So since may has actually started and me-made-may is underway I thought I should probably drag myself out of my writing rut and get my pledge written up and on to the blog! So here it is…
For those of you that haven’t heard of me-made-may it’s a monthly challenge that started with sozo on her blog. The idea of the challenge is to encourage people to think more about their handmade clothes/ wardrobe and their body, style, creativity.
Each person sets their own challenge, or pledge, for the month and they can be very wide ranging. Many people might aim to wear a single handmade item each day, or aim to wear items they haven’t worn in a while, and many people post daily outfit stories/posts on instagram to document me-made-may (although this is not a compulsory part of the challenge)!
My Pledge
I, Nicola, aim to wear at least one me-made garment each day and document this. Ideally photos but also in my journal with comments about the items.
In addition I will try to finish off / mend as many items that are in my ‘box of shame’ as possible.
I will also try to wear as much of my me-made wardrobe as possible and discover what me-mades work for me and where I can make items to fill in the gaps.
So what exactly does this entail then? Well the first part is fairly self-explanatory. I will try to wear handmade garments everyday. Although I have made a reasonable number of handmade clothes it is a very small percentage of my overall wardrobe and most of my clothes are RTW. This will also be rather dependent on the weather as many of the clothes I have made are long-sleeved tops or warmer clothes that are more suited to the colder months… But I will definitely give it my best shot!
On each day I will try to photograph the outfit, or at least the me-made part of it so that I can keep a record of what I have been wearing. I am also going to record it in my journal, along with some thoughts about the item that will help me identify those bits of my wardrobe that I really love and those bits that maybe aren’t working quite so well.
The second part, this is my pledge to try and finish off items. At the moment I have rather a ridiculous number of items in my ‘box of shame’… Now these items are all at various stages of ‘shameness’ some I have been wearing but maybe they haven’t actually been hemmed, or I haven’t finished tying/threading off the ends of the threads inside them so they look messy.
Other ones might need some elastic replacing (a surprising number…) or seams redoing. Then some other need their size adjusted and then finally those items which either need an entire refashion or are still completely works of progress and are still basically pattern pieces.
Hopefully by looking out all the items that need work and grouping them together by thread colour I can actually make progress on them because I won’t have to keep rethreading my sewing machines. Also I can do some thread finishing or seam ripping in front of an episode of TV or something which will be progress as well!
The third part is all about improving my me-made wardrobe. I want to identify the me-made garments that I enjoy wearing and that make me feel good. Obviously not every garment I have made is going to be perfect for me so hopefully by trying to wear most of my me-made garments I can work out if there are items that I don’t particularly like, and also which ones I do like.
This will also hopefully help me to identify where the gaps are in my me-made wardrobe and help shape my plans for my upcoming makes. I already know of a few gaps, but hopefully putting some thought into this over the month will mean that by the end of the month I will have a much better idea of some of the things that I want to make.
So that’s quite a few things to keep me busy for the month. I’m hopeful that I’ll be able to keep it up for the whole month, although trying to wear most of my wardrobe might require some creative outfits if the weather is not co-operative.
I will try and write some summary blog posts later in the month as an update on my progress and how I am getting on with all of the sections of my pledge.
I am not necessarily planning any new makes for this month, instead focusing on fixing/finishing items. Although one or two might end up sneaking in to my sewing pile as my wardrobe doesn’t have a large amount of summery items in it.
Is anyone else taking part in me-made-may? What are your pledges? I’d love to hear about them.
