2020 Review and My Top 5

Cheryl from Meadow Mist Designs is hosting her 5th annual "Best of" link-up party these days. I haven't participated in a couple of years now, but thought it would be fun to revisit my blog posts from the past year and share a bit of a review and highlight my favourite 5 makes of 2020.

This year, I have completed a total of 58 projects - 31 garments and 27 quilts or accessories.

Of the 27 quilted items I made, 13 were lap size quilts, 9 were baby quilts and 5 were accessories such as placemats and table runners. Many were made entirely from my stash. In fact, 8 were made from scraps, 7 were sewn from pre-cuts I owned and 5 were patterns from books in my library. I have been trying to reduce the size of my stash for a while as well as make more from my scrap baskets and I'm happy to say I'm feeling pretty satisfied with the results.

My favourite two makes in the quilting departments this year were:

My Push-Pull quilt - made during the sew along hosted by Yvonne of Quilting Jetgirl. I love the design, I'm super pleased with my fabric choices and this one was a lot of fun to make.

Number 2 is my Closet Core Patterns Pouf - made with stash fabrics which I love and stuffed full of scraps. It was my first time making a pouf, sewing piping and it allowed me to use up all of my garment fabric scraps.

Out of the 31 garments completed, most were made for me (only 8 were for others). I guess that is pretty typical as I was trying to learn how to fit patterns for my body as well as the fact that I wasn't able to get close enough to other people to take measurements thanks to COVID-19 confinement.

Most of the garments I made were in knit fabric (21) and were tops (18). Many of them are still in my closet but some of them have since either been recycled into other garments or shredded into stuffing for another pouf I'm planning. I hope to up my sewing game a little in 2021 and try more difficult projects while still continue to fill gaps in my closet.

My favourite three garments from 2020 were chosen not because they were perfect but because they allowed me to stretch my skills a bit. And coincidentally, they are all patterns from Helen's Closet.

My Arden pants - this was my second try at them and pretty successful. I managed to fit them to me pretty well, insert the elastic in the waistband and did all the topstitching. I plan on making more of these pants in 2021.

My Gilbert shirt - This was probably my proudest accomplishment this year. It isn't perfect and I still need lots of practice with collars and buttonholes, but it fits, the buttonholes work and it looks pretty good.

My Pona Jacket - This was my very first jacket. Granted, it isn't the most complicated jacket in the world with no lining and no closures, but baby steps right?

And there you have it - my top 5 of 2020!