Me Made May

Hurrah! For the first time this year I have a reason to look forward to next month, and it’s all down to Zoe.

Once again, Zoe is running Me Made May.  This wonderful challenge encourages you to make a personal pledge, appropriate to you, to get more out of your handmade wardrobe, rediscover those things you don’t wear so often and really assess where your sewing should be focused. Or at least, that’s how I treat it.

It’s also become quite a nice landmark for me of how far my sewing has come.  2 years ago, I signed up for the first time and pledged to wear 2 me made garments a week.  And it was quite a stretch.  Last year, I signed up to wear 5 me made garments a week and made it through to a full 7 days a week for the first time; I was so proud of myself!

I love the community side of this too.  For me that’s mainly the daily Instagram posts.  Clearly you don’t have to post to Instagram, but I love both the challenge to myself of remembering to post and also assess what I’m wearing and whether it works as I’d like it to, and also the inspiration from everyone else.  I think part of my pledge this year needs to be to not go and buy every pattern I see someone else rocking and love!

So, what is my pledge this year?

I’ve put some thought into it this time: for the past couple of years, it’s really given my sewing a steer in terms of what garments am I reaching for and finding missing in my life?  Last year gave me a real push to stop sewing pretty dresses and focus on wearable separates; the kind of thing I actually wear as a working mum of 2 small children, rather than the things I’d love to be swanning about it.  That had a strong influence on the types of things I’ve made for quite some time now.  There’s even a chance I’ve gone too far in the other direction; I now find I’m missing pretty things to go out in on the rare occasions I get to go out!

I’ve got strongly into sewing lots of jersey items because that was what I wanted to wear and also where my skills needed help.  I now feel much more confident here so I think it’s time to stretch some of my other skills.

So I’m going big time here.  But balanced with a little bit of realism; I have some time away for work over the next month, a certain amount of time sobbing quietly in a corner scheduled (it’s my birthday month) and so I hope this is an achievable yet stretching goal.

I, Becca of http://www.redwsews.wordpress.com (@redwsews) pledge to wear at least one handmade garment per day throughout May.  I also pledge to make a start on one of the two major projects I have lined up, either the Kelly Anorak or the Ginger Jeans.

That’s a slightly scary goal, in that I view both those patterns as “proper” dressmaking.  They’re not going to come cheap.  I’m not going to finish them in a couple of evenings.  Toiles may be required.

But that’s OK.  This year’s a landmark one for me anyway, I might as well start investing a little more time and thought into my sewing along the way.

If you’re inspired to join in, follow the link on the side bar or at the top of this post and add your name to the (literally hundreds) already on there. Come join the party!

Becca x