Me Made May 2019

It’s the tenth Me Made May! I remember running into the first one when it was partway through, and being both fascinated and jealous (those were EARLY blog days and I had about two me-made garments.) I was first able to participate in the follow-up “Self-Stitched September” with a pretty limited (and slightly odd, in hindsight) wardrobe, and I’ve been on board, on and off, ever since, with a few years missed for various life-related reasons. (I swear I did 2012 but I can’t find any documentation of it!)

• Self-Stitched September 2010
• Me-Made June 2011

• Me-Made March 2011

• Me-Made May 2013

• Me-Made May 2018

It’s interesting to look back through the years, as I’ve been at some very different places professionally and personally. The long gap after 2013 was caused by working two jobs for five years, which left me pretty much living day to day with no room for any kind of challenge—but I was still wearing me-mades and having quite a lot of fun with my wardrobe, actually. There were a lot of retro-style fit ‘n flare dresses, and they were a lot of fun.

Which brings my to my current pledge:

I, Tanit-Isis, sign up as a participant of Me-Made-May 2019. I endeavour to wear me-made every day (except bras and socks) and to go through my wardrobe with an eye to assessing what fits and wearing conscious, thoughtful looks, not just throwing random items together. I’m in flux right now, body and style both, and I want to think about both how I actually look (which is changing) and how I want to look (which also may be changing?)

So there’s a few different things going on here.

1. I have LOTS of me-made clothes at this point.
2. My body has changed. Some of the stuff I made a couple of years ago no longer fits (which is killing me but doesn’t seem to be magically reversing).

3. My job has changed. I’m not working nearly so much “customer facing” work, and I find my motivation to go all out is somewhat diminished when it’s just the same co-workers who see me every day. Not that they’re not appreciative, but I’m not making first impressions.

4. Fashion is changing. Boxy silhouettes, wide-leg pants… buzzwords like “comfy”, “relaxed,” and “easy-fitting” seem to be dominating the fashion conversation these days. It would be really easy to fall into this, given the body changes I mentioned above, but frankly those are all the features of the 80s and 90s fashion I grew up with that I hated most. So I’m conflicted.

Given the above, I’ve often been feeling like what I pull out of the closet is either not creating a coherent look, or that the look I’m ending up with isn’t quite what I intended (or that I don’t even know what I intended.)

On top of that, sewing class samples for my teaching has been putting quite a few pieces into my wardrobe that were picked more with an eye to what can be sewn from the kind of fabrics the quilt-shop where I teach stocks, and to a lesser extent what is “hot”, than to thoughtful wardrobe-building for me. I’m not quite sure how to resolve this conundrum, though I could of course just give myself permission to not wear them. But I do like them.

So yeah, I need to think. To evaluate. Decide how I feel both about the current trends and how they fit with how I want to look and how I actually look. Me Made May may not solve this for me. But I’m hoping it will at least give me some more information about where I’m at. I’m planning to document on Instagram, probably via stories, and with any luck I’ll manage a summary post here in June.

Wish me luck!