This year’s second goal was:

2. Learn more sewing techniques.
I’m not sure I can say I accomplished this one, at least concerning fancy techniques like bound buttonholes or pad stitching–but I realized it’s because I’m not a “process” sewer. I’m all about the finished product, and don’t like to be working on things that are so painstaking they take months to complete (for example, hand tailoring).

But there’s a lot of ground between basic sewing and hand tailoring, and I did use some fancier techniques on a few projects: flat felled seams in baby pants, a faced hem in the first tunic dress, a little pattern drafing to alter that same tunic dress pattern a few times– and let’s not forget lined drapes, either. So I don’t think I plateaued by any means. (But I still haven’t figured out how to use the serger.)

In other sewing news, I bought some Liberty of London fabric after a long time without fancy fabric and called it a Christmas/birthday gift to myself. Just two cuts to get me from winter into early spring:
“Yoshie,” a print from winter 2010 (with tiny owls and horses and bunnies and hawks!)

and “Mitsi,” a standard print. Both will be dresses worn with colored tights.