It’s that time of the year again; the Christmas of the sewing and hand-made wardrobe world. Yep, it’s #MeMadeMay! The yearly opportunity/challenge/internet gathering where sewists from around the world commit to wearing what they’ve sewn.

I can’t remember the first time I took part, but over the years my pledge to “wear me-made items” in the month of May has been stuck at around three garments a week.

It doesn’t seem that many but it was a stretch. The weather can be unpredictable in May and the majority of my self-sewn items are dresses.

But over the years I’ve added some more practical items – my first pair of trousers, a sweatshirt, a great oversized top etc – as well as a few more dresses *cough*.

I’ve also started to sew my own underwear again, after a long hiatus. In fact, a good 40% or more of my underwear and night-wear drawer has been made with these fair hands *waves said hands at you*.

So, I’m stepping it up this year. I haven’t sat down and thought about exact HOW I’m going to do this, but here’s my pledge;

I, Anya @justsewcreative, sign up as a participant of Me-Made-May 2019. I endeavour to wear something me-made every day (underwear counts, right?), to complete my one outstanding UFO (a gold pleather jacket – the main pieces have been cut out for over year!) AND to catch up on my sewing-blogging backlog during May 2019 🙂

It’s not a ground-breaking pledge. There are some days when my #MeMade will be invisible to the outside world (ie, thank you Madalynne and Amy at Cloth Habit for your brilliant FREE Barrett bralette and Watson bra set respectively!)

I’m also taking the advice of  Sew Liberated‘s Meg McElwee when she says in her latest newsletter,

Me Made May is right around the corner – that social media challenge that encourages us to wear something hand made every day for the entire month. Perhaps, we reason, if we make five or six items by hand, we will experience the empowerment that comes with clothing ourselves, and look cute while feeling capable and crafty. A noble half-truth.

 

Cue the handmade frenzy.

 

It’s never worth it to binge sew for the sake of an Instagram challenge, friends. Three years ago, after taking a long sewing sabbatical while parenting through difficult times, I had one homemade dress that still fit. I figured out a few different ways to wear it that month. And that was all I could do.

Don’t add stress to your own plate. There’s plenty that life dishes up of its own accord without you piling it on unnecessarily.

*STANDING OVATION*

(I’m planning to sew up a jacket that I’ve already cut out, even though there are about a DOZEN new things I want to sew right now as usual, SIGH)

The biggest part of my challenge is actually gonna be the bit where I commit to blogging about the things I’ve made but haven’t shared yet.

I dug out my old digital camera (remember when we all had one of those, instead of using our PHONES??), and scrolled through its memory card and the back-up of my phone’s camera. I have, uh, almost THIRTY things to write about??

I mean seriously SHEEZ, how in the hell did THAT happen?

(Maybe I’ve been sewing an item a month for the past two years, the very same two years where I HAVEN’T been conscientiously recording my sewing adventures here?)

So there we go. #MeMadeMay2019 is GO.

Are you taking part?