Me-Made-May 2016

This is certainly leaving it until the last minute …. I can’t believe it is the first day of May tomorrow!  April has been a difficult month and my sewing and blogging activity has been pretty much non-existent.  My darling daddy who has been struggling along with dementia for several years became very poorly almost overnight and after five weeks in hospital has had to move into a nursing home.  I shan’t dwell on it here but it has been heartbreaking.  I’m just thankful that my parents were able to celebrate their 60th wedding anniversary before this happened.

Me-Made-May is the creation of the lovely Zoe from SoZoWhatDoYouKnow? It would be overly dramatic to say that participating last year changed my life but it certainly made me think very differently about the clothes I wear and where those clothes come from.

I’m honestly amazed to be able to make the statement that since last May I have bought only two items of new RTW clothing – a sweater I’ve worn a lot and a t-shirt I’ve now refashioned/chopped the bottom off.  Both my winter coats were charity shop finds, I refashioned several men’s shirts as part of The Refashioners 2015 and everything else I wear has either been from a charity shop,  me-made or already in my wardrobe.  The only exceptions are shoes and undies.

There was no question about getting involved again and this time round I have committed to wearing something me-made every day throughout May.  Last year I went for three days a week because I wasn’t confident I could manage every day but in fact it was much easier than I anticipated.  I’m not entirely sure I have enough clothes suitable for spring and at the moment I definitely don’t have much spare time to sew so there will have to be lots of repeats.  However there’s no point in going for a challenge if it doesn’t actually challenge you!

To that end I’ve also committed to trying at least two new patterns during May.  I have a tendency to stick with what I know to avoid stressful fitting issues but I could do with getting out of a rut – although don’t expect anything too dramatic!

I, Jane, of janemakes.wordpress.com, pledge to wear at least one me-made or refashioned item every day and to attempt at least two new-to-me patterns during this year’s Me-Made-May.

I’m planning to post on Instagram during the month to document my efforts, although I can’t guarantee it will be every day.