A zero waste Me-Made-May
It’s May already and this year I’m participating in Me-Made-May again. The idea is to challenge yourself to wear your me-made clothes during the month of May.
Here’s an excellent rundown of what Me-Made-May is, what it isn’t, who it’s for and how to take part.
Me-Made-May, begun by Zoe Edwards, is now in its 13th year. Earlier this year I was on Zoe’s podcast, and after we’d done the recording we talked about other stuff including Me-Made-May. She wondered if I had enough zero waste clothes to do a zero waste themed Me-Made-May. I thought I could, but although I have more zw clothes lying around than most people, I thought I might be like a new sewist who only has a small wardrobe of me-mades to choose from.
Then, I did an audit of all the possible zw clothes I could wear, bearing in mind that May is chilly here. I dug out an astounding 48 garments! Some are from the Zero Waste Sewing book, a few are “maybe one day” patterns that didn’t make it into the book, most are PDF patterns and some are made from other people’s zw patterns. Some have worked their way into my wardrobe but some live in the sample box.
So my Me-Made-May pledge for 2022 is:
To wear two zero waste items per day (top and bottom) or one if it’s a dress or jumpsuit.
The challenge will be to combine them to make outfits, because they were never designed to be part of a cohesive wardrobe – they were all sewn for fit tests or photography. Take a look….
Trousers/culottes/overalls/jumpsuits
Dresses
Skirts
Tops
Coats/jackets/capes
Thanks for the idea, Zoe. I think this is going to be a good challenge!
Cheers!
UPDATE: here’s the wrapup.
I was dithering about trying a zero-waste amd low-waste Me Made May but never got around to solidifying my pledge. Goals for next year! Anyway seeing your complete ZW wardrobe is AMAZING!! And I have questions, of course. Does the red Eura dress have a hood?? Or it’s just the way the fabric is falling? And are you going to post more about the experimental patterns? I’m overly curious, as usual
Next year, Emily – just do it!
I confess this isn’t my complete zw wardrobe, it’s just the things I think I could wear in May (ie, not sundresses etc). I’m already finding there aren’t many warm tops to go with the bottoms.
Yes, the Eura dress has a hood but it’s optional. This class shows how I made it.
The experimental patterns all have issues that need resolving: the culottes overalls don’t work for big sizes (the bib gets too big), the jumpsuit has size issues and the tie needs to be undone every time one visits the bathroom, and someone has already done trousers like the plaid ones (but they’re simply these pajama pants with a waistband and zip – give them a whirl!).
Is it only the bib that gets too big with the overalls? I might have a fix for that – I’ve been playing around with a zero-waste kids capsule wardrobe and I made an overalls with a bib starting with a rectangle that was more or less the same size in all sizes. The bib is a single layer, the top two corners get mitered, and the top and sides fold back wst to become the facing on the back of the bib. Different sizes take a different size miter, so end up with a different size facing and a bigger or smaller bib. Would something like that work for yours?
This one has the bib made from the crotch curve cutout, so it will continue to grow in both directions with every size, and it gets too wide and tall for big sizes. It has to have a vertical seam through the centre but the zip installation got a bit complex. And the nap is running in the wrong direction because I used corduroy.
Yours sounds far more achievable!