Thoughts on Me Made May

I have been faithfully posting my me made items to the flickr group each day and also adding to my Me Made May page to keep a running total. I must say that after 2.5 years of sewing, I have amassed quite a bit of clothing. Today was the first day I wore only a me made accessory instead of a garment.

The belt I wore today was a year in the making. I did all of the needlepoint last April then set it aside for other projects. When I realized last night that I didn’t have anything new to wear, I pulled the belt out and finally added velcro closure which took all of five minutes. Do you ever have projects 99% finished that languish? I really need to work on finishing one project before starting another!

Peacock Belt

Peacock Belt Close Up

1980 Needlepoint Pattern

Here are some of the things I have discovered thus far this month:

• I have an abundance of dresses and knitted items but not many basics
• I like floral and bright colors
• Many of my first me mades are still being worn
• My sewing is MUCH better but I still have a lot to learn
• Fitting my decidedly pear shape is still super difficult
• I can tell from the photos which items truly look good and which need adjustments

Though the rest of May most likely will contain a large number of garment repeats, I am glad I participated!

Also as a bit of housekeeping, I need to claim my blog on bloglovin so I can get converted properly before Google up and leaves me. Have you chosen which format you plan to use?

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Me Made May ’13 Day 2

Day two brings another Colette pattern. This time it is the Taffy blouse from the Colette Sewing Handbook. Sewing this blouse was the first time I had used bias tape, sheer fabric, and french seams. The fabric was a $2.00 Wal-mart clearance find so the whole blouse cost me less than five bucks.

I made Taffy last spring but haven’t worn it until today. I had planned to wear it with a red Ginger skirt but never got around to making the skirt so the blouse has been stuffed in the back of my closet. Yay for MMM’13 pushing me to give Taffy some love!

I also saw an embroidered knit version of Taffy in the flickr MMM’13 group pool that I may try. One of my sewing goals this year is to find ways to use the same patterns more often without creating the exact same garment so seeing other sewist’s takes on certain patterns should be helpful and give me additional options to try.

Me Made May ’13 Day One

Today is the start of the Me Made May ’13 Challenge and I was up bright and early this morning to have Eric take a photo before I left for work. This dress is made from Colette’s Peony Pattern and was actually the first dress I ever made.

When I started sewing during the summer of 2011, I had zero garment sewing knowledge and few sewing skills. After perusing many sewing blogs, a consistent theme was Colette Patterns. Many sewists commented that Sarai’s patterns were easy enough for a beginner but also had ways to customize the garments to keep it interesting for more advanced sewists.

So taking the advice of many bloggers, I jumped into garment sewing with this dress. I learned a lot during the making of this dress, such as how to grade a pattern up, staystitching, bust darts, and installing invisible zippers. Though it is definitely not perfect, the fact that I continue to wear my Peony and get compliments every time I do means it works for me!