Me-Made-May 2017 week 1

“I, Liz Haywood of www.lizhaywood.com.au sign up as a participant of Me-Made-May ’17. I endeavour to wear at least one me-made item each day for the duration of May 2017.  I further challenge myself to wear my clothes with imagination and thoughtfulness, and get out of the rut of wearing the same few things all the time.”

This year I’m doing Me-Made-May for the first time.  Read about it here.  It won’t be difficult to wear a me-made garment every day because I do that most days, but I only ever wear a small percentage of the clothes in my wardrobe and would like to bring other things into rotation.

Do you sew clothes to try out a new fabric or style without any regard to how you’re going to wear it?  I do; some of these clothes work in my wardrobe and some never do because I haven’t given any thought as to what I would wear them with (and I don’t have the correct shoes or undies).

In preparation for Me-Made-May, I cleaned out my wardrobe.  I was feeling like a museum curator tending clothes I never wore.  The clean out took a day – I haven’t had such a thorough one in years. Sent stuff to the op shop, cleaned all my shoes, moved things out that didn’t belong in the bottom of my wardrobe and rearranged the hanging space. Out went the 3/4 sleeved cardigans and the pre-baby trousers, among many other things.

Meanwhile my children reclined on the bed and tried on my jewelry and accessories (“Mum, I never knew you had this!”) before clumping around the house in high heels.

This is the “before” shot.

I tend to wear the same clothes all week. There’s nothing wrong with that – I’m at home most of the time and a new outfit every day creates needless laundry…or else a pile of clothes on that chair in the bedroom. So for Me-Made-May I’m trying the approach of choosing a “clothing capsule” each week; a small pool of me-made clothes to dress from and add to if I feel like it.  Next week I’ll choose another set.

I started this week with a pair of trousers, a skirt and two shirts. The trousers are the ones I made for Corduroy Day last year and this is the first time I’ve worn them. They’re comfortable although the corduroy makes a vip-vip noise as I walk along.

Here’s the first week.  After Day One I realised I could be creative with my photos.

Cheers!