#mmmay16 - Me Made May Week 3 reflections

This last week & weekend have been crazy-busy.  I'm tired/wired at the moment & can't sleep.  Not wired enough to make a collage of last week's me-mades, just enough to have my head filled with thoughts... so I figured I'd write about them to ease into sleepy-time.

Week Three had me reaching for 'secret pajamas' dresses that made me feel comfortable, I found myself drawn to repeating a few favorites. First up Monday morning was my new babydoll dress.  I am so in-love with this print that I feel like I could wear this dress every day and be happy.  It's a winner for me.  (Confession: I also wore it out to dinner on Thursday night, but didn't photograph it *again* because I thought it would be too boring.)

Tuesday was a repeat of my old faithful knit LBD. Throw on a vintage silk scarf... that's a wrap.  

Wednesday, I tried out an outfit combination of a 2014 top and a recent skirt for a new me-made combination.  I like the fabrics together, but I think this would be better in the fall or winter with tights & boots. It felt a little frumpy in this iteration, as the workday wore on... but I did get a couple of compliments on the outfit that day, which is interesting to me, since I wasn't feeling it.

Thursday the temperature dropped and I unexpectedly had a chance to wear my finally finished plaid dress and a me made cardigan. This outfit was fun to wear.  This month has had me really starting to bond with this grey twisted grapes sweater. I am so glad that I took the time to sew ribbon on the button bands - it's a game changer for this cardi.

Friday, I had the day off, but lots of work to do that made a skirt or dress highly impractical, so I decided to do a me-made knit top with jeans.  This is a top of my own design that is two huge rectangles sewn together - the yarn, I found in a thrift store for less than $4 - it is a soft black synthetic with silver sequins woven into it - it is such a simple design, made on size 17 needles in no time... yet it is one of the most complimented me-mades I have... several strangers and friends commented on liking my sweater that day. 

Saturday - back to a tried and true repeat - my first Lucie layered over a black tee - this time with my black handknit summer cardigan too. 

Today was so crazy that my husband didn't have a chance to snap a picture of me in natural light.  I tried to do an indoor, artificial light outfit selfie of this yet-to-be-blogged Veronika skirt... but it was a truly awful and uniformative photo.  Threw it on instagram for #mmmay16 posterity, nonetheless.

The skirt is not very photogenic, but it is lovely to wear and I think it flatters me.  It's a linen/rayon blend that I bought in Parch with the express purpose of making a basic black summer skirt.  I decided to try the Veronika with the decorative pockets - you can't see them at all in this picture, but they really add something special, much moreso that the same fabric made plain without pockets... and now it has pockets, too!

Somethings I've learned from this week:

1. I'm not making wearable muslins without pockets any more.  I usually fuss with them until they are wearable or destined for scrap bag, so it's not worth a small time savings to skip pockets! 
2. I got some really nice comments on the #newlook6305 babydoll dress and the oversized blue Lucie that I have started wearing like a jumper.  Even before I outfit-repeated them.  This is a style I find easy and put-together.  Made more of these shorter oversized dresses!
3. I don't like a few of my older me-mades... or they just feel a little tired.  How do you get rid of things you have made yourself if you aren't a wellknown blogger who can sell them off online to zir readers?  I have the worst time getting rid of things that I have made.

Also, I've gone a little crazy buying fabric this month.  Feeling really inspired and too busy to actually sit down and sew (but not too busy to see all the amazing things that people have made on instagram) has led me to fabric/pattern shop.  

With the stash-busting sewalong & the stash-less work I've been doing, this was starting to add more stress and I was beating myself up about it... but I love all the fabric I got and it was mostly filling in an area of "bottom weight" & pants fabric that I didn't really have in my stash... and I am really excited about sewing some pants this summer... so I think it was needed, both at the time as retail therapy and now to progress with sewing inspiration in tackling pants. 

Today, while playing host to some out-of-town guests, by taking them to a local thrift store, I also found 4 cuts of fabric, all 99 cents each - 3 yards of a beautiful lightweight floral silk, a pretty peach pink vintage jacquard, with an interesting border print woven in, some denim & some heavy 1960s floral home decor cotton.  The latter two will be for muslins of the Cake Endeavor short. 

I'm really looking forward to cutting out some new patterns and experimenting - I am focusing on riding a wave of inspiration and finding some balance so that I am at least conscious of when I am using retail therapy to stay sane & making sure that what I buy for retail therapy will feed back into that inspiration and purpose.  

The bottom line isn't always just sewing up more fabric than you take in each month - I also want to be sure I am making things that I love and really want to wear when they are finished & that relate to other clothing I love for separates and layering. 

So far, so good - not perfect, but good.  I sure am looking forward to finishing #mmmay16 on a quieter note.