MMM '14 - Pledge and Day 1

In an effort to kickstart blogging again and also to push myself to do some more selfish sewing, I've taken the Me-made May pledge.

I, sleepyerin (thinkingmakingmade.blogspot.com.au) sign up as a participant of Me-Made-May '14. I endeavour to wear one handmade piece of clothing for each day for the duration of May 2014.

I'm going to use May to clean out my wardrobe to create the gaps I need to fill and I'm going to take daily pictures to think more about integrating the me-mades into my regular rotation.

So, day one and first official picture of yours truly. Unfortunately today's make is not something I particularly like or want to wear outside the house (but I did, heaven help me, even if it was just to childcare and the post office).

The Blow a raspberry City Girl Top

Yes, I do feel like a dick.

I don't like this top. I purchased the Just Add Jeans from Pattern Anthology. I figured I'd give this one a go, because I love a cowl neck, also because I wanted to play around with some knit fabrics other than jersey. Well the cowl doesn't work because I didn't have enough fabric (and I bought the recommended amount). So I'm left with a sad little neckline and feeling like I am four years old again and wearing skivvies (and I hate skivvies).

Construction was fairly straightforward. The seems were done on my shiny new (early mother's day present) overlocker and then I just used a single needle for the hems. I knew at that point that I wasn't going to love this top. This happened around the time that I attempted to attach the cowl and the cowl was far to big for the yoke. In the end I cut about 15 cm off the cowl and managed to get it all together, but it did not make for a happy or satisfying experience.

I would be slightly less bothered by this top if it wasn't so wide at the bottom. No that's not true, I still wouldn't like it. However, I think that currently the top makes me look wider than I am, which is truly the chubby person's nightmare.

Bad, just bad.

Oh the horror. Mush boob paired with the impression of an even thicker waist than I actually have. This would probably look better with a singlet/camisole thing underneath, but better than blerk is still bler. Plus, see all that gathering under the arms? Not a part of the pattern. Alas.

Do I like anything about this? I love the fabric, it's an organic cotton french terry from fabric.com. It's soft, it's smooth, it was easy to sew. The colour is actually a sort of raspberry and I love it. Which is why rather than trying to fix this unfortunate top, I'm instead probably going to cut this up into something for my daughter and maybe even my son as well. I love how easy stable knits are to sew, no twiddling with dials like with jersey or slinky knits.

In terms of the other parts of my MMM challenge, I don't particularly like these jeans, but they were clean. They are Calvin Klein and they are supposed to be skinny jeans. This highlights my biggest problem with RTW clothing, for something to fit my waist, it is very unlikely that it will fit properly from the hips down. Certainly these fit more somewhere between bootcut and straight leg jeans than anything approximating a skinny leg. They are fine, but not my favourites. I'm just wearing black flats, nothing exciting there, but probably the best part of the outfit.

So day one, done. Tomorrow I'm going to wear a winner, so I don't seem so grouchy. I promise I'm not, I just hate it when things don't work out.