Me Made May Challenge 2023 – Crochet Edition
This year I came across a hashtag on instagram that peaked my interest… #memademay
I immediately went down a rabbit hole of handmade goodness that is the annual Me Made May challenge! I was quite inspired but the idea behind this challenge and wanted to take some time to share about it, both as part of one of my Tuesday Live chats on YouTube but also here on my blog!
What is Me Made May?
Me Made May (MMM) is a wardrobe challenge started by Zoe of Sozo Blog that is meant to help improve our relationship with our handmade items. That includes existing items, as well as items we might choose to make in the future! It may be more popular within the sewing community, but is a wonderful challenge for anyone who makes ANY kind of handmade wearable items for their own wardrobe.
I’ve heard it many times from fellow crocheters and knitters that they struggle to actually WEAR their handmade items out of the house (for a HUGE variety of reasons) so I thought it would be wonderful to talk about this challenge and see if it can help us all have a better relationship with our handmade items!!!
How Do I participate?
To participate, all you need to do is pledge to wear your handmade items more often or in some way differently to how you usually get dressed. The point of doing this is to give yourself the opportunity to learn some useful lessons and/or alter how you feel about those items. There is no set, single pledge because everyone is different, with different lives and different goals, so participants design their own pledge so that it’ll be challenging and useful for them. The challenge happens by setting specifics for yourself that will be a bit difficult, but do-able.
You can’t really predict what you’ll learn by participating in this challenge, but by giving yourself a month to focus more on what you’re wearing, you’re opening yourself to gathering heaps of knowledge that you can take forward. That knowledge will help you make better choices for future projects. By applying the lessons, you’ll be upping your chances of your future handmade items making you feel fantastic and having long, useful lives (instead of hiding in the back of your closet!!)
The challenge is about wearing your existing handmade items. It’s not about accruing more things. Giving yourself a month to focus on what you’ve already created will help you appreciate what you have, perhaps fall back in love with some items, and subsequently get more from the time, energy, money and resources that you’ve already put into your craft and your clothes.
MMM is not a photo challenge. All the photos of people in their handmade outfits that appear on social media during May (you can find these by searching the hashtag #memademay) can definitely make it seem that MMM is all about donning a cute handmade outfit and taking and sharing pictures. However, and this cannot be stressed enough, those photos are documentation of the challenge, NOT the challenge itself, and photos are ENTIRELY optional!!!!!!
It doesn’t matter how many handmade items you have. You can participate if you have just one single self-made item, or if you wear head-to-toe me-mades everyday already. It’s about working with what you’ve got, setting a suitable, challenging pledge, learning useful lessons and having fun.
Now all you have to do is make your pledge!!
“I (insert name or username) pledge to wear (insert specifics of your pledge) for throughout May 2023”
You can keep this entirely to yourself, tell friends and family, or share this on social media, whatever you wish.
Zoe also hosts a podcast called Check Your Thread and has created two podcast episodes to accompany MMM and help people design their pledge so it’ll be most useful for them. These episodes also included some conversations with previous podcast guests about their experiences of, and takeaways from, participating in previous years. They are:
Have you ever participated in this challenge or a challenge like it? What was your experience? I would love to know! Please feel free to share your experience in the comments below!
What a great way to challenge yourself not only to wear what you make but the be thoughtful about choosing what you make. In my case, choosi a good pattern and the yarn that will make it the most comfortable to wear.