Me-Made-May 2015 Reflections

I did it! I finally participated in Me-Made-May after 4 years of stalking the sewing blogosphere from afar. My goal was to wear at least 4 handmade garments per week. I managed to wear 29 handmade garments over the course of 31 days. I actually wore more (just pajamas) but didn’t feel like they qualified spamming Instagram and Facebook with something so trivial… although some pajamas did make the cut.

Here’s a look at the month in no particular order – mostly because I just let the collage feature of Picasa do all of the work and heck if I’m going to put them in chronological order:

If you want to check out the weekly breakdown, go for it:

MMM Week 1

MMM Week 2

MMM Week 3

MMM Week 4

MMM Week 5

Thoughts on my own personal MMM:

I noticed only 6 of my 29 outfits consisted of woven fabrics. I partially blame my slight obsession with GirlCharlee.com and the comfort factor of knits. A really cool thing I also noticed is 3 pairs of my items for the month are made of matching fabric. Hooray for using scraps and stash busting! That’s why I make sure I absolutely love the fabric before I buy it, because it will probably be made into more than one item. 🙂

I didn’t wear too many items I made within my first two years of sewing. It looks like only a couple of those items made the cut. I guess I could have tried to incorporate more of my older makes, but I didn’t really put that much effort into my MMM outfits and I barely wear the older stuff anyway. It’s mostly because either the fit is off or I just made garments that don’t go with my style. In my first two years of sewing, I focused on obtaining a new skill for each project I made. Those skills included things like making pleats, pintucks, and gathers, sewing with slippery fabric, installing invisible zippers, etc. I was experimenting with the cheapest fabric I could get my hands on and I wasn’t too skilled at picking out the “good” fabric from the “bad.” I like to think my fabric choices and pattern choices have gotten better since then. 🙂

I am also very aware of my lack of handmade pants. I hope to rectify that with some Sewaholic Thurlows and Ginger Jeans this year. It will also help ensure I keep my pledge for next year of wearing at least one me-made garment everyday for the month of May. Oh yeah, you know I’ll be participating again!

I know I am in dire need of a full-length mirror and MMM 2015 was a constant reminder. I tried convincing DD while we were at IKEA that we should get one, but I guess he doesn’t understand the struggle, ha! At least he was a good enough sport that he was OK with taking some MMM pictures for me so I could mix things up instead of having a whole month of bathroom selfies.

If I had to choose a favorite garment for MMM, it would be my ‘MURICA! Dress. You guys don’t know how stoked I am that I can bust out this obnoxiously patriotic dress every single year for Me-Made-May. Hooray for Memorial Day!

Thoughts on MMM in general:

Lots of people complain about the hassle of taking daily photos and I see where they’re coming from, but I found the photos and sharing to be the funnest part of the challenge. I enjoyed getting feedback and compliments on my outfits from all over the world. I actually kind of miss sharing my [almost] daily handmade outfits but I know my social media feed would KILL me if I did this all year long, especially my non-sewing friends.

I also noticed more “likes” and comments on my Instagram feed. I gained a few new followers and found some more cool creative people to follow, too. MMM is a great way of connecting with the wider sewing world and getting yourself noticed.

This has been a great challenge and I’m excited to see what I’ll make and wear for next year’s MMM! Prepare yourselves!

-RED