2024; a retrospective

Hello!  it’s the very last day of the year, which for this blog is the day that I look back on my year of making/creating/wearing and summarise such things… first off, here’s a favourite outfit/photo from each month of the year.  Every thing that I’m wearing in every photo is made by me, only excepting the winter boots.  May has two just because I couldn’t choose between them. I always do me-made May so I always have too many pictures to choose from!

January

February

March

April

May

June

July

August

September

October

November

December

sooo… I just checked out my last day of 2023 post and was kinda amused that several outfits from this year’s retrospective were basically identical or near identical to last year’s selection…   all I can say is who even am I?!  I actually barely took any photos this year.  Anyway…

what did I make this year? 

I made 52 items this year which includes 5 things for others.  The total includes; 5 dresses, 4 skirts, 3 knitted children’s cardigans, 1 knitted child’s beanie, 1 simple jacket, 1 sewn jumper, 5 knitted adult jumpers/cardigans, 1 knitted neck warmer, 4 knitted cushions, 2x prs knitted socks, 10 shirts/tees, 1 pr pjs, 1 pr bathers, 2x lingerie sets (“set” comprising 1 bra + 2prs undies), 2 prs jeans/trousers, 1 bunny plus bunny outfits … and also 13 full items in testing my patterns – I don’t usually include tests in my numbers but I’ve decided they should count since I finish everything off following the pattern faithfully to test it.  I usually use sheets to make these and there have been very few that get added to mine or anyone else’s wardrobe afterwards!

Looking back over my tally I can see there are 4 things in there that I haven’t even blogged about yet.  Oh dear, so slack.  I will photograph and blog those 4 things soon.

In pattern making, Cassie and I released our Karijini dress pattern for our Carolyn & Cassie Pattern Co.  This is possibly our most advanced and difficult pattern so far and I’m so happy and proud we finally got it out there.

how is the stashbusting going?

I’ve done pretty well with stashbusting this year! and have bought very little.  I used a birthday voucher to buy some denim for my new pair of jeans and a length of cotton for a dress, flannelette for my pjs, and I bought one piece of souvenir fabric in Japan.  I’m very pleased that every single other thing I’ve made has been from my existing stash.  Obviously I will continue to use my stash, and hopefully it will be reduced to nothing by the end of 2025?!  I think I’ve been saying this for several years now!  I wonder when it will actually happen?

Also this year I embarked on a plan to stashbust my wool supplies too.  See, at some point I foolishly accepted my Mum’s and others leftover yarn and over time it accumulated bit by bit to about three rather large bags, very little of which I had bought or chosen for myself.  I pledged at the beginning of 2024 to knit one project per month, and I somehow managed to achieve this too.  phew!  To be honest, this was a pretty demanding challenge and I found it quite exhausting.  And I still have a largish bag of leftovers to get through! There’s still some wool in there that I actually like and will try to use next year, however I’m going to be a bit kinder to myself and throw out some of the no-so nice stuff.  Trust me, there’s a lot that is not nice at all.  I really can’t get through one project per month again, but I think I can manage one per two months?  Let’s see how that goes!

favourite makes?I’m extremely happy with my polka dot Karijini dress above, and my new wide leg jeans below.

Favourite knitted item is actually this funny green/blue striped jumper.  Kinda hilarious since I genuinely worried while I was making this that I was going to hate it.  Ha! There’s just something about it that tickles my fancy and I absolutely love it.

any fails?

I guess something that has me going “meh” a bit was this top…  I’m sad about this since I initially thought it was wonderful.  In the end I think the mix of fabrics doesn’t really work and paradoxically it doesn’t really go very well with its matching skirt.  If I ever see the tartan fabric again then I would like to buy just a bit more to remake the top in just that fabric, and I’ll use more of the cream fabric to complete this one.

Also I have to confess that two of my unblogged items were fails, there’s no point in sugarcoating that, and no doubt why I haven’t had the enthusiasm to blog them yet.  I am in the process of renovating them in order to save them, so I will blog about that when the time comes.

what did I wear?

my most worn items of clothing this year can be summarised in the following ootd pics:

Individually, my most worn clothing items this year were my black/mustard cargo skirt (29 wears), pink Jade miniskirt (24 wears), blue/grey Jade miniskirt and my new pink Jasper sewn jumper (both with 21 wears each).  This excludes my black tights, socks, nightwear and underwear, all of which of course get the most wears of all!  I’ve also stopped counting my me-made raincoat, which gets a lot of wears.

I think particularly during winter I went through a bit of a slump and a symptom of that was me just grabbing the same things over and over again and generally feeling uninspired.  Next year I really want to pull up my hand knitted socks and hopefully be a little more engaged.  I do believe that your clothing, or your public facing armour if you like, can help to lift your mood, and if you’re feeling a bit down then it shows.

So, decision….I’ve actually decided to go back to taking a mostly daily outfit photo.  I know, surprise!  I won’t put too much pressure on doing it every single day… but I think I’ve realised that funnily enough, taking photos spurred me on to making a bit more of an effort, and reflected an inner feeling of caring more.

other things in general

I’m still studying Japanese every day, in fact during 2024 I finally finished the Duolingo Japanese course!  I’ve moved onto reading some books that I bought in Japan during our visit, which is another challenge in itself.  I’m always coming across kanji that I’ve literally never seen before… to be honest this is sometimes a little disheartening.  I honestly think I will never be anywhere close to even halfway fluent in my lifetime.  Oh well, it keeps the brain working, I suppose!  In 2025 we will be going to South Korea for the first time, and Japan again so I’m really excited to see Yoshimi again and to further practise my Japanese.  We also plan to go hiking in Italy and Norway too, so please look forward to some more Travel Wardrobe blog posts!

In looking after my physical health;  at the beginning of winter I started swimming in our pool, first thing every morning, which feels amazing!  At first it was bitterly cold and I could only stay in the pool for about 5 seconds or so before leaping out!  Well, it was winter and our pool is unheated!  Very soon though I worked up to a few minutes, and now I do laps.  This has felt like a really amazing addition to my daily routine and I can’t do without it now!  I still walk a minimum of 12,000 steps/day and next year I will be taking up pilates.  Aaaaand I suddenly realised I have no bonafide exercise gear.  Maybe I need to make some, straight away?

So that’s all, I think!  To conclude, for those who are still reading, then I would like to thank you very much for doing so.  I really do appreciate everyone who reads this silly frivolous blog and leaves a kind and generous comment every so often; each and every comment really does make me so happy.  I’m truly thankful for every one.

I know 2024 has been challenging for lots of people, so I hope most of us are able to look back on the year that was with some happy memories in there.  And I would sincerely like to wish you all a healthy, rewarding and creative 2025 to come!