So 2016 hasn't quite started with the productive, organised, positive focus I’d hoped. Sickness, getting used to living in a new space, utter exhaustion and broken bones have taken all my focus and exacerbated my total creative apathy. I often find January a difficult month and that manifests itself in an inability to do anything other than getting my head down to get through the day and then vegetating on the sofa watching mindless crap in the evenings. And repeat until February.

I hate it, it’s such a waste of time and life, and I particularly hate it when my obsessive social media lurking demonstrates how the new year has energized seemingly everyone else, and the collective creative output appears phenomenal.

So thank goodness for the wonder of community sewing in the form of sewing club, which meant I had to actually sew something.

Something simple and quickly gratifying was most definitely required; and fortunately thanks to some stellar advice from a lovely sewing InstaFriend I had a Mean Reds Sewing Project already cut out for just such an occasion. A Liberty Linden. I have had this ready to sew pretty much since I got back from the UK in September where I had spent a happy afternoon in the good ship Liberty.

I love the store; the furniture, jewellery and bag departments in particular, but I’m not really a big Liberty fabric fan. The lawn is dreamily soft and the prints are so pretty; too pretty for me. And to be honest when I lived in London I never bought Liberty as I, potentially controversially, thought it overpriced; if I’m going to pay those prices I’d rather have silk …

Yet there is something about being away from home and not being able to pop into Liberty after work that made me want to bring a piece of something quintessentially English back to Brooklyn with me. Also the peacock colours of this particular sweatshirt stuff are too spectacular not to love, no matter how much of a Liberty cynic one is. And the thickness and softness is lovely - if one overlooks the poly content. Ouch, can you tell I’m grumpy?

It was expensive but given how much I have worn this since I made it - I think the cost per wear is going to be pretty favourable.

This is the third Linden I’ve made but the first that isn’t cobbled together from scraps. The fabric is utterly perfect for it. It doesn’t have a huge amount of stretch so I thought it was going to be a little small, but it fits great and I like the slightly snugger fit for a sweatshirt and where it falls on my hipline. It looks less slobby. I think I cut a 10 and then added length to the sleeve and body.

Since I made this I had more crises of making confidence but then during the epic snowstorm that deposited 26 inches of snow on NYC last Saturday, I made from nowhere two pairs of leggings, another Inari and a pair of sweatpants for my daughter so she has something respectable to wear over her cast in the cold.

The corner, it appears, has been turned. Onward 2016.

See you soon x

The wonderfully alliterative Liberty Linden