixed greys. I bought the fabric specifically for this project and, even though it says you only need 1.8m, I definitely needed my entire 2m piece.

My version of Burda 01-2018-106 (front and back view)

 Okay, so positives: I like the fabric, and I think it's a good match to the pattern both in terms of how well the back drape hangs, and in general as a fun print to use with a wacky pattern.

Internal construction details and close-up of the back drape

This is the "sewing course" pattern in this issue of the magazine, which was probably just as well as I don't know that I would have worked out how to handle the back drape without the extra words/images that Burda supplied. As it was, I had to unpick a seam at the end because I accidentally twisted the back drape an extra time before sewing the ends into the side seam. Despite that mistake, I have to say that the way it's constructed is mostly really neat -- the way you construct and attach the drape section to the facing on the inside (see photo above on the left) is really clever and gives you a surprisingly clean finish on the inside as well as the outside. The only construction detail I didn't like is that I don't love that you turn and stitch the non-faced side of the slit feature.

The negative though is that, as surprised as I am to write this, the top is maybe not wacky enough for my taste, which is honestly not something I ever expected to say about a Burda pattern. The back drape in real life is a bit anaemic and not nearly as wacky/dramatic as I thought it might be.

Burda 01-2018-106 side and rear view on me

The main problem is how the top actually fits. In the modelled photo, to me, it looks like it's intended to be a little oversized through the hips -- the back drape seems to hang over the model's hips quite loosely. On me? Eh, not so much, even though that I made a size 44 at the hip and my ACTUAL hips are fully 5cm (2") smaller than Burda's size 44 measurements. If I were an actual size 44 it would be a close fitting top through the hips. In my photos, admittedly, my top is a little hung up on my trousers, but even so, you can see that it is far from loose-fitting and the back drape is more at the small of my back than down over my butt. (You can also see in the side view that the weight of the drape pulls the top backwards, creating those diagonal drag lines below my bust.)

Overall, I don't dislike it -- I am wearing it right now, in fact! -- but I feel like it missed the mark as far as desireable wackiness was concerned and didn't really match the modelled photo the way I expected it to. I am still dubious about keyhole back features. Does anyone need to see that particular sliver of dead-fish white skin? I don't know?

Moving on to my second top, which is the first of a few different woven tops I want to make over the next few weeks for what remains of the winter and early spring. It is also another of my 2018 resolution garments: actually make those long-planned projects! I bought a red/blue/purple/white plaid viscose/cotton blend in February 2016 to make a popover shirt with a front placket. I love popover shirts of this type, but although I've had the idea in my head to make one for a long time, I've struggled to find a pattern to turn into my TNT for this style. Towards the end of last year I bought Burda 6457 in a pattern sale and decided to give it a try as soon as possible to both use this fabric and move that TNT search on a step.

Burda 6457 envelope and line drawings

I made view A, the shorter length with a stand collar and no pockets or shoulder strap pieces. When I opened up the pattern sheets, I had a look at the finished bust size and recoiled. As the pattern has no darts, I had anticipated making say, a size 40 or 42 and having to do a classic FBA and introduce a bust dart. However, this top is designed with 23cm of ease! I also realized as I started work on this top that it has dropped shoulders. I guess you can see that on the modelled photos if you really look, but I don't think it necessarily jumps out at you that that is how it's designed from the photos and line drawings -- or maybe it does, and I was being willfully blind, I don't know.

At any rate, confronted with that much ease, and knowing I wanted to use a smaller size through the shoulders anyway, I decided to do try making a straight size 42, which had a finished bust of 119cm (compared to my actual 101cm bust). Although I suspect I should have narrowed the shoulders further, I decided to leave them as is since they are dropped anyway. I did my usual straight shoulder adjustment and I raised the armhole, which is fast becoming my most favourite adjustment for how it resolves so many irritating sleeve/armhole fit issues I've had for YEARS.

I also did a rounded back adjustment on the back yoke, which was something new to me. Up to now with all my rounded back adjustments I've used either a shoulder or neckline dart, or there's been a centre back seam. It took me a while to find a clear guide to this adjustment when you've got a separate yoke piece and don't want to introduce a dart, so if you need it, I recommend this SureFit video.

My version of Burda 6457 in red/blue/purple/white plaid

I put most of the smaller elements (placket, yoke, cuffs, tower plackets on the sleeves) on the bias as I thought this would look more interesting and also reduce the matching problems. The exception is the collar, which is on the straight grain. I think this was quite effective, especially the back yoke which I think looks great on the bias. The rest of the matching was painful. The front was, of course, cut in one piece anyway, and I truly tried my absolute best with the side seams but the matching did not come out perfectly at all. That's actually a pretty good overall description of my result from this pattern: tried my best, but still not always great.

Some details: the front placket and collar; my sadly non-matchy, flat-felled side seams; the cuffs and tower plackets

Positives: the collar came out really well and so did the cuffs, the latter a HUGE improvement on the crappy cuffs I did on that New Look tunic before Christmas. The front placket came out pretty well on the visible side, although I do not the inside finish at all, which is, unusually for Burda, nowhere near as clean and nice as I see on RTW. I did flat fell seams everywhere but the yoke (which is a two layer clean finish that I did using the burrito method rather than following Burda's non-burrito instructions) and the sleeve/shoulder attachment seam, which I overlocked. I haven't done flat-felled seams in a while but they still came out well except for the matching problems. Although the fine detail matching at the side seams sucks, and you can't quite tell from the version modelled on Flossie above, the sleeve/body plaid matching is great on my actual body (see below!)

Negatives: This was my first attempt at a tower placket on a shirt cuff. This pattern uses the same technique for this as for the main placket, so I also don't like the inside finish. Overall, they are probably not the worst tower plackets anyone has ever made, but they are for sure not the best either! Also, the interfacing I used was just a touch too firm for this fabric. It's not a huge problem, but the front facing in particular feels more rigid than I entirely like.

Fit wise, I am mostly positive. It fits pretty well in key ways -- the bust fit is fine,  and I love the range of motion the higher armhole gives me. However, despite the fact I haven't worn it yet, I've already noticed a tendency for it to slide towards the back, which is somewhat annoying.  It's also a lot of volume, even after sizing down to a 42.

Front, side and back view on me -- just LOOK at my plaid match in the side view across the sleeve though :D :D :D

Overall, I do like this shirt, but I don't think this is going to be my TNT popover shirt. I think I would prefer a pattern with some bust shaping . I also really would prefer a pattern without dropped shoulders, because I think the dropped shoulders make me look even more top heavy/V-shaped than I actually am. If I did make this pattern again, for sure I would want to find an alternative technique to make/attach the plackets, because the inside finish of the placket/sleeve plackets is NOT what I am looking for.

Next up: I'm hoping to finish up a couple of little projects before the end of January, although in one case I am waiting on a zip arriving in the post. After than, more woven tops, plus I need to pick something from my magazines for my February challenge garment!

Starting 2018 off with a coat (Burda 11-2015-116)

My overall goal for 2018, you might recall, is to use my stash to make the things I've been imagining owning for a while now. My very first finished item for 2018 exactly fits this criteria: it's a coat for which I bought the fabric and lining way back in 2012 (long before I had any of the sewing skills necessary to, you know, make a coat!). I've really needed a navy coat for a few years now, so this was also a BIG wardrobe goal.

In all the time I had "make a coat with these fabrics" on my To Do list, I never had a particular pattern in mind, although I did have an idea of the overall style of coat I wanted. I already own a (RTW) winter coat that is a princess seamed fit and flare type of thing, knee-length, with full skirt. That shape is probably my favourite sort of coat overall -- in part because it really suits my figure but mainly, if I'm honest, because I like the way that style flares and moves when I walk. However, as much as I enjoy swooping about with excessive drama, it has a fairly formal and fitted look, and it's hard to wear over bulky layers. My mental image of the coat I wanted to make was therefore something less fitted and straighter, and overall more casual. I wanted something single breasted, with an open neckline (rather than something that buttoned up to the neck).

Burda 11-2015-116 Coat (images from Burda.ru)

My major constraint was my 3m of cotton moleskin fabric, which, if you're not familiar with the fabric, is a densely woven napped fabric. Three metres sounds like a lot but it's really only just enough for a knee length coat. I eventually hit upon this pattern from the November 2015 issue of Burda, which is actually a Tall pattern. I haven't seen any English language reviews of it, but as always there are at least a dozen reviews on Burda Russia, and I thought it looked quite nice on a variety of body types. This pattern does have bust shaping -- you just can't tell because the darts are from the neckline and are completely hidden by the collar. My biggest concerns about the pattern were the dropped shoulders (which is not a style I necessarily love on my square-shouldered body shape) and the giant lapels/collar.

I made a (hideous) muslin right at the end of December. I started with a size 88 (a Tall 44), and made fit adjustments I based on my experience making my blue wool jacket: I did a rounded back adjustment, raised the armhole and narrowed the shoulder (even though this is a dropped shoulder style).

Hideous muslin of Burda 11-2015-116

I actually really liked how it looked, even the giant lapels, except I had major shoulder issues. My shoulders are very square, and as a result the shoulder line just looked really odd on me. Normally, so far, I've found that any pattern that calls for shoulder pads can be "altered" to fit me simply by missing out the shoulder pads. On this pattern though, it still looked wrong even without the shoulder pads. I messed about with the shoulders of this muslin for a while, but in the end what seemed to produce the nicest overall outcome was to do a small-ish square shoulder adjustment on top of leaving off the shoulder pad. That smoothed out the line between my shoulder point and the seam of the dropped shoulder on the coat.

My finished coat is navy, which means any and all details are invisible, even massively over-exposed.

Once I had the shoulders figured out, I decided to plunge into the project and I cut it out early in January. As it happens I ended up having to take about ten days off from sewing it up because I had a whole bunch of other things come up that I had to deal with. I just couldn't find the time or enthusiasm to get into my sewing room, not least because I had had to stop just before my least favourite of all sewing activities -- applying interfacing. Yes, even with my new Singer press, I still dislike interfacing. (My press worked brilliantly though, I love it and am 100% glad I bought it!)

Rear view. There is a vent right from below the horizontal band to the hem, which caused no end of problems in the lining phase!

The actual sewing was pretty easy. The pattern is the "Sewing Course" pattern in this issue of the magazine, so it has pretty detailed instructions compared to most Burda patterns. I made no design changes at all, and didn't even really deviate from the instructions except that I chose to bag the lining rather than do Burda's preferred hand-sewing method.

Lining side out

My lining fabric is a flannel-backed poly satin in teal with purple paisley, which sounds vile but goes with the plain navy quite well, I think. The flannel backing is quite lightweight, but I thought it would add some extra warmth to this coat. I have to admit, it only occurred to me AFTER I cut out the entire lining that, oh hey, it has a pattern, maybe I should have tried to do some matching! So, my paisleys definitely do not line up neatly at all. Oops. I mean, I don't really care, because who is going to see it, but it would have looked nicer if had done at least a LITTLE pattern matching. In fact, if I had thought about it, I would have joined up all the front pieces and cut a single piece instead of replicating the bodice/waistband/skirt pieces. There's no real need to piece the lining front like that. (The back, yes, because of the way the vent was constructed.)

My first notched collar (and these are the actual real colours of my coat)

The hardest parts of the sewing were the notched collar, which I had never done before, and attaching the lining at the back to the vent, which I screwed up twice and had to rip and re-sew. The notched collar turned out OK, if not perfectly -- I felt like the outcome was pretty good for a first try at this style.

Other nit-pickery: this is a type of cloth that responds really badly to being pressed with seam allowances underneath. (I know there's a word for when you get the ghostly images of your seam allowances through the fabric, but it escapes me.) There are a few places on my coat where I struggled to get the right balance between actually pressing my seams out and not getting that visible mark. I don't think it looks terrible, and it's definitely in the 'you can't tell from 1m away' category of problem, but eh, I still wish it hadn't turned out that way.

Very fancy snap fasteners -- could NOT get a decent shot of them in situ, so here they are before attachment

The coat fastens with snap fasteners rather than buttons. Since I know I am probably going to wear this coat open/undone a lot of the time, I decided to get these fancy snap fasteners. They were from a vendor on eBay in China. It took a few weeks for them to arrive, but it was worth it for how gorgeous they are. I got a pack of 6 for, I think, £6 including postage -- not cheap, as these things go, but they are significantly prettier than the standard snap fastener and definitely a good addition to my coat!

A very inferior photo on me, sorry for the quality

As far as the fit of the finished coat is concerned, I like it a LOT. I think the shoulder line looks fine, and I really like massive collar. The one fit problem I didn't anticipate is just how LOW those pockets are. Although this is a Tall pattern (and I am officially 3cm too short for Tall) I am not sure how I could have altered the length. If I had taken any length out of the bodice or waist band, it would have raised the back vent to a very strange level on my body. It's not really a problem, but it's definitely a pocket you reach into rather than stuff your hands in comfortably.

Overall, I am really pleased with my coat, and it is definitely a good feeling to get such a long-anticipated project done so early in the year and in good time to get some wear out of in the dregs of winter.

Next up, though, something much less practical for my January Magazine Challenge item!

2018: Goals and the 2018 Magazine Challenge

Happy New Year to those celebrating today! :D Hope everyone, no matter whether you're a New Year goal-setter, a forgotten-about-it-by-7th-January-resolution-maker or a hibernate-through-January-to-avoid-it-all type, has a fabulous year ahead. :D

It's surely no surprise to anyone that I'm a big goal-setter/planner at New Year.

This year, there is a big over-arching story to my sewing goals. Towards the end of 2017, I spent a bit of time cleaning up my sewing room, which had become very disorganized. As I was tidying it up, I found myself admiring my fabric, thinking how well it all fits together, and how great it would be to have actual garments made of it rather than folded rectangles on a shelf. In a fit of organizing zeal, I then tidied up all my envelope patterns and magazines as well. Again, I kept thinking how many great patterns I already own and how much I wish I owned those clothes.

This is not by chance. Over the last eighteen months, I've been gradually sorting and culling my fabric stash so that it only contains things that would look good in my wardrobe and that I like and I've made sure any new additions would fit in well, especially in terms of the colours I've been buying. I did the same to my pattern stash, so that it only contains patterns for things that I would actually like to wear. Organized on shelves, it looks remarkably pretty and surprisingly cohesive.

At the end of my tidying up, my sewing room was looking great. However, I still felt quite dissatisfied. Nobody who sews buys fabric and patterns to look pretty on shelves. We buy it because of the potential of it all. So why exactly is all this fabulous potential that I've been collecting still sitting on shelves as fabric and patterns, sometimes for years, and not hanging as garments in my wardrobe?

Partly, of course, the answer is that I've been ill, and I'm not beating myself up too much for the sometimes lengthy delays in turning plans into actions as a result. Partly the answer is that it's taken a while for my sewing skills to catch up with my ambitions. The other big constraint is ridiculous though, because it's just fear: not wanting to use my 'best' fabric in case my idea doesn't work out, or my sewing skills don't stand up to the challenge. But, really, that's silly: it's just fabric. It's just clothes. What is the worst case scenario, after all? Everything goes disastrously wrong when I try to make something and it all ends up in the bin. I mean, that would be a shame, but there's no actual calamity there. On past experience, I know that, once I've complained about it a bit, I'll get over it, and I'll probably learn a great deal in the process.

With this pep talk in mind, I sat down with my wardrobe plan spreadsheet (because, c'mon, this is me, of course I have a wardrobe plan spreadsheet!) and asked myself some questions: What does that "fabulous potential" wardrobe that I keep comparing my real wardrobe to really look like? What part of it do I already have right now, and where are the gaps? How many of those gaps can I fill by sewing up the stash I already own? What's left over, in terms of things I want to sew that I don't have stash to cover, stash that doesn't quite seem to fit in anywhere, and things I don't generally choose/want to sew and might need to buy?

I've done this before -- in fact, I've been doing a version of this kind of planning for a couple of years -- but this was a big new refinement of my wardrobe plan, and it's left me feeling really excited and optimistic about what I might make this year. My big sewing plan for 2018, therefore, is really a simpler, but much more complete version of what I was trying to grope my way towards with my Wishlist Challenge last year: This year, I want to use the things I have, and try to make the things I really want to own.

More specifically:

1. (a) Stick to my 2018 sewing budget. Living within my budget is always my first goal! I am starting this year with the lower number I ended 2017. My focus is going to be really strongly on using fabric and patterns that I already own, so hopefully apart from notions, gap-filling fabric and the like, costs should be lower overall compared to other years. I'll see how that goes over the first half of the year.

(b) Stick to my specific envelope/PDF pattern spending limit for 2018. This is basically the same budget as I have limited myself to for the last two years.  Honestly, I don't need any more patterns at all. Between my huge magazine stash, a sizeable envelope and PDF stash, and my magazine subscriptions I've already got pretty much everything imaginable and a whole lot more headed my way over the course of the year. However, I'm guessing that somehow there will still be a few things released this year that I just won't be able to resist. This goal is really here therefore just to keep a lid on that spending.

2. (a) Use at least 50% of the fabric I buy this year. I do know I'll need to buy some fabric for immediate use in 2018, because I've got some holes in my plan. As with patterns, I am not optimistic that I won't also see and buy a few things 'just because' now and again, not all of which might get used this year. But the theme of this year really is "use what I already have" and "fill in gaps", not buying for stash.

(b) Reduce my overall fabric stash to under 150m by the end of the year. Even though I've planned big stash reductions before and never achieved it, my attention this year is going to be on turning the fabric I already own and love into the garments I've imagined it could be. Logically, if I manage to make my imaginary wardrobe a reality, an overall reduction of my fabric stash should follow. I'm starting at almost exactly 200m so I am aiming to reduce my stash by 50m overall. That sounds overwhelmingly huge as a goal, but, put another way, it means on average I have to use 1m more than I buy per week all year, which sounds a lot more reasonable!

(c) Increase my envelope and PDF pattern utilization. The vast majority of my PDF and envelope patterns are unused. I didn't buy them to look pretty on my shelves: I bought them because I really liked the idea of owning those clothes. Right now, I've used 18% of my envelope patterns and 24% of my PDF patterns, so I have plenty of room to improve.

I don't just want to make great new things this year - I also want to make them well and for them to have good longevity (as I discussed in my second review of 2017 post). Thus:

3. Focus on quality and longevity in my sewn and RTW wardrobe. The specifics of this are based on my wardrobe vs. 30 Wears analysis I did at the end of 2017, which produced some pretty clear ways I could improve. For one, I'm going to try changing up my laundry practices in order to try to keep certain types of garments from degrading so quickly. I'm also going to try, when buying new fabric and RTW clothes, to buy better quality (in particular with knit garments and fabrics). And finally, I'm going to make sure I use fitting and construction methods that are suited to producing a garment that at least has the potential to last for 30 wears

On the fitting front, I think what I need to focus on this year is (a) incremental improvement of fit for those types of garments where I have some idea of how to get things to fit reasonably well and (b) the big missing piece: "anything lower body" but particularly trousers. Provided I stay healthy enough to face it, I will have to attempt another at least one giant fitting spree for that, though probably not until a bit later in the year. I am very tempted to try to book and attend a trouser fitting multi-day class, but I can't be certain enough of my health to commit that money right now.

Overall, my idea is that 2018 is mainly going to be about executing a lot of plans. However, because all plan and no whimsy is no fun, I'm also going to add another goal/challenge:

4. The 2018 Magazine Challenge: Make one thing from any 2018 issue of any of my three subscriptions (Burda, Ottobre, Knipmode) per month. This is a more relaxed version of the Burda challenge a lot of people do. I'm allowing myself to use any of my magazine subscriptions, and I won't restrict myself to the current month of the magazines except, for obvious reasons, in January. Ottobre only comes out twice a year, and Burda and Knipmode are both bonkers in the summer, so I prefer to give myself some flexibility.

I think this challenge is a great way to lighten up from the planned wardrobe mode I hope to be in the rest of the year. I'll try to draw from my fabric stash, but I'm open to buying fabric specifically for the challenge garments, my only limitation being that I need whatever I make fit in, in terms of colours and broad silhouettes, with the rest of my wardrobe. I'm far too practical to make things I'll never ever wear, like ball gowns or something. However, I do think that I want to pick out and make patterns that are more trendy, unusual or interesting to sew. Although I only managed to make a few things last year for my 2017 challenge, their outcomes ranged from spectacularly successful to total wadder, and I am strangely OK with that trend continuing.

With all these ideas and plans buzzing around, it was hard to decide where to start! However, first up, I'm going to be plugging another major gap in my outerwear wardrobe, using fabric I've had stashed for this exact purpose since 2012. I've also picked out my January Magazine Challenge item. :D