100 Item Sewing Challenge 2017 Review

Did you take the 100 Item Sewing Challenge for 2017? Well I did…and succeeded! That’s the bottom line. I didn’t want to make you read to the end to find that out! Want to hear how it went? Read on…

In 2016, I ran across a group called 100 Item Sewing Challenge. The rules were pretty straight forward – sew 100 items in a year for anyone, 8 items each month to qualify for the prize drawings. Some smaller items like underwear counted as .5 and machine embroidery counted as 10,000 stitches = 1 item. There may be some rules I’m forgetting, but that was the gist of it. I wasn’t sure how I’d do since I’d never kept track of how many things I sewed so it was a whole new experience. Turns out, I loved keeping track and the challenge to sew 8 items a month. The total eludes me now, but I made over 100 items that year.

When the new year came around, there was talk about if the group would continue, what changes needed to be made, etc. It did continue, but without prizes. No problem for me since I liked the challenge for myself. Plenty of new rules and changes came about too. Each month’s items had to have a specific count label (to make it easier for admin), still 8 items a month, still 10,000 stitches = 1 item, more small things were added to count as .5, 50 of the 100 items had to be for ourselves and items for our home didn’t count as for self (there were lots of complaints about this), and the big one – no business items counted. (In 2016, some made 40 items at a time for their shop and counted them); so I really liked this new rule. The labels for the pictures in the album looked something like this: June 1/8, Me 15/50, Year 58/100. It was time consuming but I understood the need for it since I wouldn’t want to be the admin totaling up everyone’s sewing!

Here are my totals: I met the 8 of 8 items every month except one, 68 of 50 items were for me, and 125 of 100 items were sewn for the year! Woo Hoo! Do you think it might be time to clean my closet? haha!

Along with the 100 item challenge, I belong to the Stashbusting Sew Along group. My stash is so huge that I didn’t play officially since that would require measuring every piece of fabric in my stash. I did keep track of progress each month though, and have some totals for that too. For 7 of the months, I sewed more than I bought, 1 month was even, and 4 of the months, I did too much shopping or didn’t sew enough. 152 1/8 yards were sewn up in 2017! Unfortunately 135 5/8 yards came in. According to my non-math brain, I’ve decreased my stash by 10% even though I didn’t count my beginning yardage.

Not very exciting reading I’m sure, but it’s kind of interesting to see what I’ve made. It was a good sewing year, I’d say! And now, Hello 2018! Let’s get sewing! I’m ready for the #RTWfast with the 2018 RTW Fasters!

And here’s the breakdown in alphabetical order.

Apron	1
Baby quilt	1
Baby shoes	1
Blouses	7
Bowl Cozy	1
Boys & men’s underwear	10
Cardigans	4
Click bags	2
Doll clothes & shoes	7
Dresses	6
Embroidery (most of the large projects) 246,658+ stitches!	12
Footstool	1
Guitar strap	1
Hats	6
Headband	1
Hottie cover	3
Jackets	7
Jeans	2
Lawn chair pads	4
Men’s shirts	3
Neck pillows	5
Nightgown	1
Panties	9
Pants	8
Pillowcases	2
PJ Pants	2
Quilt strip	1
Shorts	9
Skirts	2
Skorts	2
Swim bottoms	6
Swim trunks	2
Swimsuits	3
Tank tops	7
Tea wallet	1
Tops	15
Toy	1
Vests	5