Its a New Year! (In case you haven't noticed...)

Happy New Year!!!  Yeah, I know, it's already January 6th.  I've been MIA for the past few weeks, spending time with family.  I really struggled with jet lag when I returned from my vacation, which totally drained my energy.  I was also immediately into preparing for the various Christmas celebrations. After our Christmas celebrations (which stretched out over a few weeks), I've been spending time purging and tidying and cleaning and making space.  I also managed to get some skiing time in.

I don't usually like to make resolutions.  They have ALWAYS fallen by the way side very quickly after the new year.  This year, I've decided to focus on a few things over the year instead of resolutions.  One of them is My House.  One theme I'm adopting is Use What You Have.  Another is Less is More.

I've lived in my lovely comfortable townhouse for four and a half years, and painted only ONE room.  I can live with some of the colours, and love a few, but the others are just...grating on my nerves like nails on a chalkboard.  My goal is to decorate the house this year, room by room.  I also have promised myself to sew REAL curtains for the house, and almost every room needs new curtains.  I already have the fabric for most of them (yay for the stash!)

My first focus is the kitchen.  I use this room every day.  I have a roman blind that is falling apart (and I'm ashamed to admit this but it has been falling apart since the day I moved in, but I love the colours of it), and *lovely* blue countertops that just aren't me.  I don't have a serious kitchen re-do in the budget for this year, so instead of trying to hide those countertops, I figured I'd play them up like they should be an accessory.  Hey - they're there.  Everyone knows it.  I can't just hide them.  So...searching the fabric stash I found a lot of blue and creamy white large toile print, a small toile print, ticking fabric and cream and blue check fabric.  I have a couple of other pieces of blue and creamy white toile as well.  Umm, yeah...I have a HUGE fabric stash.

On New Year's Day, I used the blue and creamy white large toile print to make Plain Jane (but lined) curtains for the large window. I haven't hung them yet because I need to purchase some hardware to hang the curtain rods, but the second I do hang them, I will share how they look with you!  I'm planning on making a valance for the small window out of the check fabric with some fancy blue trim, and a similar valance for the large window to add some "Oomph."  I'm hoping to finish those by this coming weekend.

New Year's Day was really productive - I purged some of my kitchen cupboards, my closet and tidied up the Christmas decor.  I got rid of 4 black garbage bags of garbage, and 8 black garbage bags to Goodwill, along with a few boxes.  It felt SO good!!

While working on some mending today, I lost half the feed dogs of my sewing machine.  I broke a needle, and dented the throat plate and broke off a section of the feed dogs.  Ugh.  I will have to order the replacement parts tomorrow.  Fortunately, I have a really good "back-up" machine to use.

I haven't done ANY garment sewing since the end of November, except for mending for friends and family. I'm getting a little antsy and I want to start to tackle my winter wardrobe sewing plan before spring comes. Hopefully I'll get a chance to log some hours at the sewing machine this week!