retrospective Archives - Handmade by Carolyn

2024; a retrospective

31/12/2024 3:58 pm \ 16 Comments \ Carolyn

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!

Posted in: fashion, sewing \ Tagged: retrospective

2023; a retrospective

31/12/2023 5:29 pm \ 10 Comments \ Carolyn

Hello! It’s the last day of 2023, and I’m feeling miraculously motivated to look back upon my year of making, and see what I made, how it worked out and generally do a bit of retrospective musing on the things to come… first of all I’m putting up some favourite photos/outfits, one from each month of the year. I made everything I’m wearing in each picture, barring some shoes…

January

February

March

April

May

June

July

August

September

October

NovemberDecember

Actually, it was funny for me looking back to find some favourite pictures because to be honest I had a bit of a photo slump this year. I stopped enjoying taking pictures of myself and struggled to find any motivation in it, particularly during the last four months.

What did I make this year?

So, I made 64 items this year, including 1 knitted jumper, 2 underwear sets comprising a bra plus two pairs of matching undies, 1 leather bag, 1 wallet, 3 hats, 8 dresses, 2 jackets, 12 tops, 10 skirts, 3 cardigans, 15 kiddies’ garments, 4 pj’s, 1 pr hand warmers, and 1 Wedding Dress! capitals intended… 30 of these items were for other people. The absolute biggest and most involved project for me this year was of course Lainey’s wedding dress. Yes, it sounds like a lot, and of course it is! That stash is not going to reduce itself!

Cassie and I were absolutely over the moon to add two new patterns to our Carolyn & Cassie Pattern Co stable this year; the Pinjarra twinset and the Meelup skirt. It seems like this has been the Year of Basics for our tiny company! It feels great to have some more tried and true patterns that we truly believe in and wear ourselves very frequently. And we’re excited about moving onto more adventurous design next year. #bighint

Stashbusting vs new fabric

I’m still diligently working through my stash, and not buying or accepting new fabric. I’m pretty proud of my restraint… in fact the only time I worked with new fabric this year was Lainey’s wedding dress! I’ve worked through quite a lot of my collection and it’s all looking quite manageable nowadays. Realistically, I estimate I have maybe another year of not buying new to get rid of absolutely EVERYTHING, maybe even less? Exciting thought! but we’ll see how that goes! #fingerscrossed. Wish me luck!

Regarding the very large wool stash I’ve inherited from relatives’ … I’m planning to enquire about donating most of it to my grandson’s daycare/kindergarten actually, because realistically it would take me years to knit my way through that. I have to be realistic about what is achievable!

Favourite makes?

Hmm, no surprises here, but of course Lainey’s wedding dress is by far my favourite make of the year! as well as being the most involved. This was a pure labour of love, into which I poured my heart and soul. Although there were challenges… I still have slight ptsd about that hem! I’m pretty proud of the final product and felt like Lainey chose an absolutely beautiful design that I was genuinely in love with myself too. I’m so thrilled with how beautifully she shone on this day, which was a truly lovely time in every way.

Some other favourites makes of the year are:

I’m really happy with how both this pretty pink Pinjarra cardigan and this little blue Jade mini skirt turned out, and I’ve worn both of these pieces pretty frequently. The ivory tee is my most most worn item of the year! I really need to make another, to take the pressure off!

For creativity, I was really happy with this weird little outfit!

And, so random, but I was thrilled with this little knitted set that I made for baby Gilbert! Making things like this, and the purple/raspberry set above just reinforce for me the joy I feel with making something useful from scraps and bits and pieces that otherwise suggest nothing. I need to embrace more projects like these because they are nearly always the most rewarding and satisfying to me. 🙂

any fails?

ooh gosh, that’s tough, because I didn’t really make anything this year that stands out negatively… strictly speaking there are a few items I’ve only worn once so far, but they are all things I like!

I made a whole bunch of things from this rather terrible paprika-coloured stretch fabric, all of which have a tendency to stretch out, and it was a relief to get this ghastly stuff out of the stash. However, all of them been worn a bunch so I can’t really call any of these a true fail either… Theo insists the red T-shirt is his favourite top!

What did I wear?

My most worn items can be summed up neatly in the following #ootd photos.

Everything made by me, in fact I wore close to 100% me made clothing as usual. My most worn items are my ivory merino tee (23 wears), my Oxen Fibremood Jill dress (top row, middle, 21 wears), and jointly my navy Miette knitted cardigan and yellow merino Pinjarra cardigan (18 wears each). Honourable mentions go to my green Karijini dress (top row, left, 16 wears), and as usual my yellow raincoat, the number of wears I did not count… I’m also not counting my black tights, hand knitted sock, handmade sockettes nor any hats, all of which were very worn more than anything, of course!

other doings in general

I’m still learning Japanese, it’s been nearly four years now! and I am excited to announce we’ll be visiting Japan again next year. I’m thrilled to be able to try speaking a little, as well as catch up again with my lovely friend Yoshimi.

I’ve kept up my outfit of the day blog over on Tumblr for 10 years now! Wow! I’m pleased I managed this, however like I mentioned at the beginning of this post the habit of taking a photo of myself everyday has started to become tiring and I’ve decided to gently let it go. Actually, correction; I’m abruptly letting it go! 10 years is quite a long time! There have been plenty of times in the last year I’ve almost forgotten about it and have to hurriedly take a picture just before putting my pyjamas on… haha. Whoops! I think you’ve got to sometimes take stock of whether an activity is contributing to your happiness, or if it’s become a chore; and take the appropriate action. I may or may not take the occasional picture if I particularly love my outfit, but definitely not daily, and will most likely post only instagram from now on.

Finally, if you’re still reading, then thank you very much for sticking with me for another year! I really appreciate everyone who does and who chooses to leave a kind and generous comment every now and then; each and every one really makes my day and I’m so thankful for all of you.

I hope you all had a wonderful year, and wish you all a happy, healthy, rewarding and creative 2024 ahead!

Posted in: sewing, Uncategorized \ Tagged: retrospective

2021; a retrospective

01/01/2022 9:55 pm \ 12 Comments \ Carolyn

I’m so behind but running as fast as I can… ! soon I think I will make it back to where I’m supposed to be. I know I’m a day late for a 2021 retrospective, woops but better late than not at all, I think?

brace yourselves for some random stats and facts!

IG: Above is my “best nine” for Instagram for the year, since instagram is the social media place where I tend to hang out the most. These are the nine pics that got the most likes from people who follow me over there. It does makes me really happy that some of the important people in my life are the most liked! I still don’t really “get” what makes people like one picture, and don’t even look at another. Still a complete mystery to me, to be honest. Anyway!

what did I make this year?

I made 66 items this year… as follows: (for me) 5 coats/jackets, 6 dresses, 10 tops/tees, 6 skirts, 2 jeans/trousers, 1pr pyjamas, 1 pr handwarmers, 1 set of lingerie (bra + 2 undies) and 3 prs shoes. One skirt and one top were for the FrockOn collaboration, so have not been added to my own personal wardrobe. I’ve also been making things for Cassie as she struggles to cope with new motherhood and, just lately, a new back-to-work wardrobe: 2 dresses, 6 tops, 2 skirts, 1 pr hand warmers. For Arthur I’ve made: 1 tee, 1pr trousers, bunny soft toy + clothes, backpack: for baby Theo: 8 onesies/rompers, 2 tees, 1 sleep suit, 1 cushion, 1 swing. For Kelly; 1 top and 1pr handwarmers, and for Lainey, 1 top also. Oh, on top of that I made 10 masks, and 10 baby bibs, but I didn’t even count these, woops!

Cassie and I were very proud to release three new sewing patterns this year too! Our Mundaring raincoat pattern, our Yallingup dress/blouse pattern, that one that has both regular and breast-feeding friendly versions, and our free Fridgetown hand warmer pattern. Yay! We are so excited for what the next year will bring for our fledgling company too!

“Stash” vs “new” fabrics:

I’m really really trying hard to sew as much from my stash as possible, and I did in fact managed to use quite a lot of it this year! however I did have to either buy or incorporate some new fabrics this year… I wanted to make Theo’s baby swing from Cassie’s own fabric from her Spoonflower store, and had to buy that, for example… and some other pieces were given to me, like when Mum and my friend N both cleaned out their stashes, and also when I received fabric for the FrockOn collaboration, as well as 5 pieces from Minerva. By this criteria, 18 items were from “new” fabric. Ultimately I’m pretty happy with how much stash I managed to go through though. Feel very very good about this. I’m already formulating plans for next year too…! 😉 🙂

favourite make?

oh dear! I found this so hard to judge this year! I can only cope with the decision making trauma buy choosing several things, for several reasons! For purely selfish, pride-in-the-sewing-process, reasons; my favourite thing for myself was my black Stewart tartan coat, made at the beginning of the year. I’ve worn this several times and always feel so smart and pulled together. It makes every outfit look good! but the above was my favourite 🙂

I was also very happy with some of the things I’ve made for others; particularly this striped dress I made for Cassie, Theo’s little panda romper, and Arthur’s bunny …

most worn?

My most worn clothing items for the year can be summed up in the above… top spot goes to my yellow raincoat (51 wears this year), other very heavily worn items were my white sandals (50), lilac sandals (28), yellow mini skirt (26), turquoise denim skirt (23), sherbie tee, red floral myosotis dress, red turtleneck, rust wool skirt, blue hand knit cardigan, new navy jeans, pink hoodie was originally white and I overdyed it during this year, and my cheerful orange/yellow/purple dress; all made by me and all took honours as very frequently worn clothing items in my wardrobe this year. My black tights also get very heavily worn but I’m not counting those because they’re boring.

any fails? or *horrified gasp* things NOT worn

I have to admit the very first time I wore my yellow polka-dot maxi skirt, above, I realised beautiful long ripple-y skirts were just never going to work for my dog-walking lifestyle. I gave it to my niece T and she seemed quite excited to wear it, so I’m just glad it’s gone to a good home! I did love it in theory though!

general life things

So; a big part of my life nowadays is spending time with my two darling grandsons… I’m very happy to be responsible for babysitting them (separately) each week… very occasionally I sneak in my ootd photo while I’m hanging out with them, and of course these are some of my favourites!

with Arthur

with Theo

Also, my Japanese lessons are still going really well… although travel still feels like a far off very distant thing, I’m enjoying it so much I will probably take up Celtic again if I have more time this year, fingers crossed!

Did I mention this before? We moved house at the beginning of the year, we’re now very close to the beach and I now walk along it every single day. I feel so lucky and do not take it for granted, I’m literally living my dream life now. I’ve always loved the beach, and to live here is like sheer heaven for us. I’m also still maintaining my 7 year, unbroken streak of at least 10,000 steps every day. I’ve kept this up ever since I got my first Fitbit, which is a relentless tyrant for keeping you accountable!

So, I guess that’s 2021 … I wish all who read this a wonderful year ahead, with health and happiness, clean air, refreshing rain and warm sunshine for all, and of course precious time spent with the most important people in our lives. Here’s to 2022 being a good one!

Posted in: sewing, Uncategorized \ Tagged: retrospective

2020; a retrospective

01/01/2021 11:53 pm \ 22 Comments \ Carolyn

Yes, I know I’m a day late; maybe even two days late by the time I get this published! but well… I’m a bit busy right now. All will become clear in my next post 🙂

So it’s the end of the year, and I’m looking back on my year of sewing and blogging. First up, I’m posting some of my favourite pictures for the year, one per month…

January

February

March

April

May

June

July

August

September

October

November

December

So. It’s been a strange year; I dare say a BIG year for everyone. One of the happier big things in my own year was of course Cassie’s wedding in March, the preparations for which brought us much happiness and excitement, although the last week was tinged with growing uncertainty as we didn’t know whether the gradually impending threat of covid would cause problems… it was such a weird time and no one knew what to expect! With incredible good fortune, everything went ahead and only one week later lockdown restrictions were imposed that would have made the wedding impossible. So, MAJOR stress at the time, but ultimately a very happy and extremely lucky outcome! I wrote more details addressing this subject and how we handled it at the time in this post here…

I want to say too that I was very pleased for our government’s swift action that has definitely saved us from the virus all this year, and was more than happy for Perth to have a strict lockdown just to make sure. We were in lockdown for basically all of April and extended well into May, and I have to say my sewing output reflected the general level of anxiety that I had at the time. In fact I think that like everyone, my anxiety kept me from being productive in just about every aspect of my life! but honestly I have no complaints. I’m just grateful to be here, to live in a place that took the virus seriously and a government that had our safety and truly our best interests at heart, and acted accordingly. I truly feel like I live in the absolute best place in the world right now. I’m so very grateful.

The other huge thing I’m grateful for is the arrival of our darling first grandchild, Arthur. He is an absolute joy and delight. and we are all totally in love with this precious human being. And Cassie is expecting! I can hardy wait to meet her little bunny!

But ok, now on with my sewing! I might have had a crisis of confidence and motivation, but I did manage to keep making things! I kept up with my planned “make 12” and saw it through, even if once or twice that thing for the month was my only thing for the month! My picture for May above was a kind of lockdown game in which you gathered all the things in your house you could find in your favourite colour. It’s downright embarrassing how many red things I’ve accumulated!

What did I make?? well, I managed 91 things this year… 91! I’m shocked because honestly could have sworn I made hardly anything apart from a wedding dress! Anyway, the breakdown is: for me; 15 dresses, 2 coats, 6 skirts, 8 tops, 3 sets of lingerie, 1 pr of shoes, 7 sockettes, 1 knitted jumper, 2 hats, 1 pr trousers, 1 hoodie and 1 raincoat. For Cassie; the aforementioned wedding dress! including 3 separate petticoats, 2 tops, 1 skirt, 1 pr shorts, 3 maternity dresses; for my nieces, 3 bridesmaids dress, and 1 dress for Mum. For babies; 6 onesies, 6 blankies, 1 huge “texture” quilt, 1 knitted beanie and 1 baby swing. For Craig’s Mum; 7 masks and 1 bag. Oh and I also made 27 kangaroo pouches, that I’m not including in the total of 91 things. Aaaad.. I also made another sewing pattern?! It hasn’t been released yet but will be very very soon. Maybe even… tomorrow?! Ooh, did I just spill the beans in a big way! I’ve wanted to make more patterns for ages but sewing wedding dresses took precedent in the last two years.

Favourite makes of the year? hehe, obviously Cassie’s wedding dress! and I also really loved the girls’ bridesmaids’ dresses and my own mother of the bride dress too.

My most worn items for this year…?

I love most of these things pictured, but not all of them, strangely. I think during lockdown and the subsequent many many days of not going out by my own choice, I took up the habit of wearing daggy things that weren’t my favourites, simply because I wasn’t going out and didn’t need to “dress up”. I’ve decided this is very very silly and I’m going to only wear things I absolutely love from now on. yolo!

In other stuff, I fulfilled a long-held fantasy and took up learning a language! I chose Japanese because I love Japan, would love to visit again some day – although that might be a pipe dream! and I love the visual appearance of the language and kanji. I also felt in the need of a mental challenge. And boy, has it been a challenge! But I’m pretty thrilled I made it into the top 1% on the duo lingo app. Who me, competitive? Oooh, I never #TOTALLYcompetitive I also managed to top the platinum league, one crazy intensive week in which I did virtually nothing but study Japanese. Hmmm, did I mention… competitive?? #dirtyword

It says I studied French but i actually only did a few days dabbling in that, and the one other language was Celtic, which I eventually decided was just too hard to extend my brain to that AND Japanese. I’d still like to learn Celtic one day because it is my heritage after all, but I think that can wait until I’ve got a bit further in Japanese.

So what does 2021 bring for us all… much better times, I hope! and a world that can come together again and regain trust and health as soon as possible. I know this takes time, and maybe the world will never go back to the way things were. Every now and then I wonder if this is the start of a completely different world and what if something else unexpected is lurking just out of sight around the next corner? But really, we can’t dwell on the uncertainty too much, just keep on keeping on, chin up and continue doing the best for the important people in our lives. I just hope the worst is behind us. And that good times are ahead. And mostly that the vaccine WORKS!

Thank you so much to everyone who takes the time to read this silly blog, and even to leave a kind comment or two. I really really appreciate everyone who does. I hope the year brings you all much happiness and joy, good health, peaceful thoughts, appreciation of our home towns, and making many delightful memories with the important people in your life. Cheers!!

Posted in: Uncategorized \ Tagged: retrospective