Me-Made-May '16: Your Pledges

(divine Jenna cardi by Crafty NH Mom)

I LOVE reading all the #MMMay16 pledges as they come in. The most popular pledge by far, of course, is the aim to wear one self-made item per day for the duration of May, which is an awesome, and hopefully very useful challenge. But other participants have been coming up with different specifics that they feel will have a more directly beneficial effect on their relationship with their self-made wardrobe.

If you are planning to challenge yourself this Me-Made-May but are struggling to come up with pledge specifics that inspire you, here area few of this year's pledges that may offer up some ideas. I've illustrated this post with some of my favourite handmade garments/outfits from last year's Flickr group pool (if you wish to share your documentation photos on this year's Flickr group, please find it here and request admittence). 

(nicely combined separates and cute compadres! By Just Sew Jenna)

I think the pledge Morocco-dwelling @janomegnome has come up with is genius and very touching. She intends to wear as many handmade clothes as possible and 'above all **to talk about them with non-sewing folk** and not skip the chance to share the love out of modesty or suchlike daft habits'. Me-Made-May is such a great opportunity to bring the handmade and non-handmade facets of your life a bit closer!

It's good to have a reminder that Me-Made-May isn't only for sewers/sewists, or people who already have a huge array of self-stitched clothes. Ninja-crocheter @salapes is pledging to wear 'all of my handmade items of clothing at least once during the month of May'. How nice, to give every garment you have made an airing during the challenge! What better way to assess and compare how you feel about the things you have made?

(some of the utterly perfect outfits by Len from Seamless blog) 

Debbie from 'Sewn From The Heart' has chosen the popular 'oneself-made garment per day' pledge, but added the following that I really wanted to share with you all:

'I have a number of garments I've made since I started sewing again late last year. However, almost without fail, I make them, photograph them for my blog and then put them in my wardrobe, almost never to be worn again. I find it hard to get past that 'I'll keep them nice incase I wreck them' mentality. To make myself actually wear the clothes I've made will be a huge personal challenge and I really hope that it will break the cycle I'm in and start to change the way I look at, and use, my self made clothes.' It's fantastic that she has figured out exactly what's going wrong in her relationship with her handmade wardrobe, and is using Me-Made-may to bust out of that rut. Go Debbie!!!!

On top of the 'wearing' part of her Me-Made-May pledge, Ashlee from This Seams Interesting has given herself an additional aim to sew up 3-5 pieces of fabric from her 'behemoth stash on new projects between now, April 1st, and the end of May'.

So what about you? Do you want to pledge this year but find yourself holding back? Share your quandaries...