WOOHOO! It’s almost Me-Made May time, my favourite time of the year! (Ok, Christmas and summer vacation are pretty good too.) In fact, I enjoy MMMay so much that we are using it as inspiration for our May Sewcialists theme:
For the months of April and May, we’re going to be celebrating MMMay, with a particular focus on sustainable sewing and creating a cohesive wardrobe that will actually get worn. You can find more details about that over on the Sewcialists.
This is my 7th year participating in Me-Made May, and the 9th year of the challenge overall. I came up with really creative theme challenges for the first few years, like Japanese for Crafters, Wardrobe Palette, One Week One Pattern, and Sewing Around The World.
When I first took part in MMMay, I’d only been sewing garments for 4 months, and relied heavily on me-made accessories and refashions to get through the month. These days I have so many clothes that I use Me-Made May as an opportunity to snapshot my style that year, and highlight how I really dress day-to-day. With that in mind, I’ve chosen my theme for this year:
Something Old and Something New!
Each day I’ll strive to wear something sewn in the last year AND something sewn/purchased more than a year ago! My hope is that this will help me review my older creations and RTW clothes, and make sure they still belong in my wardrobe. Are they worn out, or too small? Are they still my style? At the end of the month I’ll pass on, donate, refashion or recycle anything that I didn’t love wearing.
One of my Top 5 Goals for 2018 is to learn more about sustainable sewing, and I hope that this challenge will help me with that. I happen to love fabrics like polyester and rayon that aren’t the most sustainable, and are hard to find in fair trade/organic versions… so instead my goal is to make sure every garment in my closet gets a lot of wear, and that I use scraps and leftovers creatively to limit waste.
I’m really excited about this theme! I like having a focus to my MMMay experience, although of course it’s not necessary. Have you signed up for MMMay? What pledge are you aiming for this year?
Crafting A Rainbow 
That’s such a great theme! My main goal for this year is to evaluate the me-mades that I haven’t been able to wear for the last 2 years because of the baby. I’m pretty much done nursing during the day, so I can finally start mixing in some more of my dresses and tops again! But I’m also hoping that I can figure out what works with my Jalie pants that I copied from you, because I still don’t know what to wear on top with them!
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This is the first time I’ve signed up to formally participate but I have in the background with wearing something I made everyday and this launched me into doing this all the time. So now that I’m doing this all the time ANYWAY – I’m focusing on making myself some nice “home clothes” (since that’s where I am most of the time) – nice things like sleeveless camis (I already made up a few Ogdens), sleeveless shifts (I’m working with the Eucalyptus pattern by Megan Nielsen) and even shorts. Getting ready for summer in our apartment which can get quite warm so linen, light cotton and silk will be perfect. I find knits can even be a little warm in the heat of the summer.
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Good ideas for your theme this year. I love a good wardrobe clear out and often refashion stuff I already have. Looking forward to reading your posts this May!
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This is a great idea for a theme – looking forward to reading about how you get on!
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This is such a good idea for a theme. I read somewhere that there are about £10bn worth of clothes in UK wardrobes that are unworn. That must be an awful lot of things. I know that I am bad for that. Really looking forward to seeing your lovely outfits. Xx
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That is a great idea! We’re eventually going to do some major renovations, which means I’m going to lose a whole closet, so this is a great idea for me to really think hard about whether or not to keep older, less worn items.
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Good idea to keep things challenging when you already have so much me-made. I am just starting on my journey so MMMay18 will be interesting.. I’ve pledged to have something me-made on each working day, which is 4 days per week, and because I don’t have much yet – just about enough to do it – I’ll be styling things differently each time, like with scarves etc and accompanying rtw garments changing each time. New blog setup to record any new makes too. Really looking forward to it, but nervous too. 😊
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