 Welcome to my first makes video of a brand new year this month beginning of any year is always so interesting in the makes department because I really am trying to be so self-aware and so conscious of what I'm sewing, how much time I'm dedicated to sewing, the products and things that I'm using to sew, meaning like trying to use them as much of my stash as possible. Not to mention I live in North Carolina and we've had some wacky weather here so that has presented its own sort of challenges and not really being able to leave. We have snow for like three weekends in a row and so I wasn't going to Joanne. I wasn't shopping for new stuff which I really didn't want to do anyways but it also prohibited me from getting things shipped into here whether that be PDF patterns being printed from some line graphics or like any little notions that I needed and stuff like that. It wasn't like a huge hindrance but it was just enough. Do you know what I mean? Like just enough friction there to where I was like you know what let's just put that project to the side. So I was able to complete two items and I know I wanted to like pair back and use all my plans video. I talked about having fewer plans but I think only finishing two things was a little bit disappointing. I did cut out a bunch of stuff so I ended up adding four things to my works in progress which is also not the plan. I definitely want to have more of those sewn but I think like I got into the rhythm of cutting and then it was like the snow was gone and so everybody was like yeah let's go outside. You know we were watching the NFL games and now the Olympics and so my free time has been allocated other places but I am going to show you the two things I made. I'm also going to show you how I was able to use my sewing planner. I know a bunch of you guys have these. If you don't have one yet check the description box. It'll provide you with a link to where you can shop the planners. Okay so first up in my plans I had the sew together pattern for January which was the J. Lee Emily. I try and say that like with my best Parisian or French Canadian accent that I possibly can. So okay so what happened with that was this was one of the projects that I did not get sewn and I didn't even add it to my works in progress. I'm in here I'm looking through my stash and I'm really feeling like I don't have the right fabric for this and I had one pulled and I talked about it in my plans but the more that I looked at it the more I was like this is not right and this is not going to give me the kind of sweater that I want and also it wouldn't have been the kind of fabric that I know that that pattern calls for that that pattern needs a fabric that is super lightweight and drapey. You can use a sweater knit but it has to be a really lightweight drapey one and the more that I was looking at the fabric that I had picked out I was like this is just not it the color wasn't right I just wasn't feeling it and I think that the goal to always use stash fabrics for the Sew Together Challenge is great and it has allowed me to sew through a bunch of my stash but it's at the same time cannot be forced because at the end of the day if I don't like what I make I'm not gonna wear it anyway so it doesn't matter if it's in my stash or my closet it's just sitting somewhere. So I decided to abandon that I did make a bunch of notes about kind of like what idea I did have and what I was going for and I got all the way through the to-do list all the way down to where it says to cut the pattern pieces and I just I never even I never even got started so I think what I'm gonna do is start looking for like clearance fabrics either fabric.com or Joanne or even the salvage yard at Stylemaker fabrics and just wait for one of those like really slouchy fabrics to show up and then I know I'll be able to whip this up in like two seconds because it is a really simple pattern and I have everything done other than cutting out my fabric I had the size picked you know all that kind of stuff so so yeah I'm ready to go on that but I was not able to add it. Then I moved to what was it November's sew-together pattern so I got behind last year on the sew-together challenge there is no deadline so you could literally sew last year's January pattern now if you wanted and still feel you know just as accomplished as if you had sewn it last January this month or sorry November's pattern was the style art Freya I posted this for Make It Monday last week two weeks ago ended up using this gorgeous boot clay knit the neckline is very the neckband is very large so bear with me on that and this is one of those examples of when a stash fabric and a pattern are just meant to be so this cost me whatever the pattern cost eight bucks or something like that and this came from my stash this boot clay knit is so dreamy so many of you commented on how cozy it looked and a hundred percent that's that's exactly what it is the style of it isn't the most flattering because I have a smaller waist and bigger other features and this is like oversized so it kind of hides the smallest parts of me but I really didn't make it for it to be like a body enhancing kind of garment you know what I mean like sometimes in yours in your wardrobe you need those things that are just like you know make they just feel like a hug and make you feel really good and that's what this is I've loved wearing it I've gotten a lot of compliments in person wearing it I think people think it looks like ready to wear that fabric is so luxurious and so nice this particular one came from stalemaker fabrics they don't have that anymore but they still do have a lot of really gorgeous boot clay knits and this fabric the pattern is a bit of a fabric hog so you wouldn't really be able to like wait for a salvage yard sale but it is worth every penny it's very luxurious very nice and absolutely love wearing it so in my planner I did you know it was pretty straightforward because I already knew what I was gonna be doing and I really only had one fabric to choose from and no notions are required to make that top so it was really easy to kind of get everything together for it check off the to-do list the sizing was pretty straightforward too because style arc only has one pattern like you can print one one size at a time so I just picked the size for my bodice I went over all of this in the review the pattern review video but I just picked the size from my bodice and then sized out for my hips and then shortened a whole bunch of things so that it would fit on the fabric so I did notate all of that here but because I finished it yay I was able to like fill out the little journal five stars love this pattern some ideas for next time fit problem or fit things I want to address next time and then I was able to check off a whole bunch of these goals because I sewed it so early in the month is the next project I made and this is one you have not seen I have not posted a pattern review for it coming soon but I talked about it in the plans video and it is this kind of rib knit close fitting knit dress it doesn't look like much like just laid on top of everything else I have on today like this but it is one of those garments that when I put on put it on I feel sassy I feel like I cannot be bothered I don't know what it is I wore it out to watch the like one of the playoff games that was at like a restaurant bar sort of down the street and I work with this and knee-high boots and I had like a card or not a cardigan but a like big oversized infinity scarf with it and I just felt so like so super cute so you will see more of this I have a lot of thoughts on fit I I didn't say I have issues with fit but it didn't fit like I had envisioned out of the gate so I had to make some alterations to fit within that you can see one of them is I added fish eye darts when you have a waist that's just so much smaller than your hips if the fabric I don't know this fabric I probably could have just carved it all out but I decided to just nip it in the back anyways I'll tell you a lot more about that whenever I do the pattern review video but you can see here that the planning for this one wasn't as clear out of the gate I had actually three patterns to choose from I think the Niko probably would have fit like I had in my mind better out of the gate but I did want to try one of these my calls patterns I end up going with the second one there and then I used Mimi G's trick of using the power mesh on the inside and although I don't feel like it holds things in it definitely gives an extra layer which makes it a little bit more comfortable it doesn't just like act as some kind of filter for your body but I can wear the dress without any kind of shape wear and feel still very good in it all right so then the to-do list came together with the sizing using the fast-fit workbook all that went great pattern alterations that I made and then my journal I really only gave this pattern four stars because of the fit but I think if I tweak it some I might be able to get to a place like tweak the flat pattern I ended up tweaking the finished garment but I think if I end up tweaking like the flat pattern I could get it to a place where it's like a go-to tried-and-true fitted knit dress you know I'm saying so that is it I have two whole sections of nothing filled out in the journal womp-womp because I didn't get to my five projects but I did do the January month in review I wrote down the two things that I was able to finish sewing did not finish any works in progress and here are the four things that I added so for next month I want to finish all of these things and you'll see more about that in the plans video and finish four works in progress the works in progress thing is just a matter of like coming in here and committing to doing that and not being attracted to like the bright shiny thing the bright new shiny thing I need to address the works in progress whether that is finishing them chucking them cutting them up for fabric scraps like each one of them just needs to be addressed and that just takes like the dedication that I wasn't really allowing myself this month but so even though I only got two things so I still feel accomplished I feel very organized I feel like I am ready to go for February and that February is going to be a very productive month because I have so many things already cut some of them are in various stages of being sewn you know what I mean like kind of got the ball rolling toward the end of January didn't allow me to finish everything but really got me off to a good start in February so I want to know from you guys how was your January what did you sew did you sew it I know a lot of you were hunkered down with snowstorms much worse than what we had here did that allow you to sew more or did you lose power like what was the situation how were we doing with our goals with our sewing goals in the very first month of the year let me know in the comment section below but that is gonna do it for me today all thank you so much for watching and I will see you all very soon bye