Me Made May 2016 Roundup

Me Made May 2016 is an annual institution amongst home sewists, with Zoe of So Zo What Do You Know at the helm. This was my second year participating, but my pledge was the same as last year, to wear at least two me made items each day for the month of May.

Each day I wore a me made bra, and sometimes me made undies as well. That left a minimum of one me made item to wear each day. Links to all me-mades except underwear are in the round up below.

Stashbusting 2015: A Year in Review

So, another year has come to an end for the Stashbusting Sewalong.  To recap, my pledge for this year's Sewalong was

"I, Andrea, of Obsessive Creativeness, pledge to end the year with no more fabric in my personal stash than I started with"

So, I was aiming for a breakeven position with my stash. I made myself a little spreadsheet to track incoming and outgoing, and printed out some pages so I could just grab my folder and write everything down as it happened, without needing to wait until I had the computer on.

This year for stashbusting, we had guest hosts for each month, and I hosted May with the theme of lingerie. I tried my hardest to sew at least one item each month that was on theme, but for most months that had school holidays I wasn't always able to do this.

My totals for the year were

Fabric intake ........ 56.2 m
Outgoings ............ 58.49 m

White Linen Bamboo Shoot Top

It was only after finishing my broderie anglaise top that I realised that I actually made something n theme for the Stashbusting Sewalong this month. As is this top. The theme is "Outerwear / Seasonal Change", so both tops qualify as new tops for summer! This is actually my second attempt at making the bamboo shoot top from Pattern Magic. I tried to make one once before, using white cotton poplin, but thought I could do the front in one piece, extending to the hip. It turns out that I couldn't.

I'm kind of glad that I left trying it out again, as not only do I now I have a better starting point with the block that I've been working on to fit me better, but I discovered that I have enough white linen in the stash which will made up much better than the cotton poplin would have.

Me Made May 2015 Round Up - Part II

For those who have come in part way through the Me-Made-Month of May, you can find the first half of the month's outfits here, with a bit of my rambling. So if you haven't read that yet, I recommend doing so now. I'll wait for you to come back! Continuing on, here are the outfits that I wore for the second half of the month.

May 16 - 19

Me Made May 2015 Round Up - Part I

May has been quite a busy month so far for me, with hosting the Stashbusting Sewalong, getting through work sewing, taking daily photos for MMM, and trying to fit in some sewing for myself. You may remember that my pledge for my inaugural Me-Made-May was to wear at least two me-made items of clothing every day during the month of May. Not such a challenge in itself, as that only equates to a bra and one other item. After looking at a few of my photos though, I decided to extend my challenge, to not wear the exact same outfit more than once during May.

The weather in Sydney during May tends to be starting the downward slide into winter. We started the month with a few rainy days, followed by a few warmer days before winter kicked into gear again. I've given you the weather highlights to go with my outfits. So far, so good. No duplicate outfits.

I have listed only the clothes for each day that I made. Where applicable, I have linked to the relevant blog post, or one that has better photos of the item. I had half this post written when I accidentally deleted the entire post (don't ask!), so I'm not sure what bra I was wearing every day, not that it really matters, so if I have just written "bra" without a link, that's why. I also decided after that incident, it might be safer to publish the first half of the post, and finish up the month after the end of May. Hence why this post is Part I.

May 1 - 5

I'm participating in Me Made May 2015!

For the first time, this year I thought I would participate in Me Made May.

I'm going to keep it pretty low key, I hope to try and take a photo of my outfits every day, but am already expecting that they will all be blurry, so I'll save them all up to show you at the end of May.

My pledge is as follows:

I, Andrea of www.obsessivecreativeness.blogspot.com.au, sign up as a participant of Me-Made-May '15. I endeavour to wear at least two me-made garments each day for the duration of May 2015.

I have hesitated to participate in previous year, mainly because the weather in Sydney is so changeable during May. I have a stack more me-made clothes in my summer wardrobe than I do for winter, and it is usually getting quite chilly in May Last year, however, our summer weather decided to extend right up to the end of May, making me wonder why I hadn't signed up for Me-Made May.

So this year I decided to take the plunge. I have a few more winter clothes ready to go, and of course, I know I have a sufficient supply of bras to wear every day. I'm in! Who else is joining me?

Yohji Yamamoto jacket

This month's stashbusting sewalong theme is using patterns that you already have. Given that I make most of my patterns, I couldn't think of anything that I would be able to sew on theme this month. Until I remembered a PDF pattern that I had printed out last year, and abandoned when I realised the pattern would need more work to line up properly. Too much effort when you already have real work to do!! I can't remember who it was, but a member of the stashbusting group last year made this jacket and posted it to the Stashbusting Facebook group, and I was inspired enough at the time to download the pattern. That turned out well for me though, as it gave me a stash pattern to use this month.

Stashbusting Sewalong: February theme "Let's Talk About Love"

For my February themed stashbust, I have once again made a dress for my daughter. Remember this dress that I made for her last February? This new dress is the first one that I have made for her since then. (I know, slack mummy). It is a twist front bodice dress with full circle skirt.

The fabric that I used I bought last year specifically to make a dress for her. I even justified it to myself as not adding to my stash because it wasn't for me. It was an absolute bargain though. From memory it was $5 per metre. Well, everything is fair game this year, and if the fabric was already in my house at the start of the year I'm counting it as stash.

Last year when I bought pattern magic, I picked out a few techniques to try ASAP. Better late than never, this is my first project using this book.

I think I told my daughter the day before that I was making something for her, and it came together quite quickly. I had the pattern drafted and dress sewn all in one day while she was at school. I didn't quite use the whole piece of fabric, but it did use up 1.4m of fabric (150cm wide!) Most of this is from the circular skirt, which I cut out in one piece. The bodice is all self lined, as the front needed to have the same fabric front and back for the twist.

Getting ready to......

Twirl!

She absolutely loves it. You'd be forgiven if you think that it looks a little large on her, that's because I made it a size bigger than she currently wears. Being near the end of summer she won't get to wear it much this season, especially now that she is at school 5 days a week wearing a uniform. I already have it earmarked to wear to her first piano concert which should be sometime in September. (But now that I've done that, my son will be needing a new shirt for his concert too!

I only noticed after I'd taken all the photos
that this lion has an Oreo perched on it's nose!
Can you see it?

Not bad for a first effort with Japanese pattern making techniques. I'm thinking of trying something like this for myself with a self stripe fabric that I have - there'll be lines going everywhere!

I bought some books

On my list of goals for the year ahead I had listed a couple of books that I wanted to buy so I can try out some new stuff.

This morning I had an appointment in the city, so after that, I ran a few errands, and thought I'd pop into Kinokuniya Books before I went home. It can't hurt to look at a few books, right? What I was actually looking for was Drape Drape 2. I've already made my version of a dress from this book, but wanted to try some more from it, inspired in part by Meggipeg, who I have watched working her way through the Drape Drape books.

I had a look through the sample copies of Drape Drape 2 and 3 (they didn't have a copy of the first one available to flick through), and then my attention was caught by Pattern Magic. Back on the shelf went Drape Drape 2, as I decided that I would get more use from Pattern Magic.

Five minutes later with Draping for Apparel Design in hand as well (that one was a definite from my list), and I was out the door!