Can’t believe this year is nearly over! As with my yearly tradition of wrapping up the year, here is my 2019 in review!
So… a lot happened this year! I think the biggest event was that I bought my first house!
It’s a 1958 ranch, in a small neighborhood in West Nashville. I closed in March, so the yard was sort of ugly and dead! It has been fun to see what grows throughout the year, although I’m a little salty that we missed out on fall foliage this year (due to an extra hot fall with no rain, then too much rain!), because I would have loved to see what that maple ended up doing! Oh well, next year!
Anyway, owning a house is really fun! It’s expensive, yes, but I can do whatever I want to the house and I love that! It’s also really great to live somewhere nice – and not a landlorded rental. The previous owner had lived here since 1969, so there was a lot of care put into this home and it shows! I’m really happy with my purchase, and have enjoyed spending time here and making it my own. It’s very small, it’s definitely not fancy, but it’s MINE and I bought it all by myself! I love it! I’ve been wanting to buy a home for years and it feels really good to finally cross that goal off my list!
The previous owner’s children committed the mortal sin of painting every room grey (why? why?) before putting it on the market, so I have been slowly repainting the rooms to better match the personality of the house!
Studio (I know! I owe y’all a tour of this room! Don’t remind me lol)
Also the kitchen! (not pictured – but it’s white with {unpainted} knotty pine cabinets. SWOON)
I know a lot of people have been asking me to post room re-do’s on this blog, and honestly… I can’t guarantee that will ever happen (I like to keep this space strictly sewing-related). I do post them on my Instagram so you can always follow that! Next year, I want to focus more on the outdoor space!
In addition to the house stuff, I also did a lot of teaching this year! Overall, I taught 20 workshops from all over the place including New York, California, Florida, Oregon, Colorado, New Hampshire, Virginia, and Canada. All in all, I flew over 40k miles and earned Gold Medallion status with Delta lmao.
Here in Nashville, I taught lots of classes at Craft South, introducing many, many new beginners to the wonderful world of sewing! I also logged a bunch of hours of alterations and fittings with various clients, all of who were absolutely wonderful to work with and spend time around. And not just clients – I really love and appreciate everyone I work with. Stylists, photographers, assistants, reps, everyone is just awesome! Coming from an industry where I worked with some absolute asshats, it’s really nice to be able to work with people who I actually enjoy being around (and, as a freelancer – technically – I can refuse to work with anyone who I don’t like! Ha!). I also think the work is really fun, so that’s an added bonus!
Some other fun things in 2019:
– I attended (well, worked!) my first QuiltCon event, at the Craft South booth.
– I celebrated 10 years of being cigarette-free!
– I visited The Computer History Museum (Mountain View, CA), The Living Computer Museum (Seattle, WA), and The MADE Museum (Oakland, CA). I love old computers and video games, so people able to fit these excursions into my travels was such a treat! All are really amazing museums, but I think the Living Computer Museum might be my favorite since you can play all the machines! There’s a whole mess of images and videos from all of them in my Story Highlights on Instagram if you want to peek!
– I turned 34 and celebrated with a HAMBURGER CAKE at Darrell Thomas Textiles!
– I harness-trained Amelia! Well. “Training” is kind of a loose term here, I basically put the harness on her and she adapted to it immediately (she loves any excuse to go outside and I guess she figured out pretty quickly that this was how that would happen!). We really enjoyed going out this summer and exploring the yard. Also, walking a cat on a leash is pretty funny.
– I taught an enormous class at Camp Workroom Social – 16 students in total! Definitely could not have done it without my bomb-ass assistants Kelli & Gabriela!
– After years of pining for an industrial sewing machine, and realizing my tiny home studio would never fit one – I bought a Janome HD9! This machine is sooo fast and SO fun to sew on (and fits nicely in my studio!). If you’ve been interested in an industrial machine but don’t have the money/space for one, I do recommend this machine as a great alternative! I won’t be writing a review for this machine (I’ll be honest… writing machine reviews sucks, it’s boring as hell, and I don’t get paid to do it. So. I’m not doing it anymore lol), but your local Janome dealer can help you out!
– Speaking of things I’ve pined over for years, I also got a perm! Ha! This is a body-wave perm (meaning it is looser than the traditional spiral curl), which gives my hair lots of texture and body, and allows it to hold a style without very much effort. It still requires styling when I wash it, but the style stays. This photo was taken recently; the perm is about 6 months old and I haven’t needed to touch it up yet. I love it!
– I bought the most expensive piece of fabric I’ve ever purchased (it’s Gucci, and no, I’m not telling you how much I spent on it)
– I worked on my first music video! This was especially exciting to me since most of my work is in country music, which tbh just isn’t as fun as rock music.
– This one hasn’t come into effect quite yet – but I’m leaving my job at Craft South as the Education Coordinator. I have worked this job since 2016 and while I have enjoyed my time there and the wonderful people I worked with, I felt like it was ultimately starting to hold me back and thus it is time to move on. As of January 1, 2020, I will no longer be employed by the company and will be fully freelance. Yay!
Personal sewing-wise, this has been slooooow year for me. Partially because I’ve been gone so much, and working just as much – partially because my needs have shifted dramatically (I know I talked about this last year but I’m really not into the maximism thing of ~owning shit in every color~ or trying something just for the sake of making something that everyone else is making) – and partially for unrelated reasons. I’ve definitely been sewing less, while trying to stay mindful about the things I am making. And I’ve been blogging even less, which is absolutely no secret. Like most former bloggers, most of my content has shifted over to my Instagram (just compare my 2019 blogged makes vs my Instagram 2019 tag). I’ll admit it is just easier to snap a quick photo with my phone, write a blurb, and post away – rather than drag out the camera equipment, deal with editing, writing an entire post (where I always feel compelled to make it at lengthy as possible), and then replying to comments – all of which require sitting at a computer. Which, I should add, computer time is something I’m constantly trying to reduce. However, I don’t want to kill my blog so I’ve come to terms with less frequent posting. It’s ok. I do want to thank y’all who continue to follow my blog – and continue to post feedback in the comments. I read every single one of them and I really appreciate the continued support!
With that being said, here are some of my favorite makes of 2019! Sorry, most are on Instagram 😛
The Dawn Jeans (blog post here). This was the jeans pattern I’ve been waiting for – I love the high, high rise and the rigid, vaguely uncomfortable but so flattering to my booty nonstretch denim. I have worn this particular pair all year and even have them on as a type this! Yay for Dawn Jeans!
Black Dawn shorts. I made these over the summer in a nice black denim and they truly go with everything! I was very sad to put them away this winter, and early anticipate reuniting with them next summer. ha!
Dolce & Gabbana Crop Top. This was made using the StyleArc Ariana dress pattern as a cropped shirt, using leftover Dolce & Gabbana cotton lawn from my birthday dress. I really enjoyed putting this together, I think it’s cute AF, and get a load of that unintentional pattern matching at center front!
Leopard print lace bra. I used the Berkeley Bra pattern from Orange Lingerie, and leopard lace from Tailor Made Shop. I made a lot of bras this year but this one is definitely my favorite!
I also updated a couple of old makes to make them more favorable:
Minor, but I added a cool tiger patch (which I bought in the Garment District in NYC) to my beloved denim jacket.
I also cropped this old hoodie dress and added a cool sequin cat patch (from the same place in the GD as the tiger patch – I actually bought them at the same time lol) to make the cat hoodie of my dreams! I’m so glad I updated because this gets way more wear than the dress ever did. It makes me so happy!
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On a more serious note, 2019 has been a very hard year for me. A big part of the reason why I stopped sewing and blogging as much was due to struggling with depression for most of the year. I have never experienced depression before, and honestly I wasn’t sure how to even deal with it. It consumed a large part of my year and I’m only just now starting to crawl out of the hole I was in. I started seeing a therapist amongst many, many other things (including daily journaling, changing my diet, and a daily yoga practice), all which helped a lot. The real breakthrough for me was using psychedelics – including psilocybin and ayahuasca – which allowed me to break out of the awful depression loop that I was stuck in, and start actually addressing what was wrong instead of trying to hide from it or self medicate in ways that were destructive. I still have a loooong ways to go and a lot of emotions to unpack and address, but I finally feel like I’m living my life again instead of constantly fighting it.
In a lot of ways, this entire decade has been incredibly painful for me and it was a relief to say goodbye to it after my final ayahasuca journey on 12/14.
Anyway, I share this not to start up a big discussion here about psychedelics and mental health – I am, of course, always open to a chat if you are curious! (if you have something negative to say, please keep it to yourself and read a book instead, thanks) There has been a lot of scientific research on the effects of psychedelics on mental health, including depression, addiction, and even PTSD. My research is primarily limited to what I have read, and my own experiences. I did want to share what has been going on the back end – not everything is always fun and rainbows, even if it looks like that way from a carefully curated Instagram lens. If you are struggling, you are not alone! The biggest piece of advice I can give you is to GET HELP, whatever form that may be. There is no “level” you need to reach before it’s ok to ask for help, no one is going to call you out for not being “depressed enough.” I wish I’d wasted less of my year and done something sooner. You are worth the fight. Don’t give up on yourself.
It’s interesting to think of how much has changed for me in the last 10 years. This time in 2009, I was living in a shitty (but very beautiful and old) apartment in midtown Nashville, working a soul-crushing job with people I didn’t get along with. I was in a lot of debt and always stressed about money. I was sewing back then, too (I have always been sewing) and even blogging (here’s a particularly cringe-worthy one from December 2009. Sorry in advance about the broken photos), but certainly not at the level that I am now. One thing that hasn’t changed – I still have good ol’ Amelia. The little asshole is now 12 years old!
Anyway, here’s to 2020!
LLADYBIRD 