 Hi guys, it's Lindsay, and today I am talking about my favorite things, not just from December, but from the entire year, my 2016 favorites. Now, as you know, we have made a favorites video, our favorite things for the month, I think from the very beginning, since we started the channel in February of last year. So we have a playlist, I will, at the end of the video, there will be a little box that will pop up, and that will be a link to our playlist where you can watch all of our favorite monthly, our monthly favorites. But this is going to be kind of like a best of the best, like my top things from the whole year. And I have one, two, three, four, one, two, three, four things. I thought I had more than that. But okay, either way, four things, five things. Shoot, I don't know how many things I have. It's okay, we're going to get started and we'll count them all up together. Either way, so yeah, so these are the things that I use all the time, the things that I can't live without. It's not a flash in the pan. I think I love this thing. It is a tried and true. I've used it for a long time and I keep going back to using it because it's that awesome. That's what these things are all about in this favorites video. So the first one I want to start with is actually the most recent purchase of all of them. It is this huge cardboard thing. Now you guys saw this in our full seat adjustment video when we did Abby's skirt. This is that same board that we used there. And it's just really great because you can pin into it. So if you want to lay down your pattern piece and keep it in place, like let's say you're tracing or something like that, you can pin it into place and then trace it and nothing shifts or moves. Or if you're doing adjustments like we were doing in that video before, you can kind of move parts of it where other parts stay in place. It also has like a place where you can trace scallops, which is really cool. A place where you can trace like gigantic circle, like quarter circles or half circles that you're going to make a circle skirt or something like that. And it also has a place where you can trace like bias tape with different, I think it's every half inch. So just a lot of really cool stuff going on on this one little board and it folds up nice and flat and you can store it away either like under your sofa, under your bed, in a closet, oops, something like that. So yeah, I just really, this board has become really, really useful to me. Oh, I didn't mention this in the beginning either, but links to all of these items are going to be in the description box. So if you want to purchase any of them or check any of them out, just go to the description box below this video frame and you will find them there. The next thing is the, are these zippers from YKK. We got them when we were in New York City at Silthread, but we have been able to find them online. And really the great thing about these zippers is the tape, the actual zipper tape is very pliable and very, very light. So it's still an invisible zip, but it's not as bulky and not as stiff as the invisible zippers that you can get at like Joanne's or something. I used one of these zippers in a rayon shally project that I did. Remember those coolots? They were black with little red flowers all over them. I want to say it was a Melissa Watson for Palmer flesh pattern. And I put this type of zipper in there and it just, because the rayon shally is so lightweight, it didn't weigh it down. It didn't create that like bubble wave thing that happens in the back when your zippers just too stiff. It really just kind of goes with the fabric. So I just love these zippers so much. They work really great with voile as well. Really any lightweight fabric that you're working with. These lighter weight taped, lightweight tape zippers are really, really wonderful. I love them. I've repurchased them. I know Abby got a bunch of them. She did not get any in New York City, but she got a bunch after I showed her that rayon shally project. So yeah, they're just wonderful. These zippers are amazing. Next is kind of like a two in one and actually it could probably be a three in one. Sorry, something's in my eye. And it's really just about different tools for pressing. I feel like this year, especially, I've really paid a lot of attention to those techniques and really elevated my garments by pressing them accurately and, you know, working with the weave of the fabric when you're pressing it and all of those kinds of things that make sewing easier, but also make your projects nicer in the end. So the first one is a Taylor's Ham and it's just this wooden block. I mean solid wood. It's not finished with anything. It's just sanded down really well so there's no splinters. And when you, if you have like a bulky seam or like a really fabric that's hard to press and it won't hold its press, you iron over it with steam and then you lay this on top and the steam comes this pull this wood because it's porous pulls the steam out of the fabric and only leaves the heat. And so it creates a really nice crisp press in fabrics that are typically difficult to get a press in. So I got this whenever I was going to make jeans because, you know, you have very bulky seams in your jeans and so you need something heavy that was going to, you know, really hold those down and and get a good crisp press. But I found that it works really well on like silky fabrics like this top I have on right now. And just anything that's kind of hard to get a press in a Taylor's Ham is going to be really good for you. And then also there is this little guy is the pressing ham. I'm not sure. Is that what it's called? I can't remember if you guys know these. It's shaped like this. You can get this little small end into like a sleeve cap or an arm side. That's really nice. And it's two sided. One is for high heat and one is for low heat. And it just it really helps with curved seams. So like anytime you're doing a princess seam, this is perfect for that or a collar. In fact, when you're doing a collar, you can buy a little stand for this thing and it stands in and it holds it straight up. And then you wrap your collar around it and then leave it overnight. And that's how the professionals get their collars to stay so crisp and in place and so perfect looking is because they have shaped the fabric around this thing to help, you know, keep it all in place. So a lot of uses for this. You can make your own, but they aren't that expensive to buy. So I just bought mine. I've had no issues with it. And like I said, I like having the high heat low heat sides. That's really helpful too. I do use that function a lot. So two pressing items in one. If I had to add a third one, I would say a sleeve board like an ironing board just for sleeves. It's like super, super small and you can get your whole sleeve in there. It's a recent purchase for me, which is why I didn't pull it out and all and like make it officially part of this whole thing. But I do find myself using it a lot. And it really helps get those sleeve, the like underarm sleeve seems pressed really well without compromising, without getting a without pressing like the sides of the, you know how sometimes you'll get that you'll end up pressing like the sides of the sleeve and you have this weird crisp thing on your sleeve. That prevents that because it's just so narrow and your sleeve slides right over it. And you can get the really great sleeve seam pressed. Sleeve seam pressed, that's hard to say. And I sort of saved the best for last and it is my new sewing machine. So you guys know that I finally upgraded from my $100 brother up to kind of like a mid-level brother. It's a Laura Ashley edition of Brother and I'm just obsessed with it. I just love it so much and it's really helped me become a better sewer. It's improved how my projects look and has helped how they come together. Like so many things are so much easier. Some features that I really love on this sewing machine are like the automatic thread snips. I really love that. I love how like in the front, like you know where you pull off that little storage container on most machines, this one has a place for I think 10 different feet. So they're all always just right there and then you can store extra ones underneath. So it's nice to have all of that there. I love the how you can adjust the speed. You can do that on cheaper machines too, but my other machine didn't have that. So I like being able to control the speed because sometimes I get a little crazy and get excited and I want to go so fast, but that thing helps keep everything helps keep all that under control and you know prevents me from going crazy. What else? There's just like a lot of different stitches and things like that. I haven't played around with those too much a little bit, but mostly just the button foot and things like that. It makes really great buttonholes. So yeah, of course I have to add my brand new sewing machine to all of that. So yeah, kind of short and sweet, but again we have a ton of favorites. I think each of us did three every month for at least 10 months. So that's 60 favorites. So there's lots of footage for you guys to review if you're interested in finding other things that we love other sewing notions and things that we found that we really love. So yeah, what are some of your favorite things from the year? Have you found a notion or a tool or a technique or something that you just find yourself going to and wonder how did I ever do this before like without knowing this or without having this tool? That's how I feel about all these items. Like how did I ever make anything without a Taylor's ham? I have no idea. So yeah, let me know in the comments what some of your favorite things from 2016 are and I mean, I wouldn't be that ashamed if you said it was inside the hem because let's be real. No, I'm just kidding. Love you guys so much. Thanks so much for watching and I will see you all soon. Bye.