Self-Stitched-September: Days 1, 2 & 3

Woo hoo! It's finally here! Self-Stitched-September is ON. Born from the embers of an awesome Me-Made-May, our ranks have swollen to more than double and now the latest community challenge in this handmade revolution is live!

Personally, I can't say I was as prepared for SSS as I was for MMM, but therein lies even more of a challenge. August for me was all over the place. The first week was spent in Barcelona trying to shead two years worth of accumulated stuff and having fun and tearful farewells. The second week was spent having an awesome adventure travelling through France on our way to UK, visiting Lyon and Paris. Since arriving in UK mid-August I've been sofa-surfing, staying with friends and relatives whilst we get our shit together. Living out of a suitcase forces you to limited your selection somewhat, but I have to say that I've been getting by pretty well with just a few tops and a few skirts (almost all of which are me-made) that I've been mix and matching.

Having successfully completed Me-Made-March and Me-Made-May previously, for me Self-Stitched-September I guess isn't really about proving whether or not I can get by on just clothing I made myself. This month's challenge for me will be trying to get by in self-stitched clothing in difficult or unsettled circumstances. Whatever September holds, hopefully including moving house, job interviews/trials, new employment and random British weather whilst trying to build up a new life in a new city, I'm going to be doing in me-mades.

Day 1:

Here I am hanging out in my folks' back garden in self-stitched top (made with Simplicity 3835), skirt (made with Simplicity 2451) and pants. Cute crochetted slippers made by my craftin' mamma!

Day 2:

More garden action wearing self-stitched stripey T, navy cotton sateen tulip skirt, pants and later that day, the leopard coat. I have a small confession, that night I went to London to stay where my boy has been sofa-surfing but I forgot my cardi so ended up borrowing his hoodie to keep warm in the flat. If it had been Me-Made-May I might have considered this a Fail, but I'm being a tiny bit easier on myself this month due to having to flit about the country quite a bit.

Day 3:

Remember what I was saying about difficult circumstances? On Day 3 I had a job interview which I only knew about a day and a half in advance. I didn't have a self-stitched outfit that I considered appropriate, so I quickly made this red stretch-sateen pencil skirt using Burdastyle's Jenny pattern to wear with my nautical blouse (and self-stitched vest, pants and leopard coat, of course). Despite having used this skirt pattern twice before, the final garment still ended up too big at the waist, so the blouse went untucked, rather than tucked in like I had envisioned. The stretch-sateen was a remnant I recently picked up for £2 and the skirt is half-lined using some tomato-red/coral stretch cotton I had in my stash. I already had the zip and thread, so at least it wasn't the most costly of near-failures. It must have worked ok, because I've been offered a job trial on Monday (AKA Day 6), so fingers crossed please!