Me Made May Debrief

I feel pretty good about my Me Made May!

First the Pledge:

• To wear me-made separates three times per week
  Tick!
  I wore separates for 16 out of the 31 days. The rest of the time I still wore me-mades, obviously, but they were dresses.
• To mend, make, upcycle or embellish something, anything!
  Tick again!
  I mended my nightshirt sleeves that were horrendously worn.
  I made two tops, a skirt and three dresses (two from scratch, one upcycled).
  I upcyled a dress that I was no longer feeling the love for. I think it will be more wearable now.
  I also did a Stash audit and donated about a third of it that I knew in my heart I was never going to use. It felt good!
• To document my outfits on Instagram, follow 10 new MMMers, and comment positively on other MMM posts daily
  More ticking!
  I posted every day, in my Insta Stories, and followed lovely new people and commented pretty much everyday.

Onto the Learnings… I used Zoe’s MMM Workbook, to keep track of how I was feeling as I went along. I’m reasonably self-aware (I like to think!) and on the whole there weren’t any horrors.

Of the Good:

• Fabrics: soft, drapey, stretchy, comfortable, non-restrictive.
• Colours: Teal, minty green, navy, purple, plum (black is a given!)
• Silhouettes: long-line, straight dresses and skirts

Of the Meh:

• Fabrics: structured wovens.
• Colours: nothing that I regret, but some garments need to be paired more carefully than I actually did.
• Silhouettes: sacky sacky dresses.

I’m happy with my wardrobe. The challenge of wearing separates was illuminating – for me, the key was the bottom half. If I got that right, the top would follow quite easily. If I started with the top, it didn’t always work. That’s a good basis for me to carry on with wearing separates more regularly. I was able to identify which garments I was not happy with, and I’ve got plans in place for fixing them or upcycling them or making them into something that I’d be more willing to wear.

The only wardrobe gap that I’ve got is Outerwear. I’m going to try making a jacket this summer, to see how I get on.

The workbook asks about “Proud Moments”. I’d say it wasn’t so much proud as happy. I got the inspiration to get my Repro Tee pattern drafted, toiled, adjusted, finalised and in use, which I’ve been meaning to do for months, I met my challenging but achievable goals, and I’ve got my strategies in place to move my Me Mades forwards. I reckon that’s a pretty good MMM!

Here’s the video I made of the month’s pictures.

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A post shared by Béatrice Curtis (@missbeacurtis)

The Annual Me Made May Pledge Post

It’s getting close to that lovely but challenging time of the year – Me Made May.

I want to change my pledge up a bit, this time around, to meet the spirit of Me Made May more. I wear me-mades most of the time, so that’s not a challenge. Zoe (of So Zo, What Do You Know blog fame, and also of the Check Your Thread Podcast), who created the challenge, has reminded us that this is all about building a better relationship with your wardrobe and I’m totally down with that. For the last few years, I know that my habit is to reach for a dress, because that only requires one thought first thing in the morning, whereas separates require a combination of thoughts.

So I want to get back to wearing separates a bit more. That will mean working out what tops and bottoms I will realistically wear. I dress for comfort these days, and that generally means stretch fabrics. I know I’ve got various skirts and tops in wovens, but they aren’t as comfortable and to be honest they may well be too small for me these days. I haven’t tried them on in maybe 4 years! I think I need to do a bit of Wardrobe Analysis, to see what I’ve got, and what will go with what. I may find I have a load of wardrobe orphans and things that only combine with one other thing. I’m not going to be too hard on myself. I’m going to try and stick to Me Made both top and bottom, but if I wear one ready-made with a Me Made, that will still count. Also, my definition of Me Made has always been that if I upcycled, mended or embellished a shop-bought garment, it counts as me-made.

Me Made May is not a making challenge, I am well aware, but I can always use all the sewjo and inspiration I can get, and I know I’ve got various things on my making wishlist so I’ll be happy if I can make some inroads into that, and possibly get some mending or upcycling done.

Finally, I understand fully that MMM is not an Instagram challenge, but I will use Insta to document my outfits and use MMM to build up my community there. In the past I’ve challenged myself to comment positively on other MMM posts, and I will still do that, but also I want to follow a few new lovely people for inspiration.

So here is my final pledge:

I, Béa, hereby pledge:

• To wear me-made separates three times per week
• To mend, make, upcycle or embellish something, anything!
• To document my outfits on Instagram, follow 10 new MMMers, and comment positively on other MMM posts daily

I’m expecting that sub-challenges will present themselves during the month, they usually do, but I won’t know what they are until they crop up.