2023 in Review

 

It’s been another quiet sewing year, which started with MANY plans and ended with only a few new undies and one complete outfit.  I certainly didn’t intend for that the be the way of things, and I even got a running start at the beginning of the year, knocking out a new crinoline and petticoats, a corset, and a new dress form.

Then, I found out in March that I was pregnant! I had a horrible first trimester and was so sick I could barely do anything productive. This was replaced in the second trimester with daily nosebleeds. My third trimester was cut short when, during a regular checkup with my OB, they noted that my blood pressure was a bit high and getting higher, so I was sent to the ER, who immediately admitted me while they tried to wrangle my BP. But, after chasing my BP with meds for several days, they decided that they would schedule my c-section for the day that baby hit 34 weeks. After 10 days in the hospital, Kate was born at 4lbs 6oz!

She spent some time in the NICU and did so well that they sent her home early. So, it’s been an extremely eventful year. I've started to ease back into sewing, and was trying to get some things done before my maternity leave was over, but alas, not a single garment was completed.

 

The only thing I was able to complete to a wearable state was a 16th century maternity outfit consisting of a loose kirtle, loose gown, a coif + forehead cloth, and a partlet. I made all of these in just two weeks, and it was a major crunch! I had plans for so much more, but two weeks later I was in the hospital on the way to giving birth.

 

Next year promises to be a little bit quieter, and I have a huge basket of half-finished projects to finish that I'm ready to tackle. There's a corded petticoat I'm still hoping to finish before the end of the week, as well as my 1872 corset, for which the embroidery is finally complete and only assembly is required. I lost about 30 pounds during the course of my pregnancy, so the 1906 corset that I finished at the beginning of the year is now too small, as is the dress form I made when the corset was first complete! But, once I have the new dress form complete, shenanigans will resume.

I’m hoping to get more involved with my local SCA barony, which means a lot more late-period Elizabethan things on the menu. I’m also hoping to take the trip to Dickens that I had to cancel this year, since Kate’s original due date was supposed to fall on Thanksgiving and I certainly wasn’t going to Dickens so soon after giving birth. All the plans I had for 2023 have been shifted to 2024, so there are lots of mid-Victorian/1850s things that are going to happen.

I didn’t get my YouTube channel back up and running this year, for all the reasons listed above, so I’m hoping to ease my way back into it in 2024. Of course, my brain has already come up with a thousand ideas for videos and projects, but I’m going to try and not overwhelm myself, and am shooting for a video a month.

So that’s it! I hope everyone had a great year, and I’ll see you all again in 2024!