Me Made May 2014

It´s that time of the year. My favorite holiday (IMO MMM is an holiday): Me Made May! Are you excited? I am excited. So. Last year my resolution looked a little something like this:

“I, Sølvi of delfinelise.com, endeavor to wear only me-mades throughout the month of May 2013 (with the exception of tights, footwear, national costume and bras) with no repeating outfits. I will take the opportunity to wear my least worn pieces of clothing, and try to incorporate them into regular rotation. Each week I will wear at least one outfit inspired by other MMM´ers, either from this year or earlier years challenges.”

But, what should I do to up the ante for myself this year around? Well, I though it might be a good idea to reflect upon things that have changed in my life since last year, and that could also have an effect on this year´s MMM´s:

• I have a new camera. I treated myself to a DSLR back in January.
• I have come to the conclusion that undies- sewing is not for me.
• Slower sewing.
• More focus on work vs. casual clothing
• Accesories
• More blogging!

New camera

Back in January I treated myself to a DSLR camera. I have been wanting one for years, and finally had the opportunity to invest in one. I am still trying to figure out my ways around this lovely device, and I could imagine that MMM´14 could be a great way for me to get to know my camera even better. I know the photo – part isn´t the most important one in MMM´s, but by accurately documenting my sewing projects in photo, I learn so much about what works, and what doesn´t work.

Sewing underthings is not for me

This might come as a surprise to all of you who find undie-sewing to be a breeze. Well, the thing is, I have a hard time sourcing the right materials. The materials I can find here in Norway are quite expensive, and shipping and customs into Norway is also very high. I don´t really have a backlog of stretchy fabric in my stash appropriate for this kind of sewing, and I have been sewing for so long that I don´t have any worn out store bought things that could be used either. So I have decided to not spend my time on this. Not as long as I don´t feel like it. Sustainability – wise, I guess this is a small defeat for me. However, there are more and more companies producing organic and/or fair wage products now, so I guess it´s alright.

Slower sewing

I am in love with Susan Khalje´s Craftsy class The Couture Dress. That woman is just full of sewing related one-liners. One thing she talks about is how, as a couture seamstress, one thing you have enough of is time. This was such a great way of putting it. Sewing couture is not about finishing fast, it´s about taking control over the garment making process. I am not all about couture all the the time, but the idea of slowing down appeals to me. So I sew slow, now. I baste even more than I used to, I even make a muslin or two (gasp!) and I use more time on details. I love this. And since I sew slower, I make fewer garments. This is a good thing, as my wardrobe still is out of control. And I relax and enjoy the process even more.

Work vs. casual wear.

The past year I have been thinking more about differentiating what I wear for work, and what I wear elsewhere. Now, my work requires more than one sort of wardrobe. There´s the workwear for when I teach and conduct seminars for large groups of adults, there´s the workwear for long days of singing and teaching and playing piano, there are the home office workwear, and of course there are the performance wardrobe. Some of these parts of my wardrobe are interchangeable, others are not. Then there´s my casual wardrobe.  In my casual wardrobe I have more opportunities to play with color, patterns and prints than in my work wardrobe. The trick is to make all of these go together and form a well functioning wardrobe where I don´t struggle to find out what to wear from day to day.

Accesorizing

Last, but not the least I want to focus more on accessories. I have lots of jewelry, scarves, hats and other fun things, but I´d like to include more me-made. So I want to add a paragraph to my pledge this year to wear me-made accessories each day as well.

More blogging

I really enjoy blogging, although sometimes I feel that I don´t find the time. I am phrasing it like this because I actually believe I have the time, I just don´t prioritize it all the time. So, for this year´s MMM´s, I will try to blog every garment that I wear that is previously unblogged. I´m not doing a this-is-what-I-wore-today-post, it´s more like if I have made a skirt, and I haven´t blogged about it before, this May it will get a proper post. Let´s see if that´ll work…

Me Made May

So:

“I, Sølvi of delfinelise.com, endeavor to wear only me-mades throughout the month of May 2014 (with the exception of tights, footwear and underwear) with no repeating garments (with the exception of outerwear and training gear). Each day I will also wear at least one piece of me-made accessory, and I will blog about every unblogged garment.”

To come to a conclusion about how this year´s pledge, I will take out underwear from the calculation. But, I will include two other things. I have upgraded from “no repeating outfits” to “no repeating garments”. This means I can´t just throw on the same piece of trousers every other day with a different top. I need to use all of my skirts and dresses as well. I have excluded outerwear from this, though. I have some me made jackets and coats now, but I don´t have 31 of them… And I have included a paragraph on accessories. I have lots of scarfs, necklaces and other accessories, and I want to wear all of my me- made accessories more. So they are hereby included in the pledge. I hope this will make for an interesting month of May. I will join the Flickr- group, although I suspect more action will take place on Instagram and Pinterest this year than other years too. We´ll see!

Are you joining the MMM´14 challenge? And have you set yourself any sewing goals?