Me Made May 2019- looking ahead

It’s almost the start of May, and I’ve decided to think through my pledge with you. I’ve taken part a few times in the past, and found it really helpful for clarifying my future plans.

I’m pretty sure this Oslo Cardigan is going to feature quite a bit!

I already wear handmade clothing most days, except the three days which I wear a uniform to work. For the challenge to be useful I think I need so do something a little new. In terms of sustainability and making good use of all of my wardrobe, I would like to think about the combinations in which I wear both my handmade and ready to wear clothes. I want to see where the gaps are- which things I wear all the time and are wearing out, which are great, but don’t fit as well as I would like and need adjusting, which just don’t suit my style now and never make it into regular rotation.

I’m hoping that the weather is friendly and lets me wear a few of my summer makes– I’ve been missing them!

So my pledge for this year: To wear a unique combination of my current wardrobe each day, except where I am required to wear my uniform. I’m also going to keep track of where the gaps are, and what I might need to do to fill them, whether it is looking out for something in the charity shop, or sewing it up later in the year. If there are things that don’t get worn at all, I want to think about why, and consider modifying, remaking, or clearing out those things that don’t work for me any more.

It’s also a great opportunity to wear some makes from a couple of years ago, like this Agnes/Moneta hack

I’m not going to worry about photographing or documenting each day, but I might share any new combinations that I discover and really love! Good luck to any of you that are also taking part, and if you want to know more about the challenge, I recommend that you visit Zoe’s blog here.

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Honeydew Hoodie

The last few months I have been off to a flying start with my make 9 plans, so I decided to keep that going by sewing up this Honeydew Hoodie for Toby. He is growing so fast at the moment and has already grown out of the Dandelion Dungarees I made him before Christmas so it seemed like a good time to make him something new.

Like the dungarees, this is designed to be a reversible pattern so I needed to choose two co-ordinating fabrics in a similar weight. It seemed like a good time to use up the remnants from my Oslo cardigan, and I chose this grey, black and red camper van print for the contrast. Both have the same grey and black colourway so I thought that they would look cute peaking out from the cuffs and hood.

I decided to go for the 12-18 month size to give some growing room. Toby often seems to have shorter arms than things are designed for, but because the cuffs are designed to be turned back to show the reverse I thought that he could just grow into them when he is ready.

In the midst of the creation of my Taylor Trench, I fancied a quick win, which is why I paused it to work on this for a few days. It was very quick and easy. Just 4 pattern pieces so both quick to cut and simple to sew.

I’m still not certain that my snap setting is perfect. They sometimes feel a bit delicate, so I think I need to reinforce the jersey a little more in future. These star snaps are pretty cool though. They just have plain circles on the reverse to go with the printed fabric side.

Doesn’t he look cute. He is growing so fast, and moving quickly too which did make our photo shoot a bit tricky!

This gets me to between a third and halfway through my make 9, so pretty good for the first 4 months of the year. See my Oslo Cardigan and Virginia Leggings for my other completed projects, and I’m part way through sewing up another at the moment.

Life Lately…

So I have been a little more absent from this blog than I had hoped the last couple of weeks. I’ve just been very tired, and it has really hit my motivation to sew. Fortunately, it looks like change is in the air, and my sewjo is returning this week. I’ve been busy cutting out and preparing a few projects, tracing off a pattern, and yesterday I actually sat down at the machine to sew for the first time in about a month!

I’ve even been out to the park to take some pictures of something which I finished a month or so ago. Hopefully I will get to sorting and editing this week so that I can share it next weekend.

I haven’t been completely away from crafting though. I have cast on a new knitting project, this time with a few new stitches to learn, and some lace patterning. It has been quite a therapeutic way to spend some of the evening, and I do really like to have my hands busy if we are sat watching TV, so it is a good solution for that.

So hopefully, dispute my absence things are ticking along. I still have some work to do on my Trench Coat, but that might wait a few weeks until I settle back into the routine of sewing. I think I might need a couple of easy wins to ease back in first!