Happy 2026!

Happy New Year! At the start of each year I like to look back over my sewing, life, and other events because usually things ended up being better than I remembered (though definitely not true in 2024!). So without further ado, have a read and let’s look back on 2025 together…

(Click here to see a full-sized version of all the garments I sewed in 2025)

The Year in Sewing Stats

Garment types:

20 Tops
4 Dresses
13 Bras or panties
6 Bottoms (trousers, shorts, or leggings)
4 Accessories or bags
2 Coat/jacket

Plus: I loom knitted 9 1/2 pairs of socks and 2 cowls! I meant to do a separate post just on my loom knitting (and still might, now that everything has gone to its christmas recipients), but this year I really upped my colourworking game in a big way, and I’m proud of that.

Pattern company breakdown:

9 FehrTrade (or self-drafted)
9 FibreMood
3 Named
3 Jalie
3 New Craft House
6 Cashmerette
2 Paper Theory
2 Evie La Luve
5 Lore Piar (all Sporty Scrappy Thongs)
1 each of: Core Fabrics, Sophie Hines, Costume Industry Coalition, StyleArc, Great British Sewing Bee, Hari Ito

I’m kinda surprised at how much FibreMood I sewed this year, but I suppose I did make quite a few basic teeshirts and tank tops using their patterns, in addition to the jacket and sweatshirt!

Big Business Things

I think all I can really say here is that I survived, and FehrTrade as a business surivived. Again this year I haven’t been in a position to work, let alone develop new patterns. The latter not only requires inspiration (which is thin on the ground), but my ability to exercise. Sure, I can get my testers to exercise for me in the finished patterns, but in order to develop the patterns in the first place, I need to be able to exercise in early versions, tweak, and repeat.

I did have an article published in Tauko magazine’s sports issue, which was good, but that took me literal weeks to write, even with the outline already in place.

With the improvements to my health thanks to Low Dose Naltrexone, I’m really hoping I’ll be able to restart exercise AND create a new pattern in 2026. 🤞

Favourite Makes

This is always hard to pick because I end up loving so much of what I make! But I’ve narrowed it down to my three favourites this year…

FibreMood Carly Jacket – I sewed this jacket in May using camoflague waterproof wool and tbh, it’s only just coming into its own now that it’s getting colder. I don’t even care that it’s literally 2-3 sizes too big for me now, I absolutely love it. I usually pair it with a cowl I made in 5min using offcuts of mustard sweater knit, too. I’m on the fence as to whether I should donate this (to my mom) and sew a new one in a smaller size after this winter…

Rockstar Lestat pleather trousers – I drafted and sewed these as part of my tribute outfit to Rockstar Lestat, but I didn’t expect to love them as much as I did! Because I used our basic leggings block as the starting point, they’re SUPER comfortable, but have four pockets and look great, too! Honestly, they’ve become my go-to for the few times I went Out Out.

Olive Named Saraste shirt – I actually only made this shirt as a wearable muslin for the Lawyer Lestat blouse, and I didn’t expect to end up liking it more than the fancy version (which I also like a lot, but solids will always win over prints for me). I had the fabric in my stash for years, but it’s just a perfectly easy style and colour for me to wear. I ended up really liking all the photos of myself wearing it, especially at a time when I didn’t like looking at photos of myself full stop.

Duds!

I don’t think anything I made was a dud this year, to be honest! It’s a rarity! Even the big, slobby clothes I made in the first half of the year still fulfilled their purpose. I had the odd disappointing pattern, but was able to turn round the final garment so I wouldn’t call those duds either.

Athletic Achievements

My first impulse was to say “none”, but on reflection, I’m actually really proud of how I’ve built my body up from literally bedbound over the past 6 months. I started with a very strict 12 minutes ONLY of stretching in June, slowly adding time onto that, then a few easy strength exercises, until I’m at the point now where I’m doing 45 minutes of core, strength, rolling and stretching every single day. It’s physio, so not fun for me at all, but I put my head down and just DO IT.

At the start, I was getting horrific back pain for the first time in my entire life, simply because my core muscles weren’t strong enough to hold up my body in the sitting position after so long in bed with Long Covid. But that went away within weeks of doing the daily strengthening, and hasn’t come back since.

I’m hoping to start easy running in the next few weeks (having built up my walking to 90+ minutes at an average person pace), and my goals for 2026 is to complete a parkrun, since my closest park launched one while I’ve been sick, and finally ride the “new” bike I got for Christmas 2023 that I haven’t been well/strong enough to enjoy yet.

Other Major Events

Autism diagnosis After years of suspecting, it felt really empowering to be formally diagnosed. It’s prompted me to read more on the subject, discuss with others, and see some of my own traits represented in characters in books, tv, and film. It’s given me explanations for why I struggle so much with some things that others don’t, and why I find other things so easy. And getting the diagnosis was way less hassle than I was expecting.
Digital drawing I got a new iPad for Christmas last year and it’s the first time I’d ever used an Apple Pencil or Adobe Fresco. Comparing my art for last year’s christmas card vs this year’s, I’m struck by how much my art has improved over the past year. I’m really proud that I’ve pushed through the frustration and done it anyway.
Lady Gaga Copacabana Beach gig stream This may seem silly, but I’ve really, really missed being able to go to live gigs since 2020, so watching filmed performances has really helped me cope. The Lady Gaga one sticks out in my mind, as does Chappell Roan at Reading Festival.
LDN & Immunology It only took 15 months(!!) but I was finally seen by a Clinical Immunologist and got the medical care I needed. Having further insight into what’s happening in my broken immune system didn’t lead to a fix, but it did lead me to being prescribed Low Dose Naltrexone (LDN). LDN is the only thing that has made any difference whatsoever to the crushing fatigue which started with my one and only Covid infection in 2023. The difference has been almost miraculous for me – the difference between lying in bed all day vs being able to walk and ebike and sit upright and socialise. Not only on my fatigue, but it’s also made three long running opportunstic infections just… disappear! It’s truly turned 2025 into a year of two halves for me – Before LDN, and With LDN.
Cornwall / Patrick Wolf Minack gig When I heard in February that one of my favourite musicians was going to play an outdoor, seated gig amoung the cliffs in Cornwall to celebrate the 20th anniversary of one of my favourite albums of all time, I bought two tickets, without truly knowing how I’d get there or if I’d even be able to sit up through it. But it bought me hope, and it turned out that the trip to Cornwall in early September was one of the first times that we could see a big difference in the amount I was able to walk around and not crash. The gig itself was a dream come true – truly Once In A Lifetime, and the time spent with friends was just as special.
Losing weight and gaining strength I’ve already talked about the strength building portion above, but being bedbound for so long also caused me to gain a huge amount of weight – 22kg (nearly 50 pounds) to be precise. I wasn’t even overeating, but the tiny amount of calories I was burning each day just couldn’t compete with the calorie intake of even two meals a day. So alongside the daily stretching and strength work, I started calorie counting in June. It’s my least favourite way to lose weight, but without the ability to do any cardio, it was my only option. But it works – I’ve lost 12kg of the 22 so far and I’m recently able to start fitting into a few of my clothes from before I got Covid. I’m hoping the rest will come off more quickly once I can start running or unassisted cycling again.

Top media

I started keeping track of my favourite music, films, and tv a few years ago so that I could exchange lists with a friend each December, but this year I started tracking books, too!

Top Albums:
(Links are all to Spotify but feel free to copy/paste into your music service of choice!)

Top Songs:

Top TV:

The Newsreader S3 (ABC/BBC/Netflix)
Andor S2 (Disney)
Severance S2 (Apple+)
Heated Rivalry S1 (Crave/HBO/Sky)
Riot Women S1 (BBC)
Pluribus S1 (Apple+)
Talamasca S1 (AMC/Netflix)
Your Friends and Neighbors S1 (Apple+)

Top Films:

Sinners
K-Pop Demon Hunters
Wake Up Dead Man (Knives Out)
Frankenstein
Dracula: A Love Tale

Books I read:
This is less of a “Top” list and more of a tally of what I read this year. I realised with horror at the end of 2024 that, despite reading a huge amount of fanfic, I’d only read two actual books. I resolved to do better in 2025, and I’m proud that I completed 15 books this year! I’ve made a concerted effort to put my phone away and read a few pages or chapters from an actual book each night, and it worked!

This is just a list of what I read this year, in order, with marks out of ten. I’ve put an * for ones which are re-reads, though in some cases I’d only read it once, 20 or 30 years ago…

“Unmasking Autism” by Dr Devon Price (9/10)
“The Blood Countess” by Andrei Codrescu (6/10)
“Motheater” by Linda H Codega (9/10)
“The Taxidermist’s Daughter” by Kate Mosse (6/10)
“Fledgling” by Octavia E. Butler (6/10)
“This Ravenous Fate” by Hayley Dennings (3/10)
“Cry to Heaven”* by Anne Rice (10/10)
“Servant of the Bones”* by Anne Rice (3/10)
“The Butcher’s Daughter” by David Demchuk & Corrine Leigh Clark (8/10)
“Polostan” by Neal Stephenson (7/10)
“Re-Sisters” by Cosey Fanni Tutti (6/10)
“The Land That Thyme Forgot” by William Black (4/10)
“Empire of the Dawn” by Jay Kristoff (8/10)
“Blackwood Farm”* by Anne Rice (7/10)
“Thanks for the Feedback”* by Sheila Heen & Douglas Stone (10/10)

If I had to pull out two to recommend folks read, it’d be Motheater, and Cry to Heaven. They’re both excellent fiction, with wider appeal, than say, books about Autism or vampires.

The Year Of…

Every year I like to pick a theme that sums up my year, and this year was truly the Year of “Resurrection”. I truly felt like I’ve been dead for the past two years, and only just beginning to live again.

“Quote(s) of the year”
I couldn’t narrow it down to just one this year, so you get one quote from real life, and two song lyrics!

“I’ve never seen anyone with T-Cells this low who didn’t have HIV” – two separate immunologist doctors

“How many years can you disappear for, before they call off the patrol?” – Patrick Wolf “Reculver”

“Here I can take up the whole of the sky / Unfurling, becoming my full size” – Florence + the Machine “Everybody Scream”

Things I’m looking forward to in 2026:

The Vampire Lestat tv show and album, sometime in summer!!
New albums by Raleigh Ritchie, Robyn, Carly Rae Jepsen
Seeing Patrick Wolf perform at the Union Chapel
Two sets of friends getting married
Cry to Heaven filming & hopeful release(?)

What about you – did any of your favourites also make it onto my list? Let me know in the comments!

Previous Roundups

If you’re curious to see how 2024 stacked up to previous years, you can have a look at previous roundups here:
2024, 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010, 2009, 2008, and 2007.