Me-Made-May: How Will You Celebrate?

Me-Made-May started out as a participatory holiday for sewists and has become an event that makers around the globe – including knitters, crocheters and other fibre artists – take part in. This challenge isn’t about making things; it’s about wearing things you’ve already made. 

Why? Because if you wear the things you make, you can learn more about your personal style, what you want more of, and what you don’t. This is great for you and for your plans for making more garments. And it’s a great excuse to break out all of the lovely things you’ve made for yourself. And sometimes, to rediscover things you forgot you made.

What Is Me-Made-May?

The Me-Made-May challenge started in 2010, when Zoe Edwards of the blog So Zo What Do You Know? committed to only wearing clothing she’d made herself for the entire month of May. In 2011 other people joined her in the challenge, but chose different goals. It still continues today, and there are as many goals as there are people who participate.

What Kind of Goal Can I Have?

Some people choose to wear one item each day that they made themselves, other people only have one item that they made themselves, and choose to style that item in different ways through the month. Some people choose to wear things they made themselves every Monday, or every Saturday, or commit to wearing every me-made item at least once. It’s up to the maker to choose what is significant to them. The goal is to develop a better relationship with your handmade wardrobe, so choose a pledge that will help you with this.

Isn’t Me-Made-May an Instagram Thing?

Yes, some people choose to use Me-Made-May as an excuse to post cute me-made outfits on Instagram. However, that has never been a requirement of the challenge. Me-Made-May was never meant as a competition. It’s a personal voyage of discovery. If you want to share that voyage you can post to social media – or you can keep it to yourself.

Am I Supposed to Make a New Item Every Day?

Nope! Me-Made-May isn’t about making new clothes. It’s about wearing and using all of the lovely stuff you’ve already made. It shouldn’t be a chore – it should be a way to have fun!

But What if I Want to Show Off My Me-Mades?

We’d love to have you do it! If you want to show off your Me-Made items for Me-Made May, post them to our Facebook page, send them to our Facebook group, tag us on Instagram or send us an email. We’d love to see it and share it!

What Does Me-Made-May Mean to Us? 

Joy was a sewist long before she was a knitter and was an eager consumer of sewing blogs for many years. She was following Zoe’s blog when the first Me-Made-May was announced, so she has a sense of nostalgia and enjoyment about having been there since the beginning. Joy loves the focus on wearing and enjoying your completed garments, using the time to focus on understanding what works for you and what doesn’t, and identifying wardrobe gaps so you can really find your style happy-place. If you are only ever sewing dresses, but only ever wear jeans and tees, then this is a great chance to learn to enjoy wearing dresses – or to commit to learning to sew jeans! Unfortunately Joy wears a work uniform 5 days a week, and weekends are mostly  “pandemic uniform” of loungewear, so she doesn’t get a lot of chance to scratch her style itch! So her pledge this year is to wear one me-made item per weekend and find ways to enjoy dressing – even if she never leaves the house. 

Ruth stumbled onto Me-Made-May when it made its way out of the sewing blog universe and into the knitting instagram world. Ruth, like Zoe, has a huge enthusiasm for sustainability and loves the way Me-Made-May encourages us to cherish what we have rather than focus on consuming or generating more, and finding ways to increase the usability of what we own. Ruth’s commitments around sustainability already include wearing her clothes until they wear out, and to mend and alter where required. For her, using her me-mades is already second nature. So Ruth’s pledge is to wear every me-made item at least once this month (weather permitting) and to find new ways to combine them into new outifts.

Want to take your me-mades to the next level? Add a Kylie and the Machine label to make them special – there are even labels that say “Me-Made” on them!