Hi Everyone!
This is the final post from the fab four, looking back on how we all fared during Me-Made-May.
Wis — experienced Me-Made-Mayer!
Hi sewcialists,
I’ve just finished my third Me-Made-May and I’m feeling happy and a little sad at the same time. Happy because I managed to wear me-mades every single day of May 2018. A little sad because it’s over now and I have to wait another year for a new Me-Made-May!
Me-Made-May is all about setting a personal challenge regarding your me-mades — you can read all about this on Zoe’s blog — so the big question is: “Did I reach my challenge?”.
- I wore at least one me-made garment every day.
- I wore every garment only once; so I had no repeats!
- I wore 12 garments I didn’t wear last May 2017. So I reached my challenge here as I pledged to wear at least 10 garments I didn’t wear last year. I made 3 new garments this month.
- All my combinations of two garments were different than the previous years.
Was it hard? No, not really. After nearly 5 years of sewing clothes for myself I have a considerable wardrobe to go through each morning and make a selection. Also a bonus was the nice weather we had here in Belgium because I have a lot of summery clothes.
Reflections
First of all, I am proud of myself because I’m able to wear 31 different self-made, and appropriate to the situation, garments in a row. I didn’t give this feeling a lot of consideration the previous years.
Still there are some serious gaps in my me-made wardrobe. Where are thou: solid tops? trousers? bras? in-between-seasons coat? So, I am going to make that my challenge for the coming year: focus on sewing these types of garments.
See you at Me-Made-May 2019!
Kate — experienced Me-Made-Mayer!
Another Me-Made-May gone; how did you go? My pledge was to incorporate me-made items into my everyday whether that was my clothes, my toddler’s clothes or accessories. Whilst I was pretty successful (the weather helped me). This is another of my favourite me-made dresses. I’ve worn it here with a favourite RTW summer sweater (you might know the print on the dress if you are into Art Gallery fabrics).
I have a lot more casual than formal clothes so office wear was always going to be more challenging. Me-made formal tops far outweighed the bottoms so I mostly wore dresses in rotation for the office which got a little tedious after awhile. Either because I don’t love them, or formal clothes is just not what I want to wear (or both!). My natural response to that would be “well make more bottoms / things you love then!” But filling the wardrobe gap for me personally is not sustainable sewing — there is nothing I need, just plenty I want! And clearly sewing bottoms doesn’t fill me with the same joy that tops and dresses do.
However, since MMMay helped me identify the imbalance in the tops to bottoms ratio, I sketched out all the things that were floating around in my head. It totalled 13 items to sew (mostly stash) which is just silly, really. I have been thinking a lot about stash sewing as part of hosting #makeyourstash, but making all of it would just add to the too much clothing problem. So back to the drawing board — but in any case I am happy that MMMay helped me think more closely about my wardrobe!
Kim — first time Me-Made-Mayer!
The end of May totally snuck up on me! I did miss a couple days at the end of the month, but overall I’m very pleased with the outcome! I’ve gotten a much better idea of the clothing that I do reach for on a regular basis (mostly dresses — shocker? Not really.) I have also become much more confident in how my Me-Made garments look on myself. My coworkers all had nothing but positive things to say about my outfits this month, and many were surprised that I’d made them, saying that they looked very well constructed!
Given that I’ve only been really sewing for a couple years, this feels like a giant accomplishment. I also was able to fill out my “handmade” closet a bit, because the wonderful Gillian was destashing and I got to claim a couple of dresses, tops, and a skirt from her and her sister! In the left side of this photo I’m wearing a Cake Patterns Hummingbird skirt from Gillian (via Anne) that I think I’d like to make more of! It is super comfy and I’m excited to wear it some more. I think I may also start working on some Me-Made things that I can wear in the cooler months. Up until now I’ve mostly focused on making dresses, with a few tops here and there, because they tend to be very forgiving size wise — but I’d like to start working on more tailored garments! I love how much this month of wearing Me-Made has inspired me (and others at my work!) to wear more unique and fun clothing, that really expresses my personality. Overall, this has been an amazing month!
Chloe — first time Me-Made-Mayer!
My first me-made-May was a mixed bag. It motivated me to finish a couple of items that I knew I would wear and got me seriously thinking about how much I sew that I don’t wear. That’s was great. BUT, I didn’t meet my pledge of wearing all my handmade items at least once.
It got all wintery in Sydney and a bunch of my makes are dresses and skirts and not cold weather suitable. I also don’t have as many work items as non-work, which doesn’t help for May when there are no holidays.
A fair few days my only me-makes worn were the track pants and modified Named Oslo cardigan above that serve as house pyjamas when I get home. While this was comfy, it didn’t feel like pushing myself to have a more wearable wardrobe. I also made the sparkly Linden sweatshirt in the above collage, which was a solid step towards a TNT wardrobe.
Overall I enjoyed the challenge and will most likely sign up next year!
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So that’s it from us! We hope you enjoyed hearing our different perspectives on MMMay 2018, and that yours went well if you were taking part!
Take care,
Wis, Kate, Kim and Chloe xxx
Kate’s discovery that she doesn’t have as many clothes for work as for casual wear sounds familiar. I too preferred to make “fun” clothes. What got me over this obsession was a simple sentence in an article about wardrobe planning. Basically it had you take the number of hours in each week and determine what percentage of your life is spent doing various things. I quickly realized that as an engineer in a production environment, I was spending a lion’s share of my time at work but my wardrobe did not reflect this.
Once I focused more on my comfort at work and happiness with my work wardrobe, the more balanced my wardrobe became and I no longer dreaded getting dressed for work or panicked about what to wear.
Hi there Lynn, that sounds like a good solution – I will have a think about that one. Outside my work clothes if I use the hours in the week formula I think I would probably end up sewing only loungewear to potter around the house. Absolutely my favourite things to wear and I don’t care if they get covered in mess from the toddler! Thanks for the suggestion x
I agree, bottoms are never as fun to make as tops and dresses! Thus the gaping hole in my wardrobe too. And solids! LOL! Who wants to sew solids!!
I notice a lot of us have realized similar wardrobe gaps! I thought it was just me!
Thank you for sharing! MMM was a lot of fun!
Hi Elizabeth, I am SO happy to hear I’m not alone in disliking solids and bottoms! Hehe, thanks for reading and sharing.