One year sewn… Autumn Edition

I’ve had a few conversations recently about revisiting older makes and talking about how they are wearing six months or one year on. So I’ve decided to do a #oneyearon spotlight on makes that I made a year ago and examining how they are doing. Are they being worn? If not, why not? Is the fabric washing and wearing well? How could I make sure that my makes are more sustainable to avoid any problems that I uncover… I am going to try and do this quarterly so that I can examine a set of makes for each season. Let’s start with what I made last autumn!

Firstly, I want to talk about the yellow dress in the picture above. This was made in some amazing Art Gallery Jersey which I love. I realised once the summer hit that this dress is too short for me to wear with bear legs – it needs leggings or opaque tights underneath. No problem though! Just means it’a an autumn/winter dress. I am sure it will get worn lots again this year. I will say that the fabric bobbled a bit when I wore a cross-body bag over it – I think its probably because the fabric is so soft and it has a sort of brushed feel but worth mentioning. Careful with your AGF knits guys!

This top made from a scrap piece I bought is one of my favourite makes and I wear it all the time. No problems whatsoever with this one!

This was my first Coco and I decided that I didn’t like it and gave it away. Now I regret it as I am looking at the pictures and love it so the lesson is – hang onto your makes if you aren’t sure! I can be quite impulsive so I think I need to maybe have a cooling off period before I get rid of stuff in case I change my mind. Will try and put that into practise going forward…

This green cord skirt wasn’t being worn much as I made it a bit too big. I found the amount of ease in the McCalls pattern quite difficult to navigate and it ended up rather large and sitting a bit lower on me than the waist-height I had intended. I have been putting off doing anything with it as I really didn’t want to have to remove the whole waistband and add darts/take it in. As part of this blog post I’ve just tried it on again and I think I can get away with just moving the top button over by an inch – problem solved! I plan to do that this afternoon!

This outfit is a total winner. I’ve worn both garments together and separately countless times and am coincidentally wearing the skirt today with one of my newest tops! Loved them when I made them and I still love them now. They have been washing beautifully and I haven’t noticed any changes to the fabric since I made them.

I accidentally shrank this dress in the wash! It is a wool crepe and I accidentally washed this at 40 instead of 30 (why was the machine even on 40?! – I’m looking at you tiny human!). I don’t wash my clothes often and this had been worn lots of times before I decided a few weeks ago that it smelled and needed a wash. My heart sank when I realised what the temperature was. I pressed it and put it back in my wardrobe with melancholy and didn’t try it on until I started writing this post! Fortunately the London Dress has plenty of ease and it still fits – just a bit more snugly than it did before. Time to get wearing it again! Hooray!

Finally, the last thing I made in Sep/Oct/Nov last year was this yellow hat. It was my first knitted item and I have worn it LOADS. It took one ball of wool I bought from the charity shop and I wore it tons. As you can see from the picture on the right – I added a great big pom pom to the top and it got even more wear after that! Lesson is: add more pom poms!

Okay so I think this is a whistle stop tour of a lot of mistakes I’ve made – but hopefully I’ve learned from each one and I still have and wear all but one of these things. They are all washing well with the exception of the first dress that bobbled due to a bag strap. What do you think of this post? Useful? Completely pointless? I think I will be back in December to do the winter makes next – yes? Yes.

If you would like to share what you made a year ago and tell us why you are wearing it a lot or why it isn’t working, please join in! The hashtag for this project is #OneYearSewn and I would love to read your thoughts on how you feel about garments you made one year ago!