Colette Laurel: The Tops

And then there were four.

In addition to the two Laurel dresses I showed you last week, I also made two Laurel tops that have had a ton of wear this Spring: one in grey chambray and another beautiful nani IRO print in double gauze.

Colette Laurel: The Dresses

Shift dresses are not my friends. Every shift dress that I have ever tried on in a store has looked and felt like a large sack swallowed me whole. "Swimming in it", as my mother would say. That's why I have always been wary of the Laurel pattern by Colette, despite seeing so many lovely versions pop up online over the years. Good for them, I thought, but there's no way that's going to look good on me.

Flash to four years later. It's the middle of winter and I'm craving something new and cute that will be both comfortable and warm -- a dress with a looser fit, with sleeves, and that can be worn with leggings. The Laurel immediately came to mind. After a few years of practice, it seemed I finally had the confidence to tackle this pattern and the adjustments I would need to make it work for me.

I'm so happy to say that with some patience, and several yards of tracing paper, I ended up with a dress I absolutely love. In fact, I loved it so much I immediately sewed another dress and two tops. Four garments is definitely worth the effort.

Me Made May 2016

Happy Me Made May! That time of year when your crafty friends flood your feed with selfies. Hopefully that pleases and inspires you. If not, you may want to find something else to do for the next 31 days.

If you'll recall, last year I participated for the first time and it was so successful in motivating me to sew more wearable garments that I doubled the size of my handmade wardrobe! I'm excited to join again this year and, although I still don't have enough pieces to wear handmade every day, I have some lofty goals.

I'm always been really intimidated by knits, even though I love to wear them, so I've decided to face that fear head-on and only sew with knits this month. I'm hoping to make a couple t-shirts, leggings and a maxi dress.

I'm also promising to kick-start the blog again and post all the makes I haven't written about since I fell out of the blogosphere last year. Better find that tripod.

Finally, I pledge to wear handmade as often as I can and to supplement with vintage or repurposed the rest of the time. Let's hope that the weather warms up soon, so I can break out my sundresses.

You can follow along with my progress on Instagram and all the other people participating by checking out the hashtag #mmmay16.

Let's do this!