By the lack of recent posts on this blog, you might think that I have been just a bit in the weeds. You are correct in this assumption. But because this is a virtual environment, I’m going to put up some smoke and mirrors and pretend that May has just begun.

In fact, on this blog, it’s Thursday, May 1st.

And this is what I’d like to share on this first day of May.

Today is the day.

It is the beginning of Project Everyday. For 31 days straight I will be wearing only clothing I have sewn. I am hoping that wearing these garments will help me see what new garments I need to sew to truly create an all Me Made collection with a sub-arctic aesthetic.

First, I need to share what new garments I’ve created since I wrote Project EveryDay Update #2. As usual, I will show you the pattern, the fabric, the garment on the dress form, and the garment on me.

Let me introduce my photographer. His name is Ozzy, and he is being good natured about the whole thing. 90% of the photos he took for this shoot were blurry–this might be related to the fact that he was trying to watch Malcolm in the Middle while taking pictures. I finally finished my party dress. I used Christine Haynes Emery pattern and a vintage silk to make a lovely retro little black dress. It is so classic.

Next, I did two more woven t-shirts using the Scout Pattern by Grainline. I used a vintage black, grey, and white floral along with the leftover linen from the first Scout. I am surprised at how light the floral looks. It is much lighter of a print than I normally wear. I do like the top stitching though. It is really interesting to me how uncomfortable I feel wearing white.

For my next Scout Woven t-shirt, I used a repurposed men’s dress shirt. I will hopefully write an entire blog about that experience, but for now let’s just say that a men’s 3X is quite a bit of fabric. This is the first non-patchworked woven t-shirt, and I think it feels a bit boring because of that. Still, using the original front placket as the center back turned out nicely.

In the frantic moments last week before I left the house for the Alaska State Council on the Arts Conference, I made two very important additions to my wardrobe. First, the ultimate wool shrug–it truly is the perfect layering piece for this time of the year.  I hacked the Renfro t-shirt pattern by Sewaholics to replicate a wool shrug I had purchased at the thrift store a while back. I used three up-cycled felted wool sweaters. For the binding, I used the same vintage plaid I used on my first woven Scout. This went together very nicely. It is one of my favorite pieces so far.

And last but absolutely not least, is the can’t live without one denim skirt. I have an oldie but a goodie that I have probably worn for at least ten years. It’s dying a slow denim death. I merged the components of that skirt–mainly the panels and the french seams with the the Make it Perfect A+ Skirt pattern. I used a beautiful chambray cotton for the binding on the top and the bottom of the skirt. While I would like to make one out of a lighter shade of denim, I am really pleased with the final result.

Here is the collection as it exists today.

I am also wearing a few garments that I have made in the past such as pj bottoms and sweaters from last year. Here is the complete line up hanging from my long arm quilting machine’s light bar. There will be more reports in the next few days as I try to accurately document this adventure. I do hope you will join me.

07 May This entry was published on May 7, 2014 at 1:56 PM. It’s filed under Project EveryDay, Sew and Sew and tagged ArctiCouture, Sub-Arctic Aethestic. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post.