Getting Real About Sewing & Crafting in 2018

Happy New Year!  Are you feeling energized and motivated....or still in a holiday haze in vacation mode?  I'm teetering between both every 5 minutes, so instead of busting into a list of intense craft goals for the year, I'm going to keep it real by starting 2018 with a big confession.

With several out of town trips, many home renovations, starting a retail fabric business, homeschooling 3 kids and spending half the year pregnant, 2017 wasn't super crafty for me.  There just wasn't a lot of free time and I wasn't feeling the creativity bug as regularly either.

If I'm honest, the past few months I've not had a lot of drive to make new stuff.  Maybe it's because my focus has been elsewhere most days.  I've also been trying to pare down my craft & sewing supplies and declutter the house to make room for a new person (who will require a lot of stuff and space despite being the smallest one in the house).  The thought of making a bunch of seasonal crafts or whimsical things we don't really need, seems....kind of like a waste of time & materials.  Does that sound horrible?  

Part of me thinks it does, but the other part of me is like "do you really want to spend several hours ignoring your family to make that?", "should you spend that $ to make yet another Christmas decoration when we have bins full of them already?"  or "those are nice ideas, but where exactly are you going to store all that when it's done?".  With the thousands (maybe millions) of tutorials for every occasion under the sun on the internet, no one ever says where they put it all later on.  In a closet, give it away, toss it in the garbage? It becomes hoarder central in no time with all the gear, supplies and completed items.  I've got enough trouble keeping clutter under control around here as it is!   

As a result, I'm starting a 2018 from a new angle.  I'm still sewing and making things, but a bit more practical on the front.  I've been making cheap & easy maternity-friendly items I can still wear later when baby's out.  Like stretchy pants with tweaks to a favorite non-maternity pattern:

And embellishing knit shirts with some fast materials:

Starting my third trimester recently, my nesting instinct is now kicking in, as is my panic at needing to get loads of baby gear, plus furniture for an empty room.  Therefore, I'm starting to churn out things I need for the baby (and slowly thinning out my still-ridiculously large fabric stash as a bonus):

I'm also continuing to work towards having less stash stuff on the whole.  Every year I use more old fabrics and try to get rid of supplies I'm not using, but I still feel like there's way more piled up than I'm realistically going to use.  With a baby coming in a couple of months, it seems to make sense to thin things out even more now....maybe have a few Free Fabric Fridays here again to pay it forward to fellow crafters and do some more donations too.

And I've got a few projects on the horizon that I AM feeling motivated to do - including some pattern ideas I think will be useful to others, so that's progress and something I'm looking forward to sharing here:)  

With a new year ahead, I'm not going to make a big ambitious list of to-dos or challenges to pressure/guilt myself into doing (or beat myself up about if I miss them).  Quality over quantity needs to be key.  As does creating things to feel joy and share useful info rather than to have a ton of content here or obsess about social media.  That's what I've missed most about the early days of blogs when it was just people having fun and encouraging each other rather than chasing internet fame.  Simpler times are ahead here at Sew Can Do this year and I couldn't be happier!