MMM Thoughts

Not gonna lie, this one was not a super soaraway success. It started out ok…

“I Béa of BeasSewingAdventures.wordpress.com (aka @missbeacurtis on instagram) pledge to wear Me-made clothing and jewellery/accessories throughout May 2022…”

That was all fine. But that was the easiest of all the pledges, since I wear MM pretty much every day.

“…to document my daily outfits on Instagram and to comment positively on at least 10 other people’s MMM posts each day.”

That’s where it all went a bit meh. I don’t know why, but I lost my Insta mojo two thirds of the way through, and skipped nine days. I managed to pick it up for the last couple of days, so we’ll call that a qualified success. But this:

“I will also do some actual sewing.”

Absolutely failed this one completely. Not one stitch stitched. I knitted – the ongoing Temperature Dress and a cardigan. But no actual sewing.

The Temperature Dress – this pic is from the end of June, when we’d had a little heatwave

Ah well, next year, I will hopefully do better.

And what did I learn? That I’m still happier wearing dresses than separates. That I need a couple more late-spring/summer dresses (and even though I know this, I still haven’t sewn any yet).

And weirdly, that even though I’m much more into dresses than separates, I still feel like making tops/shirts. I suspect this is partly as a result of having top/shirt sized pieces of fabric in my stash. But also, it could be that one of the reasons separates don’t speak to me right now is that I don’t have many me-made tops that I really love. Maybe having more nice tops and shirts might get me back into wearing separates more regularly.

What I have (kinda, sorta) decided is to revisit the Sew Over It Alex Shirt/shirtdress pattern (from their City Break E-book). This meets my need for more summer dresses, and scratches the tops/shirts itch. I made this shirt at one of their workshops a few years ago, and I wasn’t that happy with the way the pattern worked for me. However, I’ve used it as a nightshirt, and the chambray has softened up and become more drapey over the years, and that’s made the things I didn’t like much less noticeable. Also, I have learned by now that making a new-to-me pattern at a workshop is essentially making a toile. If it’s wearable, hooray! Either way, I end up knowing what I need/want to tweak. So I’m thinking a) I could make a shirtdress in a more drapey fabric and it would probably be ok and also b) I could work on amending my pattern so that if I’m making it in a more structured fabric, I will have incorporated the changes I think it needs. My instinct is to make it as a dress first, in something floppy from stash, and if that makes me happy, then I can make it as a shirt, and see how that goes.

I’ve also found new people to follow on instagram, so that my feed isn’t full of thin, flat-chested people looking gorgeous but who will never make me think “actually that would look great on me”. Instead my feed has a lot more people who have a body type closer to mine, looking gorgeous, in clothes that make me think “that looks like something that would make me happy to wear”. I love seeing my non-curvy friends on insta, and I gain inspiration from them as well as the curvy girls. But it’s good to have representations of different body types for inspiration.

So that was my Me-Made May 2022. Roll on next year, and hopefully by then I’ll have a better, more motivating pledge worked out.

MMM22

It’s that time of the year, when I fangirl Zoe of So, Zo (http://sozowhatdoyouknow.blogspot.com) all over again, and wonder how I can up my Pledging game.

I’ve been doing Me Made May since 2014, and after all this time it’s getting really hard to set myself a challenge that is meaningful. I wear me-made every day. I don’t have that many remaining shop-bought clothes – a few, but not many. So it’s not about wearing me-mades more often. I guess it’s about being a bit more thoughtful about what I wear, or pulling out those items that I don’t tend to wear so much and maybe identifying why not. But I kind of do that anyway, so I’m not sure how much I would gain from that, as a challenge element.

My main personal challenge, over the last year or so, has largely been a lack of inspiration to sew. I have ideas (lots of them), I have fabric and patterns, I just haven’t had the urge to get round to making the things that are in my head. So part of my pledge will include actually getting some sewing done. Ideally, I’d like to make a couple of work wearable dresses, as I am frankly bored with all the ones I’ve got, especially as some of them go back a long way. Two or three more would see me through the Spring and into Summer and onwards. I hope they will also help build my wardrobe with more items I will reach for regularly. I’m not going to be too specific about Goals, how much sewing, how many items made, how many WIPs finished. I’ll know how I feel about it at the end of May.

I’ll be instagramming my progress. I’m aware that it isn’t a necessary element of MMM, but for me, part of the pleasure of the challenge is how it brings together the whole sewing/knitting/making community. To be part of it, for me, means contributing to it. Last year, part of my pledge was to comment on other people’s MMM posts, and I enjoyed that a lot, and it meant I found a lot of new people to follow and be inspired by. So I’m going to stick with that for this year.

If I’m going to be posting daily pictures, then I’m going to try and make sure I look reasonably put-together in them, at least for the weekday ones. So that’s going to mean wearing me-made jewellery/accessories and at least a lick of make-up.

Last year I discovered the MeMadeMayPlus range of hashtags, for us larger ladies. Heaven knows how I’d missed it before that. So I’m going to be looking into those hashtags a whole lot more this time around.

So… all that is to say, yes, I’m in for yet another fun-filled Me Made May, and this is the pledge I’ve decided on:

“I Béa of BeasSewingAdventures.wordpress.com (aka @missbeacurtis on instagram) pledge to wear Me-made clothing and jewellery/accessories throughout May 2022, to document my daily outfits on Instagram and to comment positively on at least 10 other people’s MMM posts each day. I will also do some actual sewing.”

I usually find that in addition to my official Pledge challenges, I end up setting myself unofficial mini-challenges, that I haven’t formally committed to. They sort of creep up on me, so we’ll see what happens this year.

For the purposes of internet accountability, Me-made is going to include any garment I’ve made myself, as well as any RTW that I have altered/mended/upcycled myself. As far as jewellery is concerned, I have a couple of pieces that are hand-made by someone else that I would still like to wear, so I’m going to permit myself jewellery made by a named person (can you tell I’ve got a background in law? I’m fluent in legalese!)