The image shows the paperback version of Full Catastrophe Living: Using the Wisdom of Your Body and Mind to Face Stress, Pain, and Illness, by Jon Kabat-Zinn, but I actually ended up listening to the audiobook. The Chaplain recommended this book to me a little while ago. He didn’t say much about it. I just remember him telling me, “you should read it.” Since he doesn’t recommend many books to me and our reading interests don’t intersect much, I took him seriously.
If you follow me on Insta, you know that I participated in something called #memademay this year. This is an optional motivational tool and fun adventure for sewists who make their own clothes to wear what they’ve made and feature it on social media.
I don’t think most of my friends sew, so while I hope they didn’t get sick of seeing my face in May, there was also the bigger thing of maybe no one caring that I make my own clothes. And the sticky issue of who, exactly, our social media accounts are for.
Us?
Our friends?
Attention for us, from our friends?
*cringe*
I found Meg McElwee of Sew Liberated, through Rae, another sewing, pattern-making blogger. I loved Meg’s artsy aesthetic and layered style. I purchased a couple of her PDF patterns over a year ago, but I never printed them out to use them.
Fast forward to this spring – two years since I made anything meaningful. I’d just committed to taking a fast from buying RTW (ready-to-wear) clothes.
Last year’s #memademay felt like a total flop for me, but this year as May swung around I thought to myself, I’m going to start with May 1 and just stop when I run out of handmades to wear. No pressure.
I knew I didn’t have enough clothes to wear something I’d made every day of the month. I was cool with that. As though permission to fail was all I needed, I started sewing again. I got two more patterns from Sew Liberated, and ordered a ton of fabric.
After I did my second post on what to read with your kids for Black History Month (you can read the first installment here), I started to think about what we adults could be reading. Sue Monk Kidd’s The Invention of Wings came up when I searched for historical fiction related to slavery in America.
As I started to read it, I got pulled in pretty early on, which is unusual for me – I usually have to warm up to a book, sometimes for a long time, before I really get into it.
I’ve made a few shirts with sleeves, and the one I actually wear may someday make it into a future post. However, the type of top I’ve been most successful with is the tank top. I’ve made 5 so far, using three different patterns. It’s given me the opportunity to work with fabrics I hadn’t tried before, like double gauze and rayon.
I wanted to round up the tops I’ve made so far so I’ll have them all in one place. Also, for people like me who like to see photos of what others have done with patterns and what they look like on actual human beings – hopefully this will help.
The patterns I used were: Lotta Jansdotter’s Kiomi top from Everyday Style, and Rae’s Ruby and Gemma tops.
