Me Made May Days 10-11

Well I DID wear me made every day since the beginning of May. What I have not been so good at was taking the photos to document this. Well to be fair the challenge is to do the me made thing not to document it. Normally I do document every day religiously. This year I am finding I simply do not find this as exciting to do as in previous years. I honestly wear me made every day anyway or its a really rare occasion when I don't. As in all the time not just in May. Since the odd occasion when I do not do this happens to be the very unusual days when I dress up - as in theatre or wedding or similar thats really not very common I do not wear me made and maybe now most of my wardrobe is me made that is what the issue is. Its not an adventure anymore to do this challenge.

Friday 10th May
So I kind of gave up on Friday. I actually wore this top which I made ages ago from upcycling of some badly made dresses.  I love this top despite it being rubbish synthetic material. I have not though worn it for ages. I never took a photo on Friday so you will just have to take my word for it I did do me made then too:

Yes, I know its cheating..................

Saturday 11th May
This day I did actually remember to get photos take though only after changing half way through the day. Both outfits were me made but never mind. I only cataloged the second outfit. Here are the photos:

 This is my mohair type jumper made from an ancient and free pattern from some magazine or other in the early 80s. Well it was only knitted recently but the pattern is 80s that is what I mean.

My lovely soft and warm jumper is worn with a new skirt. 

This skirt is part of a project going on in my life at the moment. To make elastic waist skirts and shorts because I had some  pretty horrible news a few weeks back now.

So a couple of months back now I was having a problem walking. I have had hip problems for at least 7 years. I got given Physio several times. Due to my age no one considered even looking for anything other than muscular problems. In the end because the physio is actually making my walking worse not better my doctor sent me for an Xray. This showed I need a hip replacement. When the doctor rang me up to tell me this, I was totally shocked. It never occurred to me it could be this bad. So anyway now I am waiting. I was told 3-4 months so I need to be ready. I am taking vitamin K, I am not drinking any alcohol because I intend to heal as soon as possible and this must help. Interestingly I have now not drunk alcohol for more than 4 weeks and am not at all missing it. Thats good because until you decide to give up how do you know if you are an alcoholic? Well apparently I am not.

Anyway one of the items on the list I have to have for my recovery is elastic waist shorts or skirts. Recovery takes around 6 weeks so I need a few of different weights to ensure I have changes because despite his very wonderful good intentions my partner is not very domesticated when it comes to washing clothing. He is a brilliant cook do not get me wrong, but doing the washing is going to be a problem. I just always do all of it. After 29 years of him rarely needing to wash the clothing because I have always done this for us,  I think this may be a big problem, so I need to think ahead about this because I really do not want him to feel put-upon when he has to basically be my carer for at least a couple of weeks. I reckon after 2 weeks I should be able to start doing things like washing the clothes for myself. They reckon you walk the day after the op with aids, lose the crutches after 3 weeks. Its around 6 weeks till you can work so maybe he will be looking after me for all of that time. I kind of hope not - still we have yet to find out. Its about a year till you are OK again and 2 years till full recovery - so digging a garden etc, cos the muscles that hold the leg and make it strong have to grow back around the hip. That'll be a problem for my allotment too! But no

So I need to make as many changes as possible to be ready for this op. I need warm and cool weights too because the UK climate could be anything!  So I am making sure I have both winter and summer weight stuff to take into account I have no idea when this will take place or what the weather will be like.

I made a black velvet skirt a few weeks ago, similar to this pink one from the same steampunk pattern. the photos of this velvet skirt are rubbish. I need to get some new ones.

Also a longer a long green faux leather skirt - too long to be safe though to wear this one after the op because I will be on crutches!

This pink skirt is fun. It is made form the last few sizable bits of the 4-way stretch fabric I got ages ago and I have made loads from this fabric previously including these items here:

Leggings here:
https://brackencrafts.blogspot.com/2016/05/02052016-me-made-may-day-2.htm
Dress:
https://brackencrafts.blogspot.com/2019/04/pink-bodycon-from-mccalls-7538.html
And tops:
http://brackencrafts.blogspot.com/2017/10/multi-media-t-shirts-tms-october-2017.html
 and also here:
https://brackencrafts.blogspot.com/2018/03/two-tops-and-my-latest-stash-builing.html

I am unlikely to be able to make much else from this. I may get an exercise top out of the bits if I am lucky but have yet top try this.

Anyway back to this skirt - its slightly high low as you can see. I like this style its very easy to wear. To be honest I probably have lots I could wear already for this op but its an opportunity missed if I do not get round to making stuff especially for it😊

 Also I find its fun to have something to get you sewing. I am finding I need something else to make me sew recently else its just more of the same. The excitement has gone from just making  a new item of clothing or at least it is not a novel experience. It has become the norm. 

 I need a reason to get going with my sewing - something to get me excited. Having an op gives me a project to run alongside the The Vampires Wife (TVW) inspired project which I am still working on. I need to analyse how things are constructed - thats the point behind the TVW project and I am very much enjoying that but it is also a lengthy process and its not to be rushed sincxe I need to achieve my aims. The TVW dress does not just go together so very fast because I am changing the design slightly with each edition to get them not only better fitted anbd better made than the previous version and so more like the original Suzy Cave dresses but also I need to alter my own blocks to make each dress better than the last one. And I am loving doing this, but at the same time I am not producing things so quickly either and I like to produce as well. I like new clothes and variety in my sewing so having to make elastic waisted bottoms is good. I actually prefer not to use elastic for waists recently because I have been making more constructed fitted stuff but its quite nice to take a step backwards and do some simple styles. 

After all just because its easy to make does not make it less wearable and in many cases its actually better for everyday life. I tend to forget this in my quest for hard to sew and when challenging myself but its wrong to just make challenging clothing for the sake of the challenge. There should be space in my collection for easy to make stuff too. 

These skirts are easy. They go together in about 30 minutes once you have made one of them. The hardest part is adding the elastic and I have got this to a fine art and not only a professional finish. 

I use 1 inch wide black elastic. I sew ( twin needle cos my Janome machine  is a very temperamental one and does not like to ZigZag!) and then turn over and twin needle again on right side. This stops the elastic moving around inside a casing and keeps it firmly in place making for a very comfortable elastic waistband. 

I took some photos of this when making the long green faux leather skirt but I use this method for leggings and everything else with an elastic waistband. There is one photo missing showing how the elastic is attached first to the Right side and then the second photo is it being folded over to wrong side giving a neat edge then you twin needle stitch from RS.

Ah and I dyed my hair on Saturday.

This is actually not the best effort when it comes to dying my own hair. 

 

I bought dusky pink from Superdrug's Pick n Mix range and did the top of my hair only to realise I was running out of dye so the ends are then done in Rose Gold dye. I still have some un-pink blond streaks too so I have ordered more dye to redo it but this time I shall get 2 of each colour. Then I can do dusky pink one month and Rose gold the next - and ofcourse make all my hair the same colour instead of this somewhat patchy mess. Summer here I come................

Thanks for visiting my blog

Bracken