Me Made May Week 5 & Wrap Up

Whew!  Another Me-Made-May is over and done with.  I hope everyone had as enjoyable a month as I have.  Seattle had some great weather which allowed me to wear more of my summer clothes which I definitely prefer in both my me-mades and RTW.  First up is my final week of outfits.

 Day 26

Sewaholic Crescent

It’s Memorial Day and I was feeling patriotic so my seersucker Crescent seemed appropriate.  It was a little too warm for my red ¾ sleeved Renfrew so I went with an old red tee I’ve had forever.  As a bonus it was a lot easier to tuck in and show off the shaped waist of the skirt.

Day 27

Sewaholic Alma

Last summer on the Anthropologie website I saw a yellow top paired with jean shorts & a floral statement necklace.  It immediately reminded me of my yellow eyelet Alma and this similar necklace I really liked but didn’t wear too often.  This is also the top that started me wearing yellow again.  (I was so glad I took this picture in front of this rhododendron bush because just a few days later about half the flowers had fallen off)

Day 28

Sewaholic Renfrew

Today was another cool day that caused me to dip into my cold weather wardrobe.  Despite really liking this top I hope this will be the last time I wear it until fall.  This is one of those fabrics that made me ignore fiber content – I loved the navy & green wide stripes with silver threads separating them so much that I ignored that it’s 98% poly.

Day 29

Deer & Doe Chardon

I normally don’t wear a lot of black and sew even less but I really like this skirt.  I think it’s because despite being a black chambray, the white cross-threads makes it appear grey.  I have a couple of Andi Satterlund’s cropped sweaters planned that will be perfect to pair with this skirt come fall.  Assuming of course, that they’re done in time!

Day 30

Deer & Doe Sureau

This was one of those makes that after wearing it I immediately wanted to wear it again.  Always a good sign for my closet, but not so great for my pledge this year.  I managed to restrain myself until today and see this getting a lot of wear this summer.

Day 31

Sewaholic Renfrew & Jamie Christina Mission Maxi

Finally the weather warmed up enough to wear my latest dress!  In my mind a bright orange print requires lots of sunshine and high temperatures, or at least Seattle high, to be worn.  But when headed off to class in the morning I wasn’t sure how the day would turn out so I threw a Renfrew over it.  Briefly during the afternoon the dress was perfect on its own but I was glad to have the tee for most of the day.

Overall I’d call Me-Made-May 2014 a success.  In fact during the first few days of June I automatically went for me mades while getting dressed.  Sure, I had to check photos a couple times to check I didn’t wear the exact same thing twice but there were also some past favorites that didn’t get to come out and play.  Sometimes it just comes down to what’s newest and shiniest.  As for my hope to finish a couple pairs of jeans… that’s what Jeans June & July is for.  I did get work done on my Jamie’s but got ahead of myself and topstitched when I should have basted to check for fit. I debated including a photo but I fear there’s too much excess fabric in the crotch for the internet.

Separates & Jeans

Last year I felt I needed more non-Renfrew tops and I think over the last year I improved that.  I would like to continue in this direction.  That said when wearing separates they were usually paired with RTW.  Despite being pretty satisfied with my RTW jeans, I want to make finish some of my own.  Some of the pairs I have are pretty old and those styles stopped being made years ago. During my last duplication class at school I copied a pair but I’m not sure if I’ll get around to making/finishing three pairs in June and July!

 

Deer & Doe & Indies

Last year I wore lots of Sewaholic so it made sense that those were the patterns I wore most this year - 13 times.  The #2 pattern company did surprise me as I only tried a Deer & Doe pattern last fall and yet wore one 10 times this month.  Clearly I’ve found another favorite!  In general I seem to wear more indie patterns than the Big 4, partially because I find those are the patterns I tend to make (or plan to make) multiples of.  I guess it’s my way of justifying the higher cost compared to the 99¢ sales at the big box stores. 

In general I’m happy to see that I wear a high percentage of what I make which when it all boils down spells out success.  I didn’t include any me-made PJs this year because they’d be my most worn garments and would totally skew any results.  It’s been a long time since I’ve bought any RTW and haven’t felt like I’m missing out.  (The only exception was my much loved Seattle Seahawks Super Bowl Championship locker room tee.  Not exactly something I could make on my own or as a proud member of the 12^th Man miss out on!)  That’s not to say I don’t wear RTW anymore, I just have really high standards and often run in to problems with things fitting correctly.  All reasons why I started sewing my own clothes in the first place!  I hope everyone achieved their goals for the month and got tons of inspiration for future makes, I know I did!

 

Seersucker Crescent

This is the Sewaholic Crescent in Blue seersucker. I’ll admit at first I wasn’t super taken with this pattern and was unsure if it was “me.”  Fast forward to last winter when I was skimming through the Minoru sewalong posts while making my jacket.  In the final couple posts Tasia was wearing a gathered seersucker skirt.  You can’t see much of it but I was guessing it must be a Crescent and that I needed to have one of my own.  Of course winter isn’t really seersucker skirt weather.

But woo-hoo - it is now!  In fact I was so excited I decided to make two versions one in blue and one in white.  Making them at the same time was quicker since I never needed to change thread color.

 

 

I made version B which has a highly gathered skirt in a shorter length.  The only alteration I made was to take in the side seams on the yoke by half an inch each.  I didn’t do this on my corduroy trial version and it was a bit loose.  I didn’t alter my pattern piece because this is an easy change to make while sewing.  Plus I won’t have to resort to having to try and cut out four extra side yoke pieces with my scraps in case there’s a change in me or fabric and it’s too small.  This is especially important if you’re like me and try to squeeze my cutting out of the smallest piece of fabric possible.

 

 I decided to add a lining just in case and simply used the version A less gathered skirt pieces – minus the pockets and took some length off.

 

 

The pockets are both under and topstitched.  I chose not to topstitch the yoke pieces because I figured with the stripe they wouldn’t really show up.  That said I really didn’t try and match them up at all.

 

 After hemming both skirt and lining, the lining was sticking out a bit.  So after a major seam-ripping session I cut off more length and hemmed it again.  This time the lining behaved and didn’t try and make an appearance.

 

 

Now I hope the warm weather sticks around so I can wear them!