Although I have been away from this blog for awhile, I have been sewing. It’s been infrequent and the projects are slow-going, but I have been trying to fit in as much as I can with the small amount of free time I have. In these busy times, I feel like I need to be strategic about my sewing since time has become less of a luxury.

When I first started making my own clothes, it was all about learning. I was learning about different fabrics, learning new techniques – I loved trying new things. The last half of 2018, sewing felt like a bit of a chore. I was still enjoying the process of trying to complete my uncompleted projects, but because I had so many other things going on, it was all very tiring. I have since given a few things up and I am getting into more of a routine with my new-ish job. I want to get back into problem solving mode with my sewing and I think this year I can make it happen.

I’ve always been the type of person who loves to learn. Part of the reason I love my new job is that I am learning so much more than the last few jobs I’ve had. I’ve been taken out of my comfort zone and every day I’m trying to perfect skills that I’m not naturally good at. It’s rewarding, but at times it can be mentally exhausting. Sewing could be a welcome distraction at times, but this year as I settle into more comfort with my routine, I want to really focus on the learning. This is why I’m changing things up a bit in my sewing project management. Before I would keep tabs on all my uncompleted projects, trying hard to get garments finished within the season I would be wearing them. I always seem to fail at this. Even though it felt like I was focusing on things, I really lacked a lot of focus and any little change in routine or life happening would really throw my plans out of wack. I need to keep things a little simpler in order to fix my focus and feel like I’m improving my skill. I’ve decided that each month I will pick something to focus on and hopefully I can diversify this enough so that I can still keep learning new skills and perfecting new garments.

For the first month (January obviously), I needed to focus on finishing up a few projects that I had been putting off. But for February, my focus will be on trying to perfect pants. I’m not sure how many projects I will be able to tackle, but I have some ideas in mind already. I don’t want to plan too much in advance for the subsequent months, but I do know I eventually want to (finally) tackle a silk dress and also possibly take on making more active wear. And since February is a short month,this may need to extend into March, I will need to re-evaluate. I need to keep some sort of spontaneity since you never know what your needs will be as life progresses.

2018 for me was the year of doing. I had many running goals and through a lot of hard work & training, I was able to meet almost all of them. When I lost my job early in the year, I worked like crazy to get a new one. I briefly joined the board of a professional organization which had me constantly making sure my many tasks were completed every week. With all the things I was doing, there was no time to take a step back to think or reflect. This is why I want to concentrate on learning new things for 2019. I want to make time to actually enrich my life in a different way. And I hope to get back to blogging too, and it’s something I have really missed over the last year.

Happy 2019 everyone! What are your goals for the year?