Now that May is well and truly over, I thought I’d do a recap of Me Made May. You can see my pledge here.

My main take-away is that I failed to make jeans. What a surprise. I’ve been saying I’m going to make jeans for 2 months (plus about a year before that!). I have a free weekend in a couple of weeks and it is my plan to make some jeans then – I wasn’t in the mood to make them on either of the bank holiday weekends in May as it was so bloody hot! The last thing I wanted to be doing was wrestling denim through my sewing machine.

I also found it pretty hard to decide what to wear as the weather was all over the place. I know it’s very british and boring to talk about the weather, but on the first bank holiday Monday when I was playing out with the brass band, it was 28 C and then there were other days that were 14 C.

I documented my outfits daily on Instagram and after a couple of days I decided to add another dimension to my challenge and try to have my photos look different from each other. This was kind of fun for the first week and then I just got even more fed up with documenting my outfits than in previous years because I then felt I had to think of somewhere new or a new pose for the photo. It was supposed to be a fun thing to try to break me out of my rut of the same few poses, but it didn’t really work out that way. I did, however, post as many outtakes as I could. It makes me laugh to see the stupid photos that The Boyfriend (who was a very patient Instagram Husband through the month) accidentally took. This might be the last year I take daily photos as it’s the least fun part for me, so I might try a different way of documenting my outfits so I can continue to scrutinise my wardrobe and plan my makes accordingly.

Here is a recap of all my outfits:

Day 1: silver toaster sweater and navy simplicity trousers	Day 2: refashioned suit trousers and gifted cashmere jumper	Day 3: mustard corduroy skirt and thrifted navy spotty shirt
Day 4: flowery archer shirt and black corduroy simplicity skirt	Day 5: electric blue coco top and navy simplicity trousers	Day 6: yellow flowery plantain tee and refashioned trousers
Day 7 part 1: white archer shirt and black simplicity trousers	Day 7 part 2: yellow and navy flowery sallie maxi dress	Day 8: refashioned raglan top and black simplicity trousers
Day 9: spotty rushcutter and freemantle coat	Day 10: refashioned coral, navy and mustard dress into shirt	Day 11 & 12: spotty melilot shirt and black simplicity trousers
Day 13: silver toaster sweater and black simplicity trousers	Day 14: greyish melilot shirt and navy simplicity trousers	Day 15: breton plantain tee and navy simplicity trousers
Day 17: electric blue jersey dress	Day 18: tester honeycomb shirt	Day 19: refashioned coral, navy and mustard dress into shirt
Day 20: white archer shirt and black simplicity trousers	Day 21: navy and white marianne dress	Day 22: stripey cropped inari tee and refashioned trousers
Day 23: greyish melilot shirt and navy simplicity trousers	Day 24: mustard astoria top and refashioned suit trousers	Day 25: black simplicity skirt and thrifted jumper
Day 26 & 27: navy simplicity trousers and gifted top	Day 28: navy simplicity trousers and spotty thrifted shirt	Day 29: spotty meilot and mustard denim cleo
Day 30: mustard refashioned skirt and thrifted shirt	Day 31: mustard astoria and navy corduroy cleo

What I’ve learned about my handmade wardrobe:

1. I need more trousers! I wore the same 2 pairs most of the month in rotation, and the suit trousers a couple of times.
2. All of my knitwear is still ready to wear and I’m okay with that. I don’t have time to knit myself new things and most of the cardigans are still wearable so it seems not very eco-friendly to replace them all for the sake of having a 100% handmade wardrobe. I will make replacements as and when they wear out, but it’s not desperate.
3. One of my favourite things in my wardrobe is my navy with white spots shirt (as you can see in Day 30) and it was from a charity shop. I think this is a good way to add to my wardrobe with things I wouldn’t necessarily make or things that I just like.
4. I re-wore a few things that I had forgotten about, like the mustard corduroy skirt refashion.
5. I didn’t get to wear a few things I really like because it wasn’t warm enough on enough days. I’m particularly sad my 2 In The Folds Collins Tops didn’t make it, but apparently the UK is going to have a 3-month heatwave so I’m sure they’ll get some wear this year.
6. Most of my outfits fitted into the colour palette I decided I wanted to wear when I did the Wardrobe Architect last year, which is pretty cool. It is definitely easier to put together outfits when you like all the colours and they go with each other. The 2 cleos I made are definitely going to be a great addition to my wardrobe and fit into my palette. I’ve tried to be more focussed when buying fabric, and I guess it’s working!

What did you learn from Me Made May?