My Me Made May

This year I decided to take part in Me Made May for the first time. My pledge was to wear at least one me-made item per day, which I thought would be fairly do-able, and I was right. So much so that I actually decided to up the challenge part way through the month to see if I could manage without repeating whole outfits - and (thanks in part to warm weather making occasional appearances, allowing more summery dresses to come out of hibernation) I did!

(If you want any pattern details, they're all on my Instagram feed)

I'm in two minds about whether I should be proud about that or not - in some ways I definitely am because it shows that I've made a lot of things that I actually wear, but in other ways maybe it shows that I have more clothes than I really need.

I am conscious of constant fabric shopping and excessive dress making not being much better on a general sustainability level than high street fast fashion, but I also know that sewing, and creating pretty dresses in particular, makes me happy and keeps me sane. I also love my wardrobe now more than I ever have done in the past, and I feel so much more confident (something that I often struggle with) when I'm wearing something that I've made. So while I probably don't technically need to sew anything new for a while, I think it's safe to say that won't stop me from cutting out a another dress later this week.

So, what have I learnt from this Me Made May?
- The pattern I wore the most was the Emery dress - not a surprise! It's my favourite and most-used pattern
- Emery was closely followed in the popularity stakes by the Veronika skirt. My denim one in particular is a staple in my wardrobe
- While I wear a lot of blue. Also not a surprise. And not a bad thing - blue suits me and I like it!
- While that's true, I do like adding more colours into the mix - particularly when the sun's shining

- There are some me-mades (mostly fairly early creations) languishing in the back of my wardrobe that I didn't want to wear this month. I should probably think about passing them on to a charity shop. I'm a hoarder by nature so that might be hard though!
- If there's a gap in my handmade wardrobe, then it's probably knit dresses. I'm generally comfy in my woven dresses/skirts, but there are some days that need secret pyjamas! Something to work on...
- My flat is a very boring background for photos. I'm looking forward to the day (which may not be too far off - fingers crossed!) when I don't have to live in a rented magnolia paradise.

My main conclusion is that I actually wear me-made most of the time anyway so this didn't feel like too much of a challenge, and I'm pleased with that. I still enjoyed celebrating my creations and seeing what everyone else was wearing though - I'll definitely join in again next year. Did you take part? How did you find it?