Me Made May: Week 1

Thursday May 1st: I wore my new poly paisley sleeveless button up shirt, grey Hollyburn skirt, and a hand knit sweater (though it was only for the morning commute; I wore my office sweater at the office and the afternoon was so nice no sweater was necessary).

Friday May 2nd: I wanted to prove that I'm still using my Duathlon capris for running.  These are my new favorite running pants, especially as it gets warmer and I don't need a jacket for running.  The pockets are just the right size to securely hold my iPhone in place.  I ran 3+ miles with my phone in my pocket and it didn't once feel in danger of falling!

My real outfit for the day: I took a sick day to go to (soooo many) doctor's appointments.  It was still kind of nice, so we hit up the playground too.  I wore my Thurlow blue jeans (as yet unblogged), my me-made yellow cardi, and I'm even rocking some me-made So Zo undies (also unblogged).  I made 4 pairs of these undies a little while back and I love them all!  I definitely need to make some more.

Saturday May 3rd: I wore my blue jean Thurlows again (don't judge me please) and a tee I made ages ago.  I love this shirt, even if the neckline is a little stretched out.  I wonder if I could sew on some clear elastic around the shoulders to snap things back into place....

And there you have it; week one completed (albeit a short week).  I'm trying to think more about what I need clothing wise, as opposed to what I want to sew.  It turns out that most of the dresses I made last year don't really fit anymore (which means I've lost a little weight).  This is especially exciting as it means I really need to sew some pretty new dresses.  After all, a wardrobe with all cake and no frosting is almost as bad as one that's all frosting and no cake, right?  Somehow neither of those scenarios really sounds bad, though...

Me Made May 2014

Well, it's that time of year... time for

I swear I've been thinking about this for ages.  For those of you who don't know, you can read all about Me Made May here.  Basically, though, you make a pledge to wear items made by you however often you like (so once a week, every day, or all handmade all the time - it's your challenge!) and then you basically follow along with the rest of the online sewing community while keeping your pledge.  Photographic evidence isn't mandatory, but it is more fun ;-)

I'm to a point now where I do wear a lot of handmade clothes, but still not necessarily every day.  What I would really like to do this Me Made May is pull out some old hand made clothes that don't see as much wear as I'd like.  I'm specifically thinking of a few hand knit sweaters (which it's just about the season for) and some dresses/skirts.  Since I started making pants, there's been a lot of pants wearing around these parts.  I hate to admit it, but I've been wearing pretty much the same things on the same days all the time.  Me Made May should be a good time to shake it up, since I can look back at last week's photos and make sure I'm not wearing the same outfits all over again.

This Me Made May I want to make sure I get some of those beloved pieces out of storage and into rotation, shake up the portion of my wardrobe that I actually wear, and hopefully even catch up on blogging some of my me made clothes.  So, without further ado:

 'I, Nicole of Reloved, sign up as a participant of Me-Made-May '14. I endeavour to wear at least one handmade item each day for the duration of May 2014, and at least one skirt/dress and one me made sweater per week' 

I can't quite figure out how to phrase it in my pledge, so I'll just tack it on here.  I will not be allowed any outfit repeats per two week period.  So basically if I wore it last week, it's not happening this week!

So have you jumped on the Me Made May crazy train yet?

Me Made May: The final week

Otherwise known as "The week where things get silly / get collaged / go to pot"

Yes, I know it's mid-June.  And I'm okay with that.  Let's just move on.

Saturday (or Sunday?) I pulled out the warm Endpaper Sweater.  While I'm always happy to wear my awesome handknit sweaters, I'm a little disappointed that I had to pull this sweater out at the end of May.  Warm up already, Seattle!

Sunday I wore my Paisley Darling Ranges top... the one with sleeves.  It makes me smile that I have to be more specific than the original title now.  Paisley FTW!!

Monday was a holiday and the family headed out for a little daycation (can you say cheese?) to Bainbridge Island.  It's a thirty minute ferry ride away and there's a children's museum, a beach (of sorts), and Churchmouse Yarns and Teas which <sniff> I did not get to visit.  But it doesn't matter because we had an awesome day.

So awesome, in fact, I made a collage just of the kids being cute... and wearing made-by-me pants (the boy) and made-by-me groovy shirt and knitted hoodie vest (baby girl).  As you can see lots of fun was had by all.  I think it's worth noting that I don't normally wear dresses on the weekends but I was super comfy all day and my pants didn't get wet in the rain.  I know it's not raining in any of these pictures but it did a fair bit of it on and off throughout the day.  The one complaint I can think of is that the ferry on the way home was a bit windy (sorry innocent bystanders!) but the kids liked sitting inside watching the water go by anyway.  They didn't like being out in the wind either.

Tuesday and it's back to business.  The ubiquitous pink skirt again.  As a matter of fact the same outfit as I've worn most of the Tuesdays this month.  Yawn.

Ahh!  Some variety.  Wednesday I wore my new (at the time) wrap skirt.  This is a refashion and as soon as I can get some better pictures it will get it's own post (though I'm not sure it really deserves a whole post, simple as it is.  It's a great basic piece, though, so don't think I don't love it.

Wednesday there were lots of me-mades making the rounds.  I wore my reloved mullet skirt with my reloved periwinkle tie tee.  Sense a theme here?  A whole reloved outfit!  Yay! (You'll just have t imagine the  excited kermit arms).  But wait, there's more!  The boy has decided he likes his Shakespeare shirt and has started wearing it all the time.  When I first made it he would cry if it even came near him.  He's also wearing his Little Heartbreakin' Khakis.  I love those pants; they make him look like such a little gentleman... until he rolls around in the dirt and gets grass stains all over them of course. 

Friday I wore the other paisley Darling Ranges top.  Haha!  Nice.  What happened to Thursday you might wonder?  Well, I wore a me-made dress which I haven't blogged yet (though you have seen it earlier this month).  My plan (because I am nothing if not a plan-monger) is to put up a whole post about it next week with pictures taken the Thursday in question so I'm saving all the good shots for that.

What can we take away from this, my first, Me Made May?  Well, I can be counted on to make, to wear, but not necessarily to follow through with the blogging.  It has certainly prompted me to think about the most glaring holes in my me-made wardrobe.  I do wonder how feasible it is for me to work full time, sew, knit, run (inspired by Winnie of Scruffy Badger I'm starting to run), spend time with my kids, and also blog about it all.  Also, my camera is broken as I may have mentioned and all photos from here on out are iPhone.  Since I only used my camera for the self timer pictures I'm not really anxious to replace it.  What does this mean for this little old blog of mine?  Well, I'm going to try something new.  Quick and dirty blogging.  The pictures may get silly (bringing another person into the photography makes me feel awkward, and when I feel awkward I make strange faces and poses), the posts probably won't be edited for grammar, brevity, or even silliness.  Will you continue to read?  Are you reading anyway?  I don't know.  But we'll just see how this works out.

Me Made May: Week 4

I don't even know.  Is it week four?  It could be.  Anyway the days look pretty much the same regardless so here it goes.

Saturday May 18th I wore one of the maternity tops I made from the Darling Ranges pattern.  I threw in some darts at one point to take out some of the extra poof and while it's far from perfect no one asked me if I was pregnant so I'll call it a win.  I also made that sweater, and will blog it someday if I ever actually finish it.

Sunday May 19th I wore my pink tee, yellow sweater, and new to me thrifted cords.  Whenever I wear all light colored clothes I walk around all day saying "I'm goin' on safari motherfiretrucker."  Well... something like that anyway.  Bonus points if anybody actually gets that reference.

Monday May 20th I wore my mullet skirt and purple tee.  You've seen both of these a few times so this picture is less descriptive and more demonstrative.  Look how twirly =D

Tuesday May 21st I wore the pink knit skirt again.  I clearly need another one of these in a different color.  Or the same color, whatever.  This is the exact same outfit I wore last Tuesday when I failed to get a picture, so ha!  Note the rain boots.  We're having some crazy spring weather around these parts.  It starts out rainy and ends up 70 degrees and sunny, or vice versa.  It makes it really hard to dress for the weather.

Wednesday May 21st I wore the mystery dress again but finally managed to get some (marginally) better pictures so hopefully there'll be a whole blog post about it soon.  As a side note the boy is wearing a shirt I made him with some random Asian lettering on it.  This was far from the best picture of the dress, but how funny is it?  I'm trying to pose and he's got that angry point going.

Thursday May 23rd.  I refuse to apologize for this one.  Mine was the first to grow up in the MySpace age but somewhere between MySpace and Twitter these photos became tolerated acceptable.  Ahh the great things the internet has given us.  Anyway, I'm wearing my chevron skirt at the very end of a loong day.  That coffee cup is not from today and will be meeting the rest of the garbage tomorrow morning.  Promise

Friday May 24th I wore my new sleeveless DR again, and I was glad I did since it broke 70 in the afternoon (albeit briefly).  What an awful picture but here it is.  I like to let the grass grow wild like this because I'm lazy it makes me feel like I'm in the jungle when I get out of the car.

And there you have it.  Doing Me Made May this year has given me a lot of things to think about.  Why do I make things and what do I really want to make?  And how can I go about it being as green as possible?  

I started typing out some more thoughts on the subject but it was getting pretty long (and heavy) so I might just save it for a random post.  Hope everybody is getting into the spirit of Me Made May!

Me Made May - Week 3

Let's see.... Where'd we leave off?  

May 11th - Saturday & May 12th - Sunday

So... most of the day Saturday I wore the purple tee, but I failed to get a picture.  After my shower I put on my bleach stain shirt for the short time before I went to bed just to get the pic.  However, I woke up and put the same shirt on Sunday morning (don't pretend like you don't ever do that) for cleaning, gardening, and generally puttering around.  By the way my iPhone takes totally decent pictures, just not with the self timer app I downloaded.  WTF is this pic so blurry?!

May 13 - Monday

Monday I wore the bow tie tee again.  This shirt is so comfy while still being work appropriate (enough).  I think I really need another one (or two) of these.

May 14 - Tuesday

This cake is a lie.  I wore this skirt, but with a different (non-me-made) top.  I got picked up from work and we went down to Portland for the night, so things were pretty hectic.  Too hectic to remember to snap a pic apparently.  By the way, this is totally not my house.  If the owner should happen upon this pic: cut your grass and people won't think your house is abandoned and take random outfit pictures in front of it.

May 15 - Wednesday

Believe it or not this is the best I ended up with out of a series of pictures.  I wore the purple tee again.  I really need more tee shirts apparently.  As a side note you can kinda see the boy is wearing his Luka hoodie.  He's lived in that thing all winter; it's actually his favorite jacket.  He always picks it out himself.  I definitely foresee making another one of these as soon as he outgrows this one.

May 16 - Thursday

Back to life as usual.  I wore the mullet skirt again.  The more I wear this skirt the more I like it... What's next?  Mint?  Peplums?  We'll see....

May 17 - Friday

Just a teaser photo for today.  I'm wearing my new shirt and want to "reveal" it in a legitimate blog post.  Remember those?  Back when I actually blogged about stuff I made?  Haha just kidding, I don't think I ever did that :-P

We're over half way through May and, while I've managed to wear at least one me-made item every day I haven't succeeded in photographing every day.  I could (and honestly do) blame this on the death of my camera, but I won't bore you any longer.

Me Made May: Week 2

May 4th

Saturday I wore my pink sheet tee shirt and a reloved dress-turned-skirt, so this whole outfit is reloved.  We went to the beach and despite the steady 30 mph winds on the massive flight of stairs I managed to not even flash anybody (I'm pretty sure).  I also discovered my camera is broken, so I apologize in advance for all the crappy iPhone pics you'll be seeing around here for the next little bit.

May 5th

Sunday I wore my bleach stained decorated tee shirt and a pair of capris-turned-shorts (that feels like a cop out, can I even count those?) to clean the house.  I mopped, I cleaned the bathroom.  And even though I let you guys see my pajamas there is no way I'm posting pictures of me in this outfit on the interwebz.  You're welcome.  As a consolation prize here are some pics of the kids in me made clothes.

May 6th

Monday I wore my Vintage Modern Darling (I hear brown and white are very on trend right now, which means my whole wardrobe is in style for the next five minutes!) with my bright yellow sweater.  Since I failed to get pictures in the morning and it was 80 degrees there are no pictures of the whole ensemble.

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May 7th

Tuesday I wore a dress you have not seen yet.  And I took really sketchy photos because I suck at this already  I want to keep it under wraps until it gets it's own proper photo shoot.  The shrug/bolero thing is from the thrift.  It has beaded embroidered flowers.

May 8th

Wednesday I wore two me mades: my new pink knit A-line skirt and my Darling Ranges top.  Once again, both reloved! Bazinga  Doing this I'm realizing how much stuff I've made from thrifted and gifted goods.  Now that I know that shirt fits I love it!  It's pretty much my new fave =D

May 9th 

Thursday I wore my houndstooth skirt.  There's also a black slip under there which is me-made (and, aherm, hanging out a bit cuz it's obviously too long for most of my skirts)... but that's about it for today.  The shirt is from the thrift shop.  There was very briefly a me-made sweater involved, but it didn't make the photos.  It's been heatin' up like crazy round these parts.

May 10th 

Friday I wore a UFO.... Or possibly just an epic fail, it's really hard to say.  I've been obsessed with making some button up shirts with collars for work and this is attempt numero uno at one: there's a collar stand and everything.  I promise I'll try and get some better/more pictures to explain.  As a side note, I wanted to show you a little more of my day so here I am in front of Safecoo Field on my lunch break (I didn't go to the arena, though, just the store to buy candy).  I would've taken another pic or two trying to get a better shot but I had to balance my phone on some stranger's car to take this photo and I didn't fancy trying my luck.  Try explaining that one!

I'm not deformed, just crouching down so you can actually see me!  I like this idea, though, so it's fully possible you'll be seeing lots more weirdly awkward/phone balanced on random objects pictures.

And week two is DONE.  Like.a.boss. We should do this every month!  It's ever so much fun =D

Me Made May (partial) Week I Roundup

May 1st

For day 1 I wanted to go (sort of) all out.  I wore my chevron skirt and this refashioned purple tee.  Not very business, I realize, but my office errs a bit more on the casual side.  I did wear a blazer, if that makes it better.

May 2nd

I took out the refashioned mullet skirt (refashions are fair game round these parts) for a spin and you know what?  It's twirly and fun... and basically puts all kinds of mullet skirt ideas into my head.  More kool-aid plz!!

May 3rd

Today was the best day of the week for the simple reason that I found out this darling button up actually (mostly) fits now!  It's a little too long and/or too tight to stick my phone in my back pocket, though.  I think it will work better with skirts...  It was also (finally) warm and dry enough in the morning to forego my usual warm hoodie and wear this sweater.  Cheerful!  Today was actually a challenge.  I had no idea what was clean that I could wear with my pants (Friday = yoga day at my office so no skirts).  I think this is an early sign that I need more work-appropriate spring tops.  No worries, though, I've got one almost done, one ready to be refashioned, and a few more in the queue.

 Three days in and so far so good!