Me Made May Musings

Hellooo fellow plus size sewists! I’m Dayle aka @daisysewcrazy from Sydney Australia, and I’m just a little bit obsessed with sewing. I love to sew, and when I don’t have time to sew, you can bet that I am thinking about sewing.

I stumbled across MMM 4 years ago, when returning to sewing after quite a long hiatus. My participation was initially mainly as an observer, and then gradually building to a fully fledged card carrying member of the MMM juggernaut last year. That first year I joined in, I had barely any me made items in my wardrobe, so I devised my own version of MMM, aiming to make and wear one me made item per week in May. My me made wardrobe and sewing confidence continued to grow, and last year I participated fully by wearing at least one me made item each day during May. I chose to document my MMM in a couple of ways.

MMMay2019

Firstly, I took daily photos of my MMM outfits and posted them to Instagram. I find this is a great resource for me – to see what I actually wore, how I wore it and to help assess my feelings about what I wore. I love seeing when others do this too. My wardrobe is pretty casual, as I’ve worked from home for over a decade, so my makes are mainly everyday clothes which are comfortable and suit my lifestyle. I’m fond of pants and a top/cardi combo. I don’t wear many dresses, but there are a few in my wardrobe. Interestingly, none got an airing in MMM 2019. I live in the Southern Hemisphere, so May is late autumn and the weather usually starts to cool down by the end of May.

Secondly, I used a fabulous tool which greatly helped in planning what to wear and assessing what I had in each clothing category. This ‘Outfit Tracker’ excel spreadsheet was created by a lovely IG sewist who was willing to share it with others. (Unfortunately I cannot for the life of me find who that was now. Please know that your spreadsheet was invaluable to me for MMM but also for planning my spring capsule wardrobe! Edited to add the spreadsheet was provided by @Kalliesews – thanks a bunch Kallie).

Here’s a peek at some of last year’s MMM wardrobe pairings:

There were two sheets in the file. On one sheet (‘Clothing List’), all of the items in my wardrobe were listed by category – top, cardigan, pants, etc. The main sheet as shown above then uses dropdown boxes to select items from the clothing list, to record what I wore each day. I should clarify that only items I was likely to wear in May were listed, not the entire contents of all 4 seasons in my wardrobe! You can see for example that on day 1, I wore a gingham shirt no 1 with a merino driftless cardigan and ready to wear (RTW) pants, on day 2 I wore a Japanese top pattern made from a doona cover and denim robbie pants, and so on. I’m an accountant by day and a bit of a spreadsheet nerd, so this kind of record keeping really appealed to me.

Over the course of the month, I wore me made pants on all but 5 days, me made tops/jackets/cardigans on all but 2 days, and some days I even managed 3 me made items! I didn’t take photos of my outfits on 2 days, but still logged them in my spreadsheet. The spreadsheet helped highlight that I have a few wardrobe orphans, something I want to work on this year, to ensure that I have more flexible, mix and match pieces. The photos helped me easily see that a few more jackets, cardigans and sweaters were wardrobe gaps to fill.

My plans for MMM2020?

Well, to wear me mades every day, to log them in my tracker spreadsheet and to document them photographically. I’m leaning toward a daily post to stories and a weekly round up on my feed, but who knows?  I’m going to use this time to find those wardrobe gaps to help me better plan future makes. And I’m sure MMM will also highlight those wardrobe items that don’t work for me anymore, which I can either refashion or donate.

I think MMM should be whatever you want it to be – personalise it to suit YOU: a daily wardrobe challenge, a chance to reassess items hiding in the dark recesses of your closet, an incentive to finish those UFO’s, encouragement to embrace your makes, a chance to perhaps try styling them differently to maximise their wear, or an opportunity to find inspiration from others. Choose to record it whatever way you want, or don’t record it, but I hope that you enjoy the month long celebration of garment sewing.

I know I can’t wait for MMM to start!