Tag: Outfits

May has finished and so has my challenge. I got rid of a lot of t-shirts before the month started, so I was perfectly happy to wear store bought ones where needed. T-shirts was the only category of which I wore all the me-mades I own. The weather fluctuated massively, so some days I wore scarves and other days short sleeved dresses could be worn by themselves.

As you can see, I managed to wear a fair amount of non-pants, over half of the days. I also apparently have made a lot of clothes, because at the end of the challenge, my cupboard was not as full but also certainly not empty. Some of the items were not worn because there simply was no time, or the weather didn’t fit. Some because I simply didn’t want to.

I took pictures of all the stuff that I didn’t wear. The colourful plaid pants below are no longer comfortable, so they have been excised from the wardrobe. As was a pair of pinstriped shorts. The skirt from May 10 has also been promoted to the donate pile. There are some things still left that I probably won’t wear again but can’t let go of for sentimental reasons.

And I didn’t opt to try and scavenge all the accessories that I did or dit not use. Like bags, scarves, shawls, coats etc. I do like wearing my stuff out, so a successful May for me!

This May had a lot better weather than last year. I didn’t feel like I was freezing for most of it, so that was really nice. Below are terrible pictures of all the me-made stuff I’ve worn over May.

Conclusions from this year’s experiment were that it’s fairly easy to wear me-mades all May. I do indeed have too many clothes, since I still have some left over. I also have no plans in stopping my adventures in knitting and sewing because I do really enjoy them.

There are a few items that are going to be discarded. Two sweaters that just aren’t very nice anymore (or too brown) and a wrap dress that feels too exposing.

May is the one month where most of my dresses get worn and thereby it’s the single most influential time that reduces the cost-per-wear of any special occasion outfit. So I’ll probably do it again next year!

So I forgot it was May until the evening of May 2nd. Luckily I wear quite a lot of me-mades in daily life, but those didn’t really fit the challenge. I did manage to get myself in gear from the 3rd of May onwards. Below are terrible pictures of all the me-made stuff I’ve worn over May.

Conclusions from this year’s experiment were that the weather really wasn’t cooperating. I didn’t get to wear any of my shorts, and I think that all dresses and skirts were worn with tights. On the only days that were nice enough for bare legs, I wore the culottes. I did manage to wear a fair amount of my clothes and I still had some left over at the end of the month. I may or may not have too many clothes, but it’s not stopping me from making more.

There’s only one item that’s going to be discarded, which is the top from May 29. The Aurea and Center Street project is too short, it doesn’t really want to stay on my shoulders and it pulls down in the back. It’s not pleasant to wear, so I’ll donate to see if anyone else can make it work for them.

I’m still planning on doing this next year again, it’s good to wear some of these things I keep making!

Still steadily working my way through trying to wear all my clothes. It’s going well, some of the combinations may be more .. atypical than others, but honestly, my sense of fashion is terrible as is anyway.

Summary:

23 sweaters: harry potter, green, blue snow, plaid DNA, white, black and grey, black ears, black tweed, blue, pizza, black bolero, white bolero, brown tweed, eighties, flamingo, partial flamingo, greys, grey leather, racoon, yellow, cut-out, mushroom, red.
13 tops: letters, dinosaur beach, bicycles, embroidery dino, grey dragons, blue plaid, red stripes, white and blue dots, owls, net back, spider, colour stripes, blue stripes.
11 dresses: floral, red & leather, touch of plaid, white & blue, brown with cats, ivy wrap, keyhole, back cut-out, Mondriaan, rainbow zip, blues.
10 pants: green plaid, pinstripe, jogging pinstripe, red plaid, tweed, grey plaid, jeans, blues, mushrooms, grey.
7 skirts: petticoat, short walking skirt, red plaid, Christmas, bicycle, ducks, party blue.
5 scarves: feather plaid, green and stripes, birds in blue, lace knit, red and sunflower.
4 bras: red, grey, lemon, blue lace.
3 skorts: narrow black, regular black, blue and yellow.
3 pantsuits: plaid, flower stripes, black and white.
1 coats: yellow.
1 jacket: plaid.
1 shorts: striped.

I also donated some of my old clothes because I just wasn’t willing to wear them anymore.

From left to right: too brown, too big, not comfortable, too small, not comfortable and bad finish, I don’t feel comfortable when I wear it and not practical, .. has frogs.

All in all, it was a pretty decent month. I didn’t manage to wear many shorts because the weather just didn’t cooperate that way. I do own a lot of sweaters, but I also wear them because I’m always cold. I do need some more sweaters that open in the front to wear over other things. As this gap was previously identified, I have been knitting one since February that I finished this weekend. I do think it’s good practice to try to wear the items I don’t normally gravitate towards all that much. So I’ll probably continue to participate in MMM in the future too.

Second half of May and the things I wore. I clearly did not have a good handle on the weather as it seems to fluctuate between heart of winter and height of summer.

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So the pledge was:

And I have done all those things. I also wore a lot of pants, because I just love pants. I did actually finish the grey sweater (for a preview see May 28). I’m still writing that one up when I can find the motivation.

Things I’ve learnt:

1. There are four dresses that I’ve refused to wear even if the weather was appropriate. I may need to look into giving those a new home.
2. The green pants from May 21 and the red dungarees from May 30 are too tight in the back. They both occupy niches in my wardrobe and need to be replaced with better fitting items.
3. I don’t wear short sleeved self-knit tops, ever. So maybe also find a new home for those?
4. The three piece suit is not something I want to gravitate to, this is a little sad.
5. Wearing jackets in general seems to be out, although I did try multiple times to find a combination for a purple jacket thing.
6. How to take over 30 pictures in roughly the same pose every time.
7. I have enough me-made clothes to survive a whole month without repeats; and I still own and wear bought clothing.. Perhaps I have too many clothes? Ah well, it still fits in my house, so lets not worry too much about it.

Complete tally of me-mades in May:

Tops: 15
Sweaters: 14 (1 repeat)
Pants: 12
Dresses: 11 (1 repeat)
Pant/playsuits: 4
Skirts: 3
Boleros: 3
Skorts: 2
Scarves: 2
Ponchos: 1
Belts: 1

I say, mission accomplished!

During the last bits of May, many knitted projects were worn. I seem to like them a lot.

Both the grey pants and the holey sweater made an appearance on this work day.

On the way to my parents house I wore the Harry Potter sweater again, which I apparently only wrote a draft post for, I’ll update it soon enough. I’d packed mostly me mades to be able to wear them in my mini-holiday.

Pre-blog grey pants and the Harry Potter sweater again. However, it was so hot that day that most of the day was spent without said sweater but with a lot of sun screen.

Pentecost Monday, double threat of grey sweater and a striped shirt.

I went to the Efteling, the Dutch Disneyland. Due to heat I shed the grey sweater during the day, but kept on wearing the striped shirt and green pants.

Simple jeans and hole sweater. I still really like this combination.

The January 2015 graduation dress. I think there may have been a group visit at work or something like that.

An occurance of the queen’s shirt. I really like this one. It’s comfortable.

The tester dress! I enjoy wearing this one, although I’m not sure the white tights are a good match.

I think I forgot to take a picture of the actual outfit, so you see part of the coloured pyjamas that I’ve been wearing for part of May, the fake fur cape and the Harry Potter sweater.

All in all I enjoyed forcing myself to wear me-mades, even the dresses and skirts. It does take some getting used too, but I definitely see that I prefer to wear sweaters, pants and shirts, even though I prefer to make dresses and skirts for some reason. I should definitely continue rotating the leg-less outfits into daily wear and should knit some more sweaters to wear. I’ll show you the first failure of the resolution with the dress I made for graduation tomorrow.

 

So… I’ve had a holiday! It was fun and I wasn’t too interested in writing blog posts. I did manage to take pictures almost every day. So below you’ll find all my *cough* wonderful outfits.

Friday, Saturday and Sunday I wore my larp outfit, consisting of dress, shirt and apron, including backpack and black cape. I didn’t take a picture on Sunday, because it all was quite the same. I did wear my old school hoody and one of the striped shirts for clearing up the campground.

I wore my wonderful plaid skirt with double zippers on Monday, while staying at my parents. Apparently this was made before blog.

Not willing to change, the Tuesday outfit was the same, apart from the black leggings. I’m wearing red socks, my feet are not usually that colour.

I wore really old, before blog grey pants. These pants are the first pants I ever made and the burda waistband instructions were much to difficult for me. So these are hardly finished on the inside. I did have to sew on a hook and bar before wearing, as the snap that was on had fell off.

Time for a dress. The graduation dress to be precise, still love this one.

Friday were the big grey pants. Again, one of my favourites.

This was another no pants day. I was wearing the sailor skirt, which also seems to be pre-blog. I also learned that this skirt is not meant for bicycling in. It’s almost painful.

Ducks! I love the ducks. I’m fairly certain I wore this outfit on Monday too, to show my boss, who really liked the ducks. And again, no pants, good girl me.

On Sunday I also wore my derby gear, which that week consisted of a striped shirt and my derby shorts.

Knitted HP sweater. Just finished by then. I still haven’t written the blog post for this one.

Yesterdays knitted sweater was covered by my old plaid jacket. These buttons suck to do up, but everybody seems to love this thing.

Again, the grey pants, as seen before. But now topped by a home made jacket. I found a decorative stitch on my machine when making this. I cannot seem to find the post, so I’m guessing the jacket is also pre-blog.

Now, I’ll upload the pictures for the next week and try to finish it all up before May ends. I am enjoying wearing the things I sort of forgot about. Some are actually way more wearable than expected. See you when I find time and energy to write the post!