My Me-Made-May'18 Pledge: Plus, A Shout Out to Crafty Businesses

Well, the sign-ups for this year's Me-Made-May (#MMMay18 for social media interactions) are coming in thick and fast. It's so fascinating and inspiring seeing how people have decided to challenge themselves for a whole month. I particularly enjoy reading the ones that include a little explanation of why they chose their specific pledge and/or what they are hoping to get out of the challenge.

So, I've been thinking for a couple of weeks about how I might be able to improve my relationship with my own handmade wardrobe, and now I'm ready to make my pledge:

'I, Zoe of 'So, Zo...' blog and @sozoblog on Instagram, sign up as a participant of Me-Made-May '18. I endeavour to wear only me-made clothing (with the exception of bras, socks, tights and footwear) with no outfit/clothing-combination repeats throughout May 2018'  

I intend to document my challenge photographically, although possibly not daily, as I've found that photos help me judge the success of my outfits. I will post weekly(ish) updates on my blog about how my challenge is going and what I'm learning along the way. I will include occasional updates on my Instagram account.   

I'd say that my current selection of clothing is about 90% to 95% me-made, so wearing me-mades and excluding my RTW won't be a challenge. However, pushing myself to create 31 different combinations within my me-made wardrobe is where things are going to be tricky. Like many (most?) people, I tend to reach for the same garments in the same combinations day after day. But I really want to make myself try out new combos to get the most out of my sewing efforts.

Last year I has a massive clear out and donated a big chunk of my clothing to charity, as both my personal style and my body shape have changed a lot since having children (not to mention what my lifestyle requires from my wardrobe - bye bye cocktail dresses!). I've been populating my wardrobe with great pieces that fit my style, body shape AND lifestyle requirements, but I don't think each piece is being utilised as fully as it could. It's kind of an extension of how I feel about all my belongings in general, I don't want to own anything that doesn't see a decent amount of use/wear, at some point during the year at least. I think this pledge will help me achieve that within my wardrobe.

On to the shout out. I've been having a big ol' think about how to celebrate Me-Made-May this year. During previous years' challenges we've hosted giveaways for participants to win clothes-making related goodies from a variety of wonderful and generous crafty businesses. However, it always seemed to me to be a real shame that only one lucky participant got to benefit from each giveaway.

This year, I thought it would be nice to encourage crafty businesses to generate discount codes or offers for customers that are open to everyone as a more inclusive way to celebrate the challenge. Participants of Me-Made-May frequently find that taking part helps them discover holes in their self-stitched wardrobe. Therefore, we'd like these discounts/offers to run for the final week of May (24th to 31st), or at least part of that week (the weekend of 26th/27th May perhaps), to help this year's participants to buy what they need to fill some of those newly-uncovered holes.

If any owner of a crafty online business would like to support and celebrate the MMMay community this year by generating some kind of offer or discount code, please email me the details (ideally by 14th May) to sozoblog (at) gmail dot com. I will publish a post with full details of any MMMay related discounts or offers during the third week of the challenge. Thanks in advance for your support!