MMM 2016 Reflections

Me-Made-May is over again! I kept data of what I wore even though I did not take any photos of my daily outfits. Too much stress.

The winner of the most worn award: Espresso Leggings by Cake Patterns!
I have two pair in cotton and two pair in wool. They are red and navy. The navy wool pair made the month with 6 wears but all together leggings were worn 12 times.

Unglamorous photo, I know.. but they are leggings...

Next up: Dresses! I really like dresses and wore them 15 days out of the month. Here are photos of a few of the most worn pieces.

My 50's dress. I really need to make some more of this style. I love it so much.

Hippie Bus Curtain dress wins the "Worn The Most Consecutive Days"Award

Burgundy Eliana won the "Interview Dress" award

Brings me the most joy!!! 

There was only one day I did not wear any Me Mades and I wore store-bought pieces 12 times over the month. These were mostly cardigans or sweaters. The other wears were solid tops with a printed skirt... remember this Emily!!! You wear solids! 

I really like wearing skirts and dresses. They are more comfortable and easy wearing. I do like my trousers for traveling and pockets though. Looking at my notes, I need to do some work on undergarments. I could use a short slip and some tanks. And a new floaty summer nightgown! 

I have a couple special projects that have been on the back burner for awhile that I plan on working on but since I am in the process of moving and I'm not sure what the new needs of my life will be, I am putting most of my garment sewing on hold...

I need to get my business newsletter off the ground and hopefully find some good craft shows to market my wares so I think I am going to direct my creative energies that direction.

Any great revelations for you this MMM? Any advice on moving the sewing room? Space is premium and I'm dithering on what to pack?!!?!

Stashbusting Ramble and Me Made May Pledge

I do not know where April went. Do you? 

Mine was lost in a blur of work, paper writing, apartment hunting and what feels like very little creating. Dabbling here and there but mostly treading water as I count down the days until school the job, and school the online, are completed.

Stashbusting, First off I'm so proud of how my little idea has grown over the years into this vibrant community! It has become part of the sewing world and will live on now regardless of what I do. This makes me happy. I am so thankful for everyone who participates and helps lead and give feedback. Stashbusting forever!

Transition from that high, I'm pretty sure I gave into my fabric fears by not sewing much of anything this month. I am greatly enjoying all the new additions to my wardrobe from the contest I entered last month though. Eventually they will all get blogged... Oh I just checked my list, I sewed up two pieces of fabric this month. A tunic and a sack dress. I guess two pieces out is still two out. I don't think I bought any fabric this month although I've started looking at the emails... must stop!

 After much dithering, I decided to participate in Me-Made-May this year. I pledged to not stress out about taking photos every day or wear a certain number of handmade pieces. Instead I am going to wear whatever I want and keep records. Here's what I'll be tracking:

• number of wears
• how it makes me feel
• why I wore it
• how it functioned

After writing it down that actually doesn't look too complicated... what I will do with this data remains to be seen. Can you think of anything else that would be good to track? Are you participating in MMM?

Well I better get back to my final research paper... I keep telling myself I can sew summer dresses as soon as I finish it...

MMM Week 1 of 2014 and Surprise Pattern Sale

Hey MMMayer's! I made it through the first weeks and the photo documentation is below in all it's terrible keeping it real style. Links to better photos and garment details are in the dates below each photo. If you're already sick of all the MMM posts the sale details are at the end of the post.... See ya round, like a donut!

May 1st Top
May 2nd Dress
May 3rd Top

May 4th Skirt
Tunic

May 5th Top
Pants/Trousers

May 6th
Cake Espresso Leggings
Unseen Tunic

May 7th
same outfit as the 6th plus some amazing earrings you can't really see all
the cool details.

May 8th Long sleeve top apparently never blogged. Pretty basic

May 9th
Maxi Red Velvet

My Pre Camp Sale!
Before I head off into the wilds of Montana for the summer I wanted to purge some of my inventory, especially some of the fabrics... my car can only hold so much. :) MONDAY is going to be a huge PatternPatter Blitz, with world wide publicity and tons of patterns flooding the Etsy marketplace.
Before all of that happens I wanted to give my lovely blog readers a chance at my goodies early so I started my sale today! All the markdowns are already taken so all you have to do is fill your carts full of goodies so I can turn around and buy all those new patterns I'm loving from the MMM pool. :)
I hope you all have a lovely weekend! I'm going to try to finally finish the never ending jeans!

MMM 2014 and My Style

Make your pledge

 Be prepared sewing blogsphere! Me-Made-May is taking over! While I'm having a fabulous time visiting friends I couldn't miss out on signing up for my second year!

'I, EmSewCrazy from TumbleweedsInTheWind, sign up as a participant of Me-Made-May '14. I endeavour to wear at least one piece of handmade clothing each day for the duration of May 2014. I will use this month to test my handmade clothes and fill the gaps in my wardrobe before I leave for summer camp.'

I've also been pondering "my style silhouettes" as this month approaches and have come to some conclusions. All images are taken from this pinterest board. These photos aren't necessarily my favorite color schemes or details but they are the clearest representation I could find of these silhouettes.

This outfit probably encapsulates my style. Semi fitted top with a comfy swishy skirt in fun fabrics! I really love how they paired the stripes with a tiny polka dot.

Keeping with the fitted top, poofy bottom theme, I really love 50's - 60's style dresses! It's such a pretty and easy wearing silhouette.

 

TUNIC TOPS! I think we have discussed my love of these before but I realized these are my two favorite kinds to wear. Be they fitted and knitted, or flowy and fun, I love wearing some tunics over fitted trousers.

This is the new silhouette I discovered while on this journey. I like this long fluff style...

I've realized even though I'm tall and can wear a lot of different shapes, these are obviously what I gravitate towards and feel most comfortable in. It's also pretty obvious I love lace, along with pleats, pin tucks, fabulous appliqués and dramatic draping.

So how are you guys doing? Any MMM participants? How many years have you participated? Any amazing style revelations made lately?

Me Made May Final Roundup and Thoughts

Well its done! I completed my first Me Made May! I had pledged to wear at least one me-made garment every day and take daily photos.

May 26th African Wax Print Dress

May 27th Red Dot top again.

May 28th Pink Tira Test run

My 29th, Brown knit dress

May 30th, finished Tiramisu

May 31st New Stripe Top and a Fond Farewell.

As you can see I was able to complete my goals. It was a good challenge, one that gave me pause for thought yet didn't leave me crying in frustration halfway through. To keep myself from rambling, I'm going to pull out the trusty bullet points.

• I learned I don't wear my handmade garments as often as I thought I did. Granted this is a transitional time of year and I've only started sewing everyday garb last September so there are still plenty of holes that need filling. 
• I had accurately assessed what I need to make if I plan to wear me mades on a daily basis. Bring on the trousers and tops.
• The rest of the world wears dresses and skirts on a regular basis. I need to move there! Dresses are such an oddity here and that's probably mostly because of the way of life, but I'd still like to be able to pull on a dress and not be the weird one. But I'm always going to be a bit weird regardless of what I'm wearing so C'est la vie.
• I need to visit Britain and go tights shopping. Preferably red tights. Thick warm squishy tights. If your country has some or you know where to get them in the US let me know. 
• Daily photos! What an exercise in self esteem. I'm usually the one behind the camera and having to get in front of it every day was enlightening. The first two weeks I had to keep from tearing myself down every time I edited photos. The last two weeks were much more relaxed as I got more comfortable in front of the camera and realized a photo doesn't tell the whole story. You wonderful ladies of the flickr group helped tremendously with this by showing me all your beautiful faces being happy, sad or silly (HeatherB, I'm looking at you!).
• What a fabulous community to be a part of! I "met" so many amazing ladies of all ages and I can't wait to take my time going back through the Flickr pool and getting to know you better through your blogs. If I ever get Korean learned, I feel the need to start on Japanese next because those ladies have such classy style! How do they pull that off?

Well that's all the reasons I can remember at the moment... Thanks to Zoe and everyone else for a lovely experience!

Me-Made-May Week 4 Roundup

Oooh it's almost over... but I'm not going to talk about lessons I've learned just yet. Time to see what I wore last week.

May 19th, Vintage top pattern for the bodice and my own experiment with
pickups/tucks/bubble skirt thing...

May 20th, beautiful rain so I stayed inside to craft. My shirt and trousers are both me made.

May 21st, more rain, and three me mades. My shirt, which you can't see my knitted sweater and a very pilly knit skirt. 

May 22nd, My second knitted sweater which is perfect for the change of seasons. Still more rain so I'm working on a long sleeve tunic.

May 23rd, New TOP!! and sunshine. My memade cords as well.

May 24th, my favorite unphotographable 50s dress.

May 25th, Crazy top again. It was one of my first knit tops and I need to go back and fix the neckline. 

So there's a bit of my fabulousness. You can tell I've gotten less creative with my photos. But it's been either busy or dreary this past week so I haven't been able to take any photos worth playing with...

Me-Made-May Week 3 No, you're not getting a more creative title than that..

Wow! It's over half way over!! I had so much fun seeing everyone's sewing spaces for last THEME FRIDAY so I decided to show you mine this week.

May 12th, Proportion seemed to be Sunday's lesson. If the white skirt had been a tich longer I think I could have pulled it off. I LOVE this tunic. You can see more pics and the story of its birth here.

May 13th, Me Made Polka Dot top and messy cutting table!

May 14th Me Made Patchwork skirt. Haven't worn it in eons and forgot how fun it is!

May 15th my trusty machines and new thread rack. I went to they eye Dr. and got told I looked springy in this top. Always a good day when you get compliments from random strangers!

May 16th One of my first knit tops.  Love this fabric and think it's time to repurpose this shirt. I didn't know you need deeper hems on knits so just serged the edges and topstitched down. 1/4 in. seam allowances don't stay put in knits. It also wants to bunch up above my bust. Not sure what that's about...

May 17th, THEME FRIDAY's Hat
I did a service to us all by discovering why our stashes seem to grow! We have Fabric ELVES!!

Practicing my model face, (or really bright sun) This was what I actually wore for May 17th. To read about how much I love this dress, see here. I'm so pleased with this stashbusted piece! 

May 18th, my trusty vintage dress form that I'm learning to use. MeMade Purple and green top.

That's all I've got for today! Hope everyone has a great week! 

Stashbusters, stay tuned, I've got some busted stash to show you!! Hope knits month is going well for you all!

Me Made I Spy Week 2!

Welcome to Round Two of Me-Made-May and Emily's I Spy Challenge! I think God knew what He was doing when He said to rest one day a week. I try to stay off the computer on Sundays and I'm always ready to go Monday morning! So good morning ya all! Now on to the clothes!

May 5th, This is one amazing silhouette on me! I made this dress in high school and it was one of the first
projects where I nailed fit. Unfortunately I've grown a bit since then and it's a bit uncomfortable for
prolonged wear. I think this needs to move on to another's closet. The store bought jacket always was too small
and I think my skills have grown enough to where I am ready to tackle jackets.

May 6th, this top has become my casual go to top! I love
how the bright colors perk up my attitude. The trousers
need to be made up in something other than corduroy
since it finally decided to get warm around here.

May 7th, a work from home day in all me mades! Found out this old skirt has a hole. I think it's time for repair or a refashion...

Closeup of the top neckline. For full post see here.

May 8th, Rainbow day?? Another work from home day trying out my new green pants. The jury's still out on these.
The turquoise shrug is half finished. I'm trying to decide whether to leave the sleeves open or add cuffs to trap warmth.
Any thoughts?

May 9th, Me made pink top and earrings. Love the style of this top. Need to make more! Also, don't take pics while
watching Once Upon A Time. You'll be too busy watching Bae fight the shadow and confess his love to Emma to
notice your pics aren't turning out correctly.

May 10th, Theme Friday was our sewing space which was fun since it was our local sewing day. Wearing my green pants again with a me made top. The top is going to hit the road. You can't see it in the pics but the neckline flaps all over the place IRL and while I like sleeveless dresses I don't like sleeveless shirts.

May 11th, wearing my tiramisu again. Love how easy it is to wear.

So far Me Made May is showing me I need to do some mending on old favorites and some things need to go. Nothing like a good closet cull. Can you find what is hidden in May 5th, 7th, 9th and 11th but not in the 6th, 8th or 10th?
What has MMM been teaching you?