I hope that in this year to come, I make mistakes.

Because if you are making mistakes, then you are making new things, trying new things, learning, living, pushing yourself, changing yourself, changing your world. You’re doing things you’ve never done before, and more importantly, you’re Doing Something.

So that’s my wish for you, and all of us, and my wish for myself. Make New Mistakes. Make glorious, amazing mistakes. Make mistakes nobody’s ever made before. Don’t freeze, don’t stop, don’t worry that it isn’t good enough, or it isn’t perfect, whatever it is: art, or love, or work or family or life.

Whatever it is you’re scared of doing, Do it.

Make your mistakes, next year and forever.

– Neil Gaimon

I think that is a good sentiment to live by :) I can’t believe it’s the end of the year already – I actually can’t – for I think the first time ever I’ve worked the entire run up to New Year (including today, booo!) and it’s made it feel distinctly un-New Year like! We’re having people over tonight for a wine and cheese New Year’s Eve so I’m looking forward to that!

I have a couple of finished item posts almost ready to go, but this is just a quick one to say I hope you all had a great Christmas and have a fantastic start to 2015. We hosted Christmas at our place for the first time this year, and it went really well. I think my mum appreciated not having to cook Christmas dinner for once as well!

I’d like to say thank you all for all your support on the blog this year, both from those of you who sew and my other friends who don’t, but still enjoy reading. Every one of your lovely comments means a lot to me.

I’ve had such a great sewing year (and a great year in general!) – I’ll do a round up of it in the new year, but it has been epic! I’ve made so many things, met so many awesome people, been to sewing meet ups in London, Birmingham and Paris, made some great friends and finally got a sewing room!

I’ve been thinking about things I want to sew and new challenges to set myself in 2015 – including buying less fabric! And so I do hope I make mistakes, because that will mean that I am making new things, and pushing myself, and learning as I do. I’m also going to make an effort to try and blog a bit more regularly – not because I feel I have to, but because I enjoy it and, according to my little notebook, I already have 17 different posts to get written/finished and posted, and that’s before I even sew anything else – I’d better get on it!

Have a wonderful new year whatever you are doing, and see you all on the other side!

(And just because a blog post needs pictures, here’s some photos of us attempting to get my sister’s puppy and our family dog wearing Christmas hats – at the same time! Not an easy task!)

Pattern giveaway coming soon!

Yesterday my blog got its 1000th hit! I am delighted! Thank you all for reading, and for all your lovely comments – they make me feel all warm and fuzzy inside :) when I started this blog, I never imagined that within a few weeks I’d have had so many views.

I had planned on doing a little pattern giveaway to thank you all once I reached 1000 hits, but thanks to all of you (and this is no bad thing!), it came round slightly quicker than I’d anticipated, and I’m not at all ready!

So, there will be a pattern giveaway very soon, maybe once I hit 1500 views. In the meantime, please do keep reading!

Now that the ‘get everything done in time for holiday’ panic is over, I’m starting to get excited about new projects. I spent a lot of time on holiday eyeing up people’s clothes thinking ‘ooh, I want to make something like that!’ Most of them were lovely summery clothes, which would be perfect to have right now…of course by the time I get round to making them, our heatwave will probably be over, and I’ll have to save them for our next summer, which will probably be in about 6 years’ time! But that’s not stopping me from making long lists of things to make!

I’ve had a busy week this week, with no sewing time, other than a couple of small projects as gifts. Next week, I think I’m going to go into full on sewing mode again, I just want to have more clothes to wear that I’ve made! Already, I want to have a home made dress for every special occasion – I’ve got a wedding to go to in a couple of weeks’ time and would love to make a new dress for it, but I just don’t think I’m going to have time unfortunately. What do you all have lined up for your next sewing projects?

Back to work for me now, I’m counting down the hours until I can escape into the sunshine! Have a great sunshine and sewing filled weekend everyone!