Happy May Day everyone

So, it's the first of May and a new month has begun.  I didn't achieve a lot of April's goals, but I did get a lot of things done and had a blast doing it (for the most part).

For may I want to get more involved with the sewing community so I'm joining in on a few of the fun things going on this month.

The first is 

My pledge is

I, Shawn of That's Sew Shawn, sign up as a participant of Me-Made-May '13. I endeavour to wear one item of me-made clothing each day for the duration of May 2013

Now, that might not sound like much to most folks, but since I've only been sewing  things that weren't costumes since the first of March... it's actually going to be quite the challenge.  Now, understand that I won't be wearing 'me-made' items to work every day.  I just don't have that many 'me-made' things, but I always change clothes when I get home and if I'm NOT wearing something me-made to work, then I will be wearing it after I get home.  That seems like a fair compromise to me.  I'll be posting photos to the "Me-Made-May '13" flickr group and hopefully join in the Friday themes on Facebook.  What I also MIGHT try doing is participating in the theme photo challenges in the "We're Here!" flickr group.  It's not sewing related but because they give out daily themes they can help you get through a 'self portrait a day' photo challenge. (Most of the people in that group are doing a project that involves taking a self portrait every day for a year! (and you thought doing it for 30 days was hard!)  I've tried it and the most consecutive photos in a row I got to was just over 100 :(


Next... I just found out that there's a swimsuit sew-a-long happening this month!  Since I've been looking at swimsuit patterns and I have some awesome fabric at home just waiting to be made up into something adorable I was over the MOON to see this.





It's going through the end of June so I have a lot of time to continue to 'think about it' before finally cutting that awesome fabric I have.

I'm also doing the Burda Style "Sew along" with the challenge to 'stash bust' your Burda Magazines and sew something out of one.  Since I'm a sewing newbie, I only have two issues, but I'm sure willing to sew something or something(s) out of each of them.

I also want to participate in the Stash Busting Sew Along - the theme of which, this month, is Knit.  I'll post my BOX of knits so you can see just how much inspiration I have there.  There's a flickr group for that one too.

(P.S. - is it really a 'stash' if I've only been collecting for 2 months?  When you see how much of it there is, you might agree that it is)

This month at PatternReview the challenge is to sew with natural Fibers.  I love this idea, and it would be easy to sew int 100% Cotton, but I want to challenge myself to dig into something just a little more... risky and maybe try silk, linen, or wool.  (or course that'll mean I'll have to buy some fabric and I'm trying to NOT do that, but for this one thing I'll make the exception).











There's also a Great Gatsby challenge going on, but I'm not sure I'm going to participate in that one as I don't really have the patterns or fabric for something like this and the 20's aren't really my fashion 'sweet spot'.  But, if you want to check it out, you can find it here:





Last but not least... I'm joining in on the "Spring Cleaning" challenge.  Hopefully I'll be able to turn my sewing area (our bedroom) into slightly less of a disaster!

And, that should do it for now! don't you think? :D