100 Items Sewing Challenge and Sewing Motivation

How a New Years’ resolution helped me get my sewing motivation back, again and again.

Let me begin this post with saying that I don’t usually make New Years’ resolutions. A year is a long time and I don’t like making goals that I can’t keep or that I might lose interest in.  The last few years have been a bit of a roller coaster: moving cross country, working full time, getting pregnant, having a baby, staying home, recovering from a c-section, then recovering from gallbladder surgery.  It was also hard to predict how much time my young toddler would give me to sew.

But, at the beginning of 2017 I was thirsty for a new challenge! I heard of a Facebook group called: 100 Items Sewing Challenge.  Group members sew up 100 items in 2017 and enter monthly drawings for prizes.  I loved the idea of this challenge because it was open ended and gave me an opportunity to focus on quantity not quality.  (Trust me, that’s not a bad thing!) I sometimes dread finishing projects – please tell me I’m not alone!! Maybe I get bored, I get stuck on a technique, or I find a new shiny project and I put the current project aside.

Leaving a lot of projects unfinished drives me nuts! Sewing just 8 projects a month helped me to sew through my stash.

I sewed a lot of smaller projects, which helped me use up remnants. The 30 new items I added to my wardrobe included 13 tops, 8 bottoms 3 dresses and 1 swimsuit. 17 of the items I completed in 2017 were sewn during pattern tests.  Perhaps I am most proud of the fact that I sewed through 69 yards of fabric!

Things that I really enjoyed about this challenge:

• Taking a picture of each item
• Not every picture had to be a pretty blog photo.
• I didn’t feel pressure to blog about every item I made.
• Turning a negative into a positive: We all have fabric we regret buying, projects that didn’t turn out as we envisioned.  I enjoyed finishing these projects so I could start something new.

Sewing Motivation

I had many days where I lost my sewing motivation (my sew-jo, as I call it).  But overall, I found that having this sewing challenge helped me get my sew-jo back.  Because each project could be as simple as I wanted, it was easy to find something I wanted to sew.

Having a goal in mind and working towards it really increased my self-confidence as a sewer. 

Most of my projects were really simple sews that I could complete in a few hours and used techniques I was familiar with.  I didn’t learn a lot of new techniques this year and that is okay! What I needed this year were small projects and small wins to get me through the mundaneness and the difficulties of life.  A few of my favorite projects from the past year included my Kathryn Dress, my Jalie swimsuit (I mean, we all should feel awesome for making a swimsuit, amiright?), my daughter’s Lulu dolman tops and her Fern Cardigan. 

Plans for 2018:

I’ve got some exciting plans for 2018!  I want to focus a bit more on intermediate projects this year.  I have plans to sew my own Liana Jeans (eek!), a shirtdress and a swimsuit.  I want to make more cold weather items in preparation for our upcoming move north.  

I plan to participate in a sewing challenge group called 52 Week Sewing Challenge. I won’t be participating every week, but I will be utilizing the group for inspiration.  I also have plans to collaborate with Mahlica Designs for a Who Made It Best Competition.  I am an ambassador for Southern Belle Fabrics and a member of the Promo Team for Jalie Patterns.  Some very exciting things in 2018!! I am excited for a new year, a fresh start and more things to learn and share.

What are your sewing plans for 2018?  Do you have patterns or fabrics you are hoping to use?  I hope you’ll comment below, and as always, thanks for reading!