Me-Made May 2016 Week 1

This is my first year participating in Me-Made May.  I wasn't going to join because most of my me-mades from my selfish sewing spree of 2013-2014 are still too small, and I didn't think I had enough.  But at the last minute, I changed my mind, and I'm glad I did.  First of all, I have a few more things than I thought I did.  And secondly, it has motivated me to sit down and sew for myself despite not being happy with my weight.  This week I've sewn myself two new t-shirts and a cardigan, and have been motivated to start getting some photos snapped of the skirts I made myself in April so that I can blog them (see my last post for a couple of them).

I skipped May 1 because it was Pascha.  But after that, I took photos every day.  As it rained all.week.long, I didn't even try to do better than iPhone photos.

May 2: A Sewaholic Renfrew and thrifted skinny jeans.

May 3: A to-be-blogged tee made using a mash-up of the Renfrew and Plantain t-shirt patterns and heavily altered linen pants from Old Navy.

May 4: A Plantain tee and a denim quarter-circle skirt made using the By Hand London Circle Skirt calculator.  The skirt is one of the garments I had forgotten about.  I didn't like it much when I first made it, but it started to grow on me when I wore it on Wednesday.  I guess that one of the purposes of this whole exercise, anyway.

May 5: New Look 6937, or something like that, which is the first garment I ever sewed for myself using a commercial pattern.  The experience was so horrible that it was very nearly the last garment I ever sewed for myself.  This pattern has some particularly bad drafting and the instructions were not sufficient for my then-beginner self.  The back is really wonky - I had to do some creative tucking and darting to get it to fit properly.  It's kind of hard to believe that I sewed this only four years ago.  I feel like I've come so far since then! 

May 6: A self-drafted rayon tee based on a RTW shirt I own.  I really need to make another of these, not lease because this one was hit with a nasty grease splatter while I was cooking dinner that night, and it did not come out.   I really need to make a habit of wearing an apron while cooking.  Does anyone do that anymore?

May 7: My brand-spanking-new Itch To Stitch Lisbon cardigan, which I sewed this week after seeing the pattern come out.  I will be blogging this one soon.  Underneath it I am wearing a Maria Denmark Kirsten Kimono tee.

I'm calling this week a success.  I had only set myself the challenge to wear me-mades four times a week, and yet I managed to do so every day.  When the weather warms up (come on!) I should be able to manage total me-made-ness because I have a number of handmade skirts.  It is clear, though, that if I really want to become clothing self-sufficient, I will have to overcome my fear of making my own jeans.  Because when it is cool out, that is all I wear.  Maybe this fall ...