A Test Bib

I'm making a batch of baby bibs as gifts for several friends with new or imminent babies.  I traced the pattern off of a set of handmade bibs we received from my friend Evelyn when my older child was born.  They were easily the most useful handmade baby gift we got, so I want to pass them along!

Each bib uses almost 3 yards of double-fold bias tape.  In the original set, Evelyn used handmade flannel bias tape - I can't imagine making and pressing that kind of quantity, so these babies are getting storebought poly/cotton binding.  

Santa's Little Mask Workshop

 

I made a lot of cloth masks in December!  My kids' daycare started having the kids (age 2 & up) and staff wear masks in mid-November, so I wanted to make my 2-year-old some fun masks that he would enjoy wearing - we'd been having him wear a mask on the (very rare) occasions that we visited with friends outdoors, but not for school - it didn't seem reasonable to try to get him to be the only person at the daycare to wear a mask.  

I bought two Moda "Safety First" mask panels, each of which had 10 kid-sized and 8 adult-sized mask fronts.  I made up the Christmas panel first, and I'm now in the process of making up the non-holiday ones.  I tried out several different construction methods for both the kid and adult masks, before settling on our favorite style.

For the non-holiday masks, I'll: 

• put the front and linings right sides together (I'm making the kids masks double-layered for ease of breathing but triple-layering the adult ones) and stitch the top and bottom with a scant quarter inch seam allowance
• turn right-sides out, press, and topstitch the top and bottom edges
• press in the pleats as directed in the panel instructions (basically a box pleat, most of the adult masks are done this way in the second picture above)
• for the kids' masks, bind the side edges with double-fold bias binding and thread about 18" of very soft lingerie elastic through.  Tie a knot and use a lighter to singe the very ends of the elastic
• for the adult masks, I'm cutting the two layers of lining 6x7" (for a 6x9" outer layer) so that after pleating I can fold the outer layer back and tuck the raw edge under to make a casing on each side.  Then I thread a continuous 1-yard length of 3/8" grosgrain ribbon through the casings.

We prefer masks that fasten around the back of the head instead of the ones with ear loops (although we do have a few ear loop ones that a family member sewed for us, and we like those for quick errands because they're easier to put on and take off).  For adults, the ribbon ties are adjustable to get a better seal around the face, and for both adults and kids it's nice to not have the ear loops putting pressure on our ears.  

Masks

My sister-in-law sent us two masks that she made back in March.  We also had two cloth masks that my mom had made for us (with elastic around the ears), so when we needed more we had some experience with two different styles.  My husband and I prefer the style with ties, so I knocked off the ones my SIL had made to make six more.  

These masks are made of two layers of quilting cotton.  I started with a double-layer rectangle, 6.75" wide and 6" tall finished at the top and bottom edge (raw edges on the sides are fine, since they'll be enclosed in the bias tape ties).  I ironed in three evenly spaced pleats in the middle of the mask, so the finished pressed height is 4".  Then for each mask I cut two one-yard lengths of 1/4" double-fold bias tape, folded the ends inside, and sewed along the open side of the bias tape, enclosing the side of the mask in the middle.  By far the most time-consuming part of this was pressing the pleats in the mask.  

I made this round of masks using all materials that I already had on hand.  The limiting factor was the bias tape - I'm totally out now, and I couldn't find more online for a reasonable price/in reasonable quantities.  We need some more masks - I'd like to have about 20 by the time I go back to work in mid-August so we won't be scrambling to get mask laundry done all the time - so I'm going to try making my own bias tape using this tutorial.  

These masks have been working well for us.  One of my husband's coworkers admired them enough to ask if I was selling them (I'm not, but I will make a few extra in the next batch so my husband can give one or two away at work)!

Toddler Jammies

 For his second birthday, I made my toddler two pairs of summer pajamas.  The pattern is Peekaboo Patterns Alex & Anna pajamas, which has short, long, and sleeveless options.  My son is currently wearing 2T clothing, but he's in bulky cloth diapers.  His chest measurement put him in the 2T top, and his hip measurement around his night-time diaper put him in the 3T shorts, but I decided to make him the 4T top and shorts in the hopes that they'll fit him for at least two summers. 

The main fabrics are from a grab box I ordered from Fabricworm fabrics a few months ago.  The blue fish are a 95% cotton, 5% spandex jersey.  It was wide, so I was able to cut the whole set out of just half a yard!  I still have a second piece, which is about a yard.  The giraffes are an interlock knit, and it seems pretty stretchy, although the selvage didn't include a label or fiber content.  It wasn't quite as wide, but I still do have some leftover for something else - which is nice, because we love giraffes!  The interlock was very easy to sew.  I cut the contrasting bands on both pairs from scraps leftover from the two pairs of maternity leggings I made myself last winter. 

I constructed these almost entirely on my serger.  The instructions were very clear, and they went together pretty quickly and easily, although it would have been nice if there were notches to help with setting in the sleeves.  The only elastic I had was non-roll elastic (and I couldn't buy any other elastic because people pandemic-panic-bought all of the elastic!), so I couldn't sew the elastic directly to the top of the shorts as instructed.  Instead, I made a snug casing with a tiny seam allowance (so as not to reduce the rise) and threaded the non-roll elastic through.  I stuck a little folded scrap of the pink jersey into the back waist of each pair of shorts so that my husband and son will be able to identify the front and back (the shirts have the neckband seam at the back, so I figured the fake tag wasn't necessary there).  I intended to hem the shirt and topstitch the band seams with a double needle, but then I stupidly broke the double needle by installing it in my machine without checking that the needle was centered.  Instead, I hemmed the shirts with a zigzag stitch and decided not to topstitch the band seams.

Handmade Christmas 2019

 This year I was much more ambitious with handmade Christmas gifts than I was last year!  I made three different types of handmade gifts, all in multiples.  The first was eight pairs of tea towels with two of my grandmother's recipes on them, in her handwriting.  This gift was a long time in the making - when we visited my grandma LAST Christmas, I asked her for her cornbread and pecan crescent cookie recipes.  Then I photographed them, uploaded them to Spoonflower, and followed the Spoonflower tutorial for making family recipe tea towels.  We gave them to all of the households on my mom's side of the family, and I think they were a hit - since we live far away, I didn't get to see anyone but my mom open them.

 My one disappointment was that the Spoonflower fabric didn't seem to be printed on the straight grain.  This is the first time I've ordered from Spoonflower, and I don't know if that's typical or if it was some sort of user error on my part, but it was a bit frustrating that I had to fudge so much when I was cutting the panels apart.  In the end, I don't think it was very noticeable in the finish product, though.  Once I had cut the panels apart, I used spray starch to help get crisp folds on the hem (I just folded half an inch under, and then another half inch under on all four sides, and cut little squares out of the corners to reduce bulk).  I took some twill tape I found in my sewing desk and slipped it into one corner of each towel for a hanging loop.

I also made four little kid aprons for my son, my niece and nephew, and my cousin's daughter.  I used a free pattern available from Sew Liberated, which I originally saw on the Sweet Alchemy blog.  My son loves to help in the kitchen (he particularly loves baking bread), so I knew I wanted to make him an apron for Christmas.  I know my niece (6) and nephew (4) also like to help in the kitchen, so I decided to make them for all the little kids we give gifts to (our 18-month-old, our niece and nephew, and my cousin's 6-year-old).  My SIL loves Tula Pink fabric, so I decided this cute cut that I had in my stash was perfect for this application.  I didn't have enough to make the fronts and backs of all four aprons, so I used a different fabric for the linings - blue stars for the boys, and a grey/pink floral print I had in my stash for the girls.  Having different linings also helps distinguish my niece and nephew's aprons, since they're slightly different sizes.  

The pattern is intended for kids age 3-6, so I made the 4-year-old's apron exactly according to the pattern.  I made the two 6-year-old aprons the same width, but lengthened them by 2" at the bottom.  For my 18-month-old, I folded the top edge of the pattern down by 1" and took half an inch out of the center of the apron by hanging the pattern piece 1/4" over the fold when I cut it out.  I haven't seen any of the other kids in their aprons yet, but my son really loves wearing his when he helps in the kitchen - he reminds us to put it on him if we forget!

The last gifts I made this Christmas were two Open Wide zippered pouches, using a tutorial from Noodlehead.  I made the medium size, and used fabric I bought on our vacation in Hawaii just before Christmas.  These were for my husband's aunt and a friend of my mother's who spent Christmas with us.  They turned out really well and were easy to sew!  They also turned out larger than I expected - almost big enough to carry around a sock-knitting project in.  Here's a picture with a 12.5" ruler for scale.

Handmade Christmas 2018

I didn't make very many Christmas gifts in 2018 - I had a 7-month-old, I'd been back at work for a rather overwhelming fall semester, and we were flying cross-country to visit family for the holiday.  In the end, I made two gifts, both from kits I bought from Connecting Threads.  The first one was a Santa Claus apron for my husband, who cooks and bakes a lot (since our son was born in May 2018, he's made dinner almost every night and baked bread and desserts at least two or three times a week, as I've struggled to keep my weight up while breastfeeding).  He also gets really into the Christmas spirit, so when I saw the kit for the apron I really wanted to make it for him.  The kit was really well done and pretty easy to sew up - you can't quite see it in the picture above, but the apron has two large patch pockets on the front, so it's quite functional!

The other gift I made in 2018 was an advent calendar for my son.  This kit is for a quilted advent calendar with small pockets, which are topstitched onto the quilted background so they are almost invisible.  This is really adorable, and hopefully he will enjoy it as he gets older.  This year, we put little dove chocolates in the pockets, and he really enjoyed eating them when we remembered to let him (and he learned to say "please" for his chocolate!).  For next year, we need to figure out a location and method for hanging the advent calendar where we can see it and where toddler hands and dog mouths can't reach it easily.

Stripey Nursing Dress

This is the Turn About the Room Dress, a free pattern from the DIY Maternity blog.  I cut out the small/medium size (with a few modifications to the skirt) as part of my Me-Made-May challenge last year, right before my baby was born. I sewed it up in little snatches of time last summer, and have worn it a bunch since then.  It works well for nursing (with a nursing camisole under it), and I get lots of compliments on it - people tend to be amazed that I made it.  It's very comfortable. 

I changed the sizes of the skirt panels because I wanted to wear the dress as a nursing dress instead of a maternity dress, so I wanted less fullness in front (and more fullness in back, because I have wide hips).  I also lengthened the skirt, because I am tall.  In the end, I decided to cut the front and back panels exactly the same: 13" wide on the fold (for 26" total width) by 33" long.  I also added pockets, using the Washi Dress extra pocket pattern piece. 

The dress went together pretty easily, and I liked the hem technique the tutorial suggests - using a narrow strip of knit interfacing to stabilize the hem.  I hemmed the sleeves and skirt with a wide twin needle, using wooly nylon in the bobbin.  I ended up needing to take several inches of width out of the bodice and shorten the twist bands significantly, as the whole thing was too wide.  On the other hand, the sleeves are a bit too narrow for me.  They're fine, but if I were to make it again I would do a wide-bicep adjustment to make them more comfortable. 

A Nursing Washi Dress

My Me-Made-May challenge this year was to sew for myself every day until my baby was born, and when the baby was born I was just waiting for hot pink snaps to arrive in the mail to finish this nursing Washi dress.  Once the snaps arrived, setting five of them into the placket only took a few minutes - this has been finished for almost three months now.

I made the size medium, which is the same size I made my first Washi dress in.  (I tried that one on near the end of my pregnancy, to make sure the bodice still fit, and it did - then.  Now the bodice is *very* snug, but it works.)  I made it sleeveless, and trimmed a bit off the straps.  I more or less followed this tutorial for a button-front Washi (the blog seems to no longer be on the internet, but the text at least is still available on the web archive).  It is lined in the bodice only, and I made three parallel casings for narrow elastic at the back bodice, instead of shirring.  The dress is a lovely soft Alison Glass double gauze, and the lining is the same blue voile I used to line my first Washi.  I decided on a whim to topstitch with hot pink thread.  The topstitching isn't super visible in the pictures, or from far away, but up close the pink topstitching in combination with the pink Kam snaps really make the dress.

If I were to make another nursing Washi, I think I would size up in the bodice and raise the neckline a little bit, since nursing bras tend to have full coverage and sometimes I worry about the edge of my bra peeking out from the neckline.  But on the whole, this has been a perfect dress to wear to church or just out of the house this summer, and I think with a cardigan, wool tights, and a slip it will be cozy for fall and winter, too! 

Maternity Sewing

At the beginning of my pregnancy (and before I got pregnant) I had grand visions of all of the maternity clothes I was going to sew for myself - Megan Nielsen's maternity patterns, clothes from the DIY Maternity blog, and other things I'd seen on the internet.  In the end, even though my pregnancy was for the most part easy and super-smooth, I was really tired and I didn't have the energy or the time to sew much of anything.

I ended up sewing one thing from scratch (the Cordelia maternity camisole from So, Zo) and re-making one thing (a pair of black maternity slacks from a pair of regular non-maternity pants).  These pictures were taken at about 34 or 35 weeks of pregnancy.

For the pants, I referred to a few tutorials on the internet, but mostly modeled them off of a pair of maternity jeans I bought at Goodwill.  The jeans had a wide elastic waistband in a knit casing that felt like cotton spandex.  I used about a yard of 2-inch elastic that I already had on hand and some black 90% cotton/10% spandex knit that I got at JoAnn.  I bought a pair of Banana Republic stretch wool pants from ThredUp (the same brand and a similar style to the three pairs of pants I've been wearing to work for the past few years) two sizes larger than I usually wear.

I picked out the zipper and removed the waistband of the pants, and then I marked out and stitched along a curve in front that would fit under my belly.  I topstitched down what remained of the fly.  Then I cut a piece of jersey about 9 inches long and the width of the new waist opening of the pants and serged it into a tube.  I checked the length of the elastic around my belly and sewed the ends together (overlapping them about an inch).  Then I folded the new waistband in half, right sides out, and slipped in the elastic, then zig-zagged along the lower edge of the elastic, through all 3 layers, to hold it in place and keep it from twisting later.  I serged the new waistband to the pants opening, pressed the seam allowance toward the pants, and finished by topstitching to stabilize the pants and hold the seam allowance in place.

Then I wore the pants two or three times a week until the end of the semester.  For most of my pregnancy, wide elastic waistbands like the one on these pants were more comfortable for me than the full belly panels.  But for the last few weeks, my belly was big enough that it was pushing these waistbands down, and I found the full panels more comfortable.  Luckily, that change happened right about at the end of the semester, at the same time that a church friend who had her baby lent me several pairs of full panel jeans, so because I no longer needed to dress up to teach, I could just wear those most of the time.

The camisole was another piece that I wore all the time - I had a few sweaters that I wore with this underneath.  I made a straight size 14, and the construction was pretty quick and straightforward.  I was a little nervous about the foldover elastic, but this tutorial was helpful, and in the end it wasn't too bad.  I used cheap foldover elastic from JoAnn, and it hasn't washed and worn as well as you'd hope.  Next time, I would order higher quality elastic online. 

I really like this pattern.  The camisole was really comfortable - I like the wide bottom hem band, and there was plenty of room for my belly to be comfortable until the very end of my pregnancy. 

Me-Made-May 2018

My Me-Made May pledge this year was to sew for myself every day until the baby was born - and I succeeded! (Technically, I didn't sew the day before he was born, but I was admitted to the hospital that afternoon, so I'm giving myself a pass.)  The baby was born closer to mid-May than late May, and most days I sewed for less than an hour, but I still got a fair amount done.  I started with this Washi dress.  I lined the bodice and made it snap up the front so it's breast-feeding friendly.  I almost finished it - at the end of my challenge I was just waiting for the hot pink snaps I ordered to arrive in the mail.

Next, I moved on to a knit dress.  I cut out all of the pieces for a Turn About the Room dress from the DIY Maternity blog.  I made the front skirt panels a bit narrower than the pattern specifies, because I intend it to be a nursing dress, not a maternity dress - I think it will be great with a nursing camisole under it.  It should be pretty quick to sew up on the serger once I get around to it.

And last but not least, the best thing I made this May:

(This will be the only baby photo I post on this blog - we have a no photos on social media or the public internet policy.)

Me-Made-May 2018

I, Katherine of willknitformath.blogspot.com, sign up as a participant of Me-Made-May '18. I endeavour to work on sewing garments for myself every day until my baby is born.

Last year, I wore lots of me-made clothing for Me-Made-May.  This year, I have a grand total of four non-underwear me-made (or altered) items that fit my current shape, so wearing me-mades every day or even most days isn't an option.  Instead, I want to focus on sewing some nice summer dresses that will work for nursing.  I'm planning a Washi dress with a button placket (made of lovely soft double gauze) and this knit dress, which is designed for maternity but I think will work well for nursing this summer.  I also bought supplies to make myself a nursing cover, and I'm going to count that as sewing for myself rather than for the baby.

I have a lot of sewing goals between now and when the baby is born:  not only the dresses and nursing cover for myself, but also three baby quilts - one is for a college friend's baby (born at the end of February), and it's getting close to done.  I just need to finish the second half of the machine quilting and then bind and label it.  The next one is for our baby, and the third one is for some friends who are expecting.  Their baby is due in August, but it is unfortunately looking like he may be quite premature, so I'd like to have his quilt ready for him before my baby is born.  Those two quilts are still in the planning stages.  I'd also like to make my baby an Oliver + S bucket hat for the summer and some bibs and burp cloths, and I have fabric sitting in my sewing room to make two new tablecloths for our kitchen table.   I'm sure not all of this is going to get done, so it will be nice to have time set aside for high-priority projects!  When I have a lot I want to sew and not a ton of time to do it, I tend to get paralyzed by indecision and not sew at all, so hopefully my Me-Made-May challenge will help with that!

Handmade Christmas 2017

Wow, this post is late!  I didn't plan to make very many Christmas gifts, but somehow I ended up making a bunch anyway.  This quilt was for my Grandma, and it was a team effort with my mom.  We had given Grandma the fabric and pattern for Christmas two or three years ago, but we came to the conclusion that she was never going to sew it, so we decided to do it for her.  It was relatively quick (two weekends), and fun to do together!  It came out great, and Grandma loves it.

I've done Christmas sweaters for my niece and nephew every year so far (although last year I made a flannel shirt for my nephew instead of a sweater), and I kind of thought last year was going to be the last year - they're getting big, and the sweaters are getting to be more of a production.  But then I hit on the idea of a ballet wrap sweater for my dance-obsessed niece, and I couldn't not do one more year.

I used free patterns and used worsted weight superwash wool from Valley Yarns (the Webs house brand).  They were fun to knit, and apparently were a hit with the kids.

Earlier in the Fall, I knit a pair of socks for Robert for Christmas.  He loves them, but has dubbed them "the betrayal socks," because I knit them right in front of him without telling him they were for him.  He assumed they were for me, and was surprised that I was knitting myself socks in a blue tweedy yarn.  He tells me that he resisted the urge to ask if he could have them - he did it so well that I hesitated a bit to wrap them up for Christmas, because I wasn't sure if he liked them!

And lastly, I made a few Christmas-y kitchen things for us.  I took two fat quarters of Christmas-y fabric I bought for this purpose in Fall 2016 and finally made a set of four holiday napkins for our dining table.  I also knitted three Christmas dishcloths.  One of them made its way into my mom's stocking, and we kept the other two for ourselves.

Swan Lake dress

My niece turned four in September, and I made her a Swan Lake dress.  She is really into dance and ballet right now.  It's a flutter sleeve Geranium in size 4T (if I remember correctly), with some length and width adjustments to the skirt in order to take full advantage of the border print fabric. 

I used some digitally printed fabric from Hawthorne Threads, and to be honest I didn't love it.  It was pretty stiff, and the ink was very dense on the surface of the fabric.  I don't think I would use this fabric for quilting, and it would definitely not be appropriate for any application that needs to drape.  But the prints were adorable.  I hope it will hold up okay with frequent washing. 

Sheepie Shirt!

Last spring I found this adorable sheep-print quilting cotton at my local quilt shop and bought a yard with no plan.  I ended up ordering a yard of solid navy blue Robert Kaufman Cambridge Cotton Lawn to go with it and made a heavily modified version of McCall's 7285, which I made without modifications last spring/early summer.

This time, I shortened the sleeves significantly and made extensive changes to the back:

I split the back pattern piece horizontally about halfway down the armscye, and cut 2 of the yoke piece on the fold, so I could do a double-layer yoke construction with all of the yoke seam allowances enclosed.  I cut the main back piece on the fold, too, and but put the center back line about 2" away from the fold, adding several inches of space in the back.  I added some notches on the yoke and main back piece, so I could keep track of where I wanted the gathers to bunch in the center.  Then, because I no longer had a button in the back, I finished the neckline with a narrow bias facing.  I cut a 10' square and turned it into continuous bias tape using instructions from an old quilt book, and then applied the bias facing using this Craftsy tutorial.

In general, I'm much happier with this version than I am with the first.  The sleeves are more comfortable at the shorter length, and I can move more easily (although I still think the fit in the upper back could be better, as evidenced by the drag lines toward my armpits in the photo of the back of the shirt).  Most importantly, though, it doesn't have a button at the back neck!  The neckline is wide enough to go over my head comfortably, and I've found that the button on the first version catches in my braid in a terrible way, so I can't wear that shirt on days when I want to braid my hair. 

I've already started making a third version of this shirt, in a lovely floral Liberty lawn.  It's a long-sleeved version, with pintucks down the front.  The only fit change I'm attempting from this one to that one is to try to eliminate a little bit of gaping at the front neckline.  I'm excited to see how it fits when it's done!

Little Polo Shirts

My nephew and grandcousin (first cousin once removed) have birthdays two weeks apart, and they turned two at the beginning of the summer.  By luck, we were visiting my family in Europe for my grandcousin's birthday, and we were able to attend his birthday party.

I made two identical little polo shirts for little boy second birthday gifts.  They're size 2T Oliver + S Parachute Polos.  They went together pretty smoothly and I was happy with how they turned out, but I don't quite like this pattern as much as I like the Sketchbook Shirt.  Part of it was that I fought with my machine hemming the knits.  I ended up using a twin needle on the sleeve hems and a triple stretch stitch on the shirt hems, and wasn't 100% happy with either one.

I also think the inside of the side vent could be a little cleaner.

I did like how the inside of the collar and plackets looked, though.

A shirt for me!

In service of my goal to make some shirts for myself, I tried out a woven t-shirt pattern: McCall's M7285.  I made it out of a quilting cotton I got at the Hancock's going out of business sale last summer, and I'm thinking of it as a nice wearable muslin.  I was able to cut this and the Roller Skate dress I made for my cousin's daughter out of a 2-yard cut of fabric.

I measured the bust of an old sleeveless blouse with a similar fit and closure and then cut a straight size 10 using the A/B cup front pattern piece.  It's a little snug in the hips, even though I narrowed the seam allowances by 1/4" at the bottom of each side.  The back is also a little tight across the shoulders.

The bust darts are in the right place, but as you can see in the next picture, after I lift my arms I get a fold of fabric stuck above my bust.  I'm not sure whether that has to do with the non-drapiness of the quilting cotton, or because I made a size that is too small, or what.

It's not very visible in the pictures, but I'm also getting a little bit of gaping at the front neckline.

Even though it's not perfect, I'm planning to make at least two more of these, and I have some ideas for what I'm going to change:

• lowering the front neckline by about an inch and eliminating the button closure at the back neck.  I don't need the button to get this one over my head, and when I wear my hair in a braid it gets knotted around the button, which is no fun.
• adding a back yoke.  I'll make the seam between the yoke and the back piece about half-way down the armscyes, and put some gathers in the center of the back piece.   This should give me some extra room at the back shoulders, so I can move more easily.  I'm also hoping it will fix the fabric getting stuck above my bust problem.  I'll cut both the back and back yoke pieces on the fold.
• shortening the sleeves by at least two inches.

I'm excited for the next version, but in the meantime I've been wearing this one a lot!

Tiny Roller Skate Dress

I made this tiny Oliver + S Roller Skate dress for my cousin's baby.  It's the 6-12 month size, since I didn't make it until she was almost six months old.  It was pretty easy to sew, didn't take too much fabric, and turned out pretty cute.  I would definitely make it again, maybe with pockets if it was for an older child.  Next time, to save even more fabric and make it lighter for summer, I might try using bias binding for the elastic casing and to finish the sleeve/armhole edges.

Me-Made-May Week 2

What I wore:

• Monday, May 8: My black and polka-dot Adelaide dress, yellow cardigan (RTW), and Geneva undies
• Tuesday, May 9: Re-fashioned denim skirt, altered shirt, grad school hoodie (RTW), and Geneva undies
• Wednesday, May 10: Damask skirt, long-sleeved t-shirt (RTW), striped cashmere sweater with visible mend (RTW, mended by me), mushroom socks
• Thursday, May 11: Favorite thrifted jeans (RTW), newly finished woven t-shirt
• Friday, May 12: Lady Skater dress, Blue shoulder-button sweater (RTW)
• Saturday, May 13: In the morning I wore my brown and yellow floral skirt and an orange embroidered t-shirt (RTW).  In the afternoon I changed into jeans (RTW) and my new woven t-shirt
• Sunday, May 14: My blue tiered skirt and a purple tank top (RTW)

What I made:
I finished up the top for myself that I mentioned last week.  It fits pretty well, and I'm happy with how it turned out.  I'll write a full post on it once I get some photos taken this week.  

What I thought:
I was going to say that Friday the 12th was the first day I wore a repeat, but then I realized that I wore my Lofoten sweater twice last week and I wore my mushroom socks for the second time on Wednesday the 10th ... but on those days I also wore me-mades that I hadn't previously worn this May.  I'm simultaneously surprised and not surprised that I made it 11 days with so few repeats - I have almost 20 pairs of hand-knitted socks, but not a ton of other me-made items.

The weather this week definitely shifted.  It's warm enough now that I can wear a skirt without tights or a t-shirt without a sweater and feel comfortable outside.  This is the weather that my me-made wardrobe is designed for, which reminds me that I want to work on sewing more cold-weather appropriate clothes for myself.  I traced out the long-sleeved version of the Lady Skater dress this weekend, and I have fabric washed and ready to get started sewing this week - of course, I also need to get started on birthday polo shirts for my soon-to-be-two-year-old nephew and grandcousin, so I might not get it done this week!

Me-Made-May: Week 1

What I wore:

• Monday, May 1: My favorite thrifted jeans (RTW), a casual button-down shirt (RTW), Lofoten sweater, light brown handknit socks, and Geneva underwear
• Tuesday, May 2: Purple Smartwool tights (RTW), my navy gathered skirt, half-slip, plum-colored long-sleeved t-shirt (RTW), blue sweater (RTW), Geneva underwear, and my green lace shawl
• Wednesday, May 3: Favorite thrifted jeans (RTW), mushroom socks, long-sleeved t-shirt (RTW), Lofoten sweater
• Thursday, May 4: Blue tiered skirt, long-sleeved t-shirt (RTW), mended striped cashmere sweater (RTW with a visible mend by me)
• Friday, May 5: Lady skater dress, the same blue sweater I wore on Tuesday
• Saturday, May 6: In the morning I was gardening so I didn't wear any me-mades.  In the afternoon I changed into my brown floral skirt, a pink short-sleeved t-shirt (RTW), and aqua cable henley sweater (RTW)
• Sunday, May 7: Blue Washi dress, yellow cardigan (RTW)

What I made:

Well, I immediately strayed from my intention to only make for myself in May.  I ran out of time to finish a little dress for my cousin's baby that needed to be finished before the last week of May, so I finished that up.  And I realized that two little boys in my family are turning two at the end of May/beginning of June, so I ordered fabric to make a little polo shirt for each of them.  Then I started sewing on a top for me.  I had hoped to finish it during the first week of May, but didn't quite make it.  I still need to adjust and finish the side seams and do the hemming and finishing.

On the knitting front, I frogged the skew socks on the left in this photo.  These two pairs of socks were enough too big that I decided they're unwearable, so part of my plan for May is to re-knit the skew socks using smaller needles and to take out the toes and shorten the feet of the pink socks on the right.  Here's what the "new" skew sock looks like right now:

I also did a little bit of spinning - for the first time in many months I'm not knitting things for other people that I feel like I need to prioritize!

What I thought:
I realized that I don't have any me-made shirts.  Everything I've made for myself is either a skirt, a dress, socks, a shawl, a sweater, or a winter accessory.  Thinking of my wardrobe as a whole, that's not really a problem for casual wear, since I have a pretty wide variety of casual tops, especially tanks and short-sleeved t-shirts.  Where I have a big hole is long-sleeved tops, particularly work-appropriate ones.  I own enough work tops so that I don't have to iron too unreasonably often, but I don't have very many that I love or even like.  Several of them just don't fit and are in colors that I don't feel comfortable wearing.  So that will definitely inform my sewing plans going forward.

I've been reading a lot of blog posts lately about capsule wardrobes, and feeling like maybe I should do that for work.  But choosing just a few colors to base the whole thing off of feels stressful and restrictive.  I'm coming to the realization that while I like the idea of having a relatively small number of items, I can make that work without restricting myself to just 1-2 neutrals and 2-3 accent colors.  I'll make (or buy second-hand) things that I like and that I'll wear a lot, and not worry about capsule rules!