Top 5 of 2013

The lovely Gillian of Crafting A Rainbow has asked us to post again about our top 5 things from 2013.

I loved reading all the participants of this last year so I'm getting in on it early this year! In this post I'm doing my hits and misses and I'll cover off reflections, inspirations and goals in a follow up post.

Top 5 hits

I've had a pretty productive sewing year! I made more items that I thought I could and my skills and confidence have improved so much! 

1)  My Mad Men dress

I sewed this for Julia Bobbin's Mad Men sewalong and first wore it to Rachel's epic blogger meet up. It was the first item where I really cracked the fit (with the help of the lovely twitter sewcialists) and also the first time I did major alterations to a pattern. Worked out really well and wasn't so scary! 

Cake Patterns

This is a bit of a cheat as it covers so many of the garments I have made this year! But I have come to love sewing with knits and steph's fitting process makes it so easy! Also they are really versatile and lend themselves to being remade several times. This year I made 2 Tiramisus, 2 Cabaritas, 2 Hummingbird top and skirt combos and a Hummingbird flounce skirt, 2 Pavlova top and skirt combos and 3 Red Velvets (some unblogged, and a lot of them pictured above!).  That's a lot of Cake!

Blue Christmas dress

A really recent make in the nicest fabric I have worked with and I tried really hard with the seam finishing etc to do the fabric justice. Even though it's not quite as I expected I still love it!

The Kite Flying Hawthorn

I loved this pattern when it came out but I was worried about my sewing ability in managing to make a shirt dress. But I needn't have worried with the great Colette instructions holding my hand. I always get compliments on this when I wear it!

The Beach Hut Victoria

I wasn't sure about this pattern until I started seeing it on lots of blogs.  The line drawings looked scary.  But it's such a versatile jacket and I can't wait til it's warm enough to wear without freezing to death!

Top 5 misses

I don't have loads of wadders.  Normally when I start a make I finish it and it is generally not too bad.  Maybe I am lucky (or accepting of low standards!).

Juniper Trousers

These were my biggest fail this year - I was determined to make a pair of trousers in 2013 and it really didn't happen.  I made a muslin which I carefully thread traced to find it wouldn't have fit in a million years.  So I threw it in the sewing box and it is still there.  2014 will be the Year of the Trousers (umm, I think I said that last year...)

A second Gertie Portrait blouse

After making the first one with no issues, I grabbed a cotton remnant to make a quick summer top.  I sewing too far up the side seams so that it is really tight under the arms and I need to figure out a way to fix that without unpicking the narrow sleeve hems I have already done.

The Brave Peony

This is currently languishing in the mending pile.  The zip broke and after 3 failed attempts to replace it (currently the waist seam is totally misaligned across the zip) I gave up and threw it on a chair.  I am terrible at fixing problems.

The Deco Cardigan

This isn't quite a miss, but I definitely don't wear it as much as I thought I would.  I think this is partly to do with the wool content.  I do find it slightly itchy.  However the main problem is the pink grosgrain ribbon I used.  I find that really restricts what it goes with.  I may remove this and replace with something more neutral (maybe navy?).

The Shift dress

This failed at toile stage where I realised that the Burda shift dress pattern I was planning fitted me really badly and I wasn't keen on the line of the shoulder.  So I have a beautiful piece of pink raw silk that I need to find a pattern for. 

Stay tuned for the follow up post with inspirations, reflections and goals for 2014!

Are you sharing your top 5 of 2013?  Let me know in the comments so I can check it out!