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I’m not going to lie – trying to do the Wool& #100daydresschallenge and Me Made May at the same time was daunting! It is one of the main reasons I chose the Long Black Rowena Dress – I felt like I needed the most simple canvas possible to pull it off. It was a good choice and is a great dress.

For those of you who may not know me, several years back I embarked on a mission to sew a wardrobe of clothes in organic cotton in the style of Alabama Chanin. The designer at Alabama Chanin is amazing, talented and generous and she has shared her techniques in a line of books, patterns and materials. If you ever get the chance to encounter Natalie and The School of Making you will walk away enriched.

I made the challenge ever harder on myself by deciding on a major life change half way through the month. That is the power of the 100 day dress and this challenge; It begs you to define certain things in your life and in my case that was why would I want to live in a big house by myself now that my sons will both be in college. I announced on my neighborhood’s Facebook page I was interested in selling my house and the next thing you know the very first person to come look and I have agreed to the sale. In the meantime, knowing how little you really need to get dressed everyday has made me rethink how much I really need of all areas of my life and I’m currently in the process of selling/donating/getting rid on 80% of everything I own. That’s why I started missing days around day 60 – my mind was somewhere else.

The following is a list of the Me Made items I wore in 2021 during my dress challenge with a quick description and a link to one of my blog posts if I’ve written about it.

Saturday, May 1st and 47th day of my challenge – I was living at my sister’s house while caring for my Mom so I had to pack up a MeMades to bring along with me. The easiest item I could think of was this gray scarf. It has the Angie’s Falls stencil worked up in relief appliqué as well as some chain stitching. Here’s the link to my scarf post.

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Sunday, May 2nd – 48th day – Back home but headed out to the visit my ex in-laws (yea, that’s a thing). I enjoyed wearing Ro (the dress) as a skirt and pairing it with a MeMade navy tank and navy and black sleeveless bolero. The bolero has the Magdelena stencil in black paint and is worked up in reverse appliqué. It has black binding with a Rosebud stitch. I haven’t written a blog post specifically about it but if you go to my 2019 MeMadeMay wrap up there’s a better picture of it. Side note – the necklace is just a skinny piece of the organic cotton stretched until it wraps with a crystal on it.

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Monday, May 3nd – 49th day – Zoom work meetings called for my Ezra jacket in Black and Navy worked up with the Magdelena Stencil in negative reverse appliqué. Here is the link to my Navy Ezra blog post.

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Tuesday May 4 – 50th day – This day was a doozy! My son shredded the tire on his car so I could only grab a picture on my way out the door to go help him, hence the laundry room shot. I didn’t dress up much this day, just threw on one of the cuff bracelets I’ve made. Ironically, the tire and the cuff look a lot a like. Here is the link to my post about cuff bracelets.

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Wednesday May 5th – 51st day – Wearing black for this long straight starts to get to you, especially in the Springtime, so every once in a while you need to throw on some color. That was me this day. I haven’t blogged about the Apple (red) Wrap Top yet. I’m not sure I did a great job on the pattern because I can’t wear it without the neckline gaping, but I do love the Rosebud stitching around the binding. All these selfies got me wearing lipstick – I guess that’s a good side result of taking your picture everyday.

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Thursday May 6th – 52nd day – I’ve always loved the way Alabama Chanin layers their clothing – here’s my attempt – I think the Ro has too much fabric and the Natural tank is a little tight so it’s not working. The under skirt is from my DIY Hijack and has the Magdelena stencil worked up in negative reverse appliqué. Here is the link to my blog post about the skirt that came from a dress kit.

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Friday May 7th – 53rd day – I’ve always thought headbands would be a great way to practice new stitching techniques, problem is I’ve never really liked the way I look in them. This one is Carmine (red) with burgundy Anna’s Garden shapes appliquéd on top with beading. I chain stitched the edges to help them lay flatter.

Saturday May 8th – 54th day – Another layering attempt – this time under Ro but it still puts a lot of fabric around my mid section – where I need it the least. The leaves on the underskirt and the cardigan were a part of my first time trying indigo dying. I wrote all about it in my Indigo Experiment blog post.

Sunday May 9th – 55th day – Mother’s Day – After a day of hanging out with my sons it was nice to kick up my heels at the end of the day and get a little time to do some stitching. I’m working on a skirt that I’m making from a poncho kit. I decided to cut up the poncho using the swing skirt pattern with just a little modification since the fabric in question wasn’t quite wide enough. The skirt is black on black with Anna’s garden stencil painted on with silver paint. I’m working it up in negative reverse appliqué.

Monday May 10th – 56th day – This might be my favorite outfit of the month. This walking cape is from a The School of Making DIY kit that I purchased when I did the Alabama Chanin Weekend Workshop. Here is the blog post about the Walking Cape.

Tuesday May 11th – 57th day – A lot of the dress challenge participants are really creative about their daily pictures. Me, not so much, but I was inspired by a few “Nailed It” posts and took this opportunity to give it a try. This AC picture was what inspired me to try making this poncho using the Abstract stencil in Parchment fabric with Verdant shapes appliquéd on. Here is my blog post about the poncho.

Wednesday May 12th – 58th day – This Indigo Ezra was my Covid quarantine project. I put a lot of blood sweat and tears into this jacket and I still need to write a blog post about it. I dyed the fabric, embroidery thread for the decoration and button craft thread for the assembly. I sponge painted on the Aurora stencil and stitched up in reverse appliqué. Lot’s of lessons learned!! I haven’t put on fasteners so I’m not officially “finished” with it yet.

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Thursday May 13th – Day 59 – I was super excited that my peony was about to open up. I’ve always thought of this dress as more of a Fall dress but I gave it a try. Burgundy A-Line dress, New Leaves stencil, negative reverse appliqué. No blog post about this one…yet.

Friday May 14th – Day 60 – it was about this time I was getting burned out … on both challenges. This was a chilly day and I just didn’t have it in me, so, I decided it was enough to say that I carry a MeMade tote … everyday. I stitched up a square with Navy on Black using the June’s Spring stencil and just appliquéd it on a store bought tote. It’s looking a little worse for the wear but if you want to see what it looked like just stitched, here is the tote blog post.

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Tuesday May 18th – Day 63 – you may have noticed a break in the days here. This was the weekend where I put my house up on Facebook and I spent those missed days cleaning like crazy and showing the house. The last thing on my mind was the challenge. This day I decided to experiment with my Ochre striped scarf with a matching plain Ochre swing skirt. I couldn’t decide whether to wear it as a scarf or a belt. Here is a blog post about the striped scarf.

Friday May 21st – Day 66 – yep, more days missed. More cleaning, pursing, etc. I did keep wearing Ro, I just didn’t pair it with a MeMade on these days. This skirt barely qualifies as all I did was alter it. This is the most expensive piece of clothing I’ve ever purchased … The Penelope skirt was on sample sale a few years back and I went for it. Because this was for the Alabama Chanin couture collection, it was at least four inches longer than I could wear, so I took four inches off the top. I love the combination of Black, Ochre and Peacock!

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Tuesday May 25th – Day 70 – still missing days but this time I have a good excuse – I was back up at my sister’s taking care of my Mom. It makes it tricky to pack for two challenges as once, but in some ways it makes things easier because you have to plan your outfits. Here I’m wearing my tank with Natural overtop of Faded fabric. This is the Magdelenda stencil and it’s stitched up in reverse appliqué. Just wish I could keep my coffee in my cup instead of on my tank. Here’s the blog post about the tank.

Wednesday May 26th – Day 71 – I’m wearing my Ro as a shirt by tying the sleeves together and pairing it with my Aurora Pencil Skirt. I’m not going to say much about the skirt here because I have a blog post 90% done and I’m going to try and get it up later this week.

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Thursday May 27th – Day 72 – These pictures make me laugh. I took the picture with the number in it first before I realized the pockets on the Ro were inside out (from tying them up the day before). I tucked them in and took a second picture but I decided I liked the untucked picture better – an Insta friend even said she thought I was trying to be avant garde. I’m wearing a plain Peacock camisole and my Black fingerless gloves. Here is the blog post about the fingerless gloves.

Friday May 28th – Day 73 – This is a MeMade stretch. All I did was sew two skinny pieces of Faded fabric together to create this belt. But at this point, I was taking what I could get and it’s getting too hot outside to do much layering. Here’s a blog post about the Faded fabric in general and how I used it.

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Saturday May 29th – Day 74 – Wearing Ro as a shirt again, this time tied up in a knot. I’m wearing it with my tone-on-tone Peacock Fitted Skirt with Magdelena stencil stitched as reverse appliqué. This came from a kit from The School of Making and I made it before I started blogging so I don’t have anything to share … except that it is still one of my favorite and most wearable makes.

I missed the last two days in May. I was back at my house and working to get ready to move. As tough as it was to do two challenges at once, it really did help me realize what it is I really want to wear and what I need to let go of. And taking selfies everyday has helped me realize what looks good on me …. and what doesn’t.

If you are interested in seeing more pictures from my #100daydresschallenge you can check me out on Instagram @100daywithsmmczyk. I’m currently on Day 97 and I have to admit, I’m ready to wear something other than black!

P.S. – I just checked my past blog posts – I think WordPress changed something and a lot of my pictures turned out tiny – I’ll try and fix that soon!