Well, I have
another Me-Made-May under my belt. Even though this is my third time
participating, I was a little apprehensive going into it, due to feelings of
insufficiency and guilt. Luckily, Me-Made-May helped me work through those
issues, and I ended the month with more clarity and inspiration than I had when
I started.
First, let’s
talk about the feelings of insufficiency. From June 2015-April 2016, I sewed
ten garments for myself, and of those ten, five were failures. In that same
timeframe, a couple of my older garments fell victim to laundry mishaps, and I
misplaced another. As a result, I only had net two good new garments for this
year’s Me-Made-May. It didn’t feel like enough and I was worried about boring
the community with repeats from the previous year. However, while participating
in Me-Made-May this year, I came to a realization. It’s okay that most of my
clothes were repeats from the previous year. Yes, I’ve been wearing the same
Wiksten tanks that I made in 2013 and 2014. I like them, and I’m going to keep
wearing them until they wear out. The idea of wearing things until they wear
out brings us to the next topic: my feelings of guilt around fast fashion.
People sew
garments for a variety of reasons. I started doing it because I hated shopping
for clothes for my postpartum body. I keep doing it because I enjoy the
challenge of improving my sewing skills, feel more confident wearing clothes I made
myself, and find deep satisfaction in finishing a project. However, other people sew garments for different reasons, such as combating fast fashion. Since I’ve joined
the handmade wardrobe movement, I have read countless blog posts and articles
about the evils of fast fashion. As a result, I’ve felt increasingly guilty
about not having a 100% me-made wardrobe. I’ve also felt guilty about wanting
to sew more and more clothes, because it felt like that desire to sew more was
too close to the desire to buy more that fuels fast fashion and the runaway
consumerism that the slow fashion movement is trying to fight against. When I
had the realization that I like wearing my old garments year over year, I also
realized that it was okay to want to sew more, since everything I sewed meant I
consume less overall. Sewing my own clothes has made me a more mindful and
cautious consumer. When I buy read-to-wear, I only buy what is really needed to
look presentable at work and be comfortable during different seasons. Since I
spend so much time and effort sewing my clothes, each piece is treasured. When
it comes time to discard a handmade garment, I feel a sadness that I never felt
with ready-to-wear items. Yes, I want to sew more, but what I sew will
eventually wear out, and overall, I consume less.
This year,
Me-Made-May inspired me to get past my garment sewing
failures and keep sewing things that I enjoy without guilt. Of the three
garments I made in May, yes, one was a failure, but it was a failure that I
learned from that will help make me a better seamstress going forward. I’m not
going to feel guilty that I “wasted” fabric, because the value was in the
lesson learned, not the physical object. I am excited to sew clothes again,
even though I know that there will still be failures from time to time. I will
learn from those failures and be better for it.
Now that the
philosophical musings are out of the way, let’s look at the stats. This May, I
wore twenty-nine different me-made garments. Of those twenty-nine, the three
most worn pieces were my Basic Black Julia Cardigan, Navy Julia Cardigan, and Basic Black Aberdeen Tunic. The three most frequently worn patterns were the Julia Cardigan, the Aberdeen Tunic and the Akita Blouse.
Related posts:
Me-Made-May '15
Me-Made-May '14
