One of my favorite things to do at the end of the year is to look past at all my sewing projects from the past year. I love the reflection and learning I get from retrospectively studying my handmades. I put together lists of my most worn handmade items, the items I could’ve done better on, my sewing goals, and the best sewing tutorials that were your favorite of 2017. What was your favorite sewn item of 2017?
Besides all the clothing I made this year, I changed my blog name from Feathers Flights to Heather Handmade. I felt like it was a better fit for what I was doing: sewing a bunch of handmade clothing and making beautiful handmade things for my home and life.
My Favorite 2017 Sewn Projects
I separated my most worn handmade clothing made in 2017 into three categories: jackets, summer, and winter.
These are the three jackets I made this year, and I love all of them. I made a faux suede ikat jacket, a tencel Kelly Anorak Vest, and a lightweight waterproof Kelly Anorak. I am a jacket person and these fit perfectly into my wardrobe. I do find the Ikat jacket a little hard to wear since it’s a print, but it works with all my solids.
At the first of the summer I struggled with finding direction for my summer handmade wardrobe. I love wearing skinny jeans, but when it’s hot I basically hate fabric touching me. I finally found some summer patterns I like to wear: the striped flint pants, the chambray tania culottes, and the striped bamboo tee. I wore these constantly this summer, and I can’t wait until next summer to start with a great summer wardrobe base. If you are sewing stripes this is how to match stripes.
When I’m cold I just want to be comfortable and cute. And wear loads of layers. Maybe I just need all really comfortable clothing. I’m basically wearing sweatshirts and cardigans this winter. And I love it. This winter I’m wearing a quilted sweatshirt, three blackwood cardigans, a lace front sweatshirt, a sweater fleece sweatshirt, and a terry knit sweatshirt. 
My Mistake 2017 Sewn Projects – That I learned From
I actually had a hard time finding items I didn’t wear from everything that I made myself this year. I didn’t make anything that was the wrong style or the wrong color. After reading through these four “sewing mistakes”, I realized that I need to stop working with cheap, low quality fabric. I would have kept all of these if I would’ve used better fabric! BUT now that I know my style and my colors I can spend money on high quality fabric and know that it’s a worthy investment!
- Tencel Woven Tee – I love this fabric, I love the color, and I like this style. I just didn’t make the upper back wide enough so it’s a little uncomfortable to wear. I would wear it all the time if I had fitted it correctly!
- Floral Harbar Knot Tee – I love this pattern, and I loved the floral. Unfortunately this rayon spandex was really low quality and started to wear out and pill quickly. I need to make some more next summer with higher quality fabrics!
- Diagonal Ruffle Tee – I love the look of this tee. I love the white color and the subtle stripes. Unfortunately, the fabric didn’t have any spandex and would get easily stretched out. It makes me sad because I loved it, but if I don’t wear it I get rid of it. Even if it’s a handmade. I don’t like the “emotional baggage” in my closet.
- Long Cardigan with Pockets – I loved this cardigan, and it was pretty perfect and lightweight for summer. It was a great color, and I loved the sweater fabric look. I used cheap fabric, and it wore out really fast because I wore it a lot.
Best Sewing Tutorials and Projects of 2017
- No-Slip Hand Towel Tutorial
- How to Sew a Split with Mitered Corners
- Why You Need Pennies in your Sewing Room
- Free Draped Cardigan Pattern and Tutorial
- 26 Ways to Save Money while Sewing
- Three Different Ways to Hem Knits
- 8 Things I Wish I Could Tell Myself Before I Started Sewing
- Striped Flint Pants
- My 8 Favorite Fabrics to Sew Clothing With
Sewing Goals for 2018
- Make at least one coat – I have two planned for January
- Make a pair of jeans – I have the pattern and fabric purchased; I just need the notions! When you are sewing jeans, learn how to hem jeans with the original hem.
- Share more sewing tips and sewing tutorials – update old popular posts
- Work on adding videos to my posts
- Improve my photography
- Perfect my capsules – I’m better at sewing my colors and sewing my style, but I feel like sometimes I make too many items which makes it harder to dress in the morning.
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