Month: April 2019

My personal Me Made May 2019 Challenge

This year I’ll be taking part in Me Made May for the fourth year running.

Me Made May 2019 button

Last year’s participation was sporadic (or at least, the documentation was) because little Lauren arrived on the 6th of May. This year, though, I reckon I can manage to get outfit pictures every day. I know that’s not mandatory, but I do love seeing all the pics at the end and I think they’ll really help me with this year’s personal challenge. Here’s what I’m going for:

‘I, Anna-Jo, sign up as a participant of Me-Made-May 2019. I endeavour to wear at least one me-made garment every day during May 2019. Furthermore, I will endeavour to wear each item in at least three different combinations to give different looks and silhouettes. I will also be making up a list of key items I could sew that would enable me to make more successful outfits from my me-mades.’ 

My main goal is to get more outfit ideas as well as to be able to plan my sewing to make my wardrobe work better. I’m definitely developing a more cohesive style and smaller, but more curated, wardrobe, which makes me  happy.

As well as the above I’m going to use Me Made May to encourage me to finish my current knitting project, Andi Satterlund’s Waters Tee. I’ve finished the hip increases so only have a few rows, the cuffs and all those ends to weave away… I’d really like it if I could be wearing it by the end of the month, but weaving away the ends is going to be a killer!

Finally, I want to make time to go through all my mending and alterations pile. This has got out of hand as family members keep giving me their old clothes saying I could make something out of them. I need to go through everything and work out if I’m going to spend the time to repair/alter it, or harvest the fabric, or send it to a charity shop, or if in fact all it’s good for is cleaning rags. Hopefully there are a few me-mades I can get back into rotation with some alterations.

Then I need to put in place a robust system so I don’t end up drowning in a pile of old clothes again. This isn’t the first time it’s happened!

Anyone else doing Me Made May? What are your goals? Please link to any posts about them so I can take a gander 🙂

Also, anyone else find they keep being given old clothes by friends and family? What do you do with them?

 

The Hoodless Hoodie – my latest Minerva Blogger Network make (Burda Style 6847)

My latest make, Burda Style 6847 (affiliate link) is now up on the Minerva Blogger Network. It’s a casual sweatshirt jacket, and it’s probably one of my favourite makes ever! You can find out all the details of sewing it up over on the Minerva Blog.

Burda 6847 knit jacket

I first saw this pattern on Dr T’s blog when she posted a huge list of patterns suitable for the Dramatic Classic Kibbe type. Without wanting to go into all the theory behind Kibbe and why I think I’m a Dramatic Classic (that’s for another post, at some point soon), the key things Kibbe says about jackets for this type is that they “should be crisp and tailored, with sharp shoulders and elongated line. If unconstructed, they should be very narrow and fall below the break of the hip.” Continue reading “The Hoodless Hoodie – my latest Minerva Blogger Network make (Burda Style 6847)”

Make Nine 2019

Although I didn’t manage to make much on my Make Nine list for 2018, I found it a really helpful planning prompt and did really well with it the year before, so I’m going with it again this year. Which is already three months gone. Ah well. That’s one garment a month for the rest of the year. I reckon I can do that!

Pinafore Dress:

Continue reading “Make Nine 2019”

My #2018MakeNine – how did I do?

Okay, this is a bit late in the year (what, it’s April already?!), but hey, better late than never. So, how did I do with my 2018 Make Nine plans?

Honestly? I didn’t do well with them, but I can see now that they were way too ambitious with another baby in the picture. Here’s the final grid:

Make Nine 2018 results

Yep, I made the Jalie 3131 nursing bra (as yet unblogged) which was a huge success as it’s really comfortable and I wear it loads, although I freely admit it’s probably not the most flattering silhouette, having a sports bra flattening kind of effect.

I also made (and blogged here!) the dressing gown, eventually going with a Vogue pattern (V8888) that was very like the Suki in terms of design, but had the advantage of coming in paper as I really didn’t need to be assembling such a huge pdf.

Other than that I have started and am about 3/4 of the way through my knitted top. I eventually went with Andi Satterlunds Waters top, knitting it in a fine linen yarn in deep plum and cream. I’m hoping to have it finished soon as I’m on the hip increase section (it’s top down), although I’m really not looking forward to weaving in all those ends!

So, that’s only (almost) three of my patterns made, but I’m good with that. I made other stuff too. Some of it might even get blogged soon. Watch this space!

Coming up next: my Make Nine plans for 2019…

The Knot Your Average Top

Okay, this is the last of my catch-up links to Minerva projects I’ve made over the last few months. Phew, now I can start writing posts about all the other things I’ve made and haven’t yet blogged!

Knot Your Average Shirt 5 out of 4 patterns

This is the Knot Your Average Shirt and Dress from 5 out of 4 Patterns and I first made it as a dress a couple of years ago as it’s one of those cunning concealed breastfeeding access patterns. You can find my full Minerva write-up of this top version here: https://www.minerva.com/posts/1005856

I really love wearing this top and I think that’s down to two main reasons. Continue reading “The Knot Your Average Top”

The Spotty Cowl Top

Daydream Patterns Sophia nursing top

This is one of those “whoops, I thought I’d already posted this” posts! Yep, finally sharing February’s Minerva Blogger Network post over here. You can find it at: https://www.minerva.com/posts/1005905

I have to admit, this is not one of my most successful makes and it’s currently in my wadder pile, hopefully to be harvested for fabric to make something more “me”. It’s not the fault of the pattern, which was really well written and fun to make. It’s not the fault of the fabric, which although a polyester (boo!) jersey is really comfortable and pleasant to wear. Continue reading “The Spotty Cowl Top”