This week has 5 days: MMM13 week 1

I pledged to wear something handmade/refashioned at least 3-4 times per week during May, and only wear me-made/refashioned/acquired through travel earrings, but my secret pledge is to try to do something every day. Also, in the spirit of this blog, I am going to try to take pictures in different places in the city (or elsewhere). And as an added level of difficulty, I'm going to try following Fat Mum Slim's May Photo-a-day prompts.

This could get interesting.

I have to confess I was hoping for the cooler weather to hold on for a bit so I could wear some of my cold-weather items without sweltering. Naturally the temperature has shot up to 20°C. Fortunately it's still a bit cool in the morning and evening, but I was pushing it with those sweaters.

Are you sitting comfortably? Then let the May-hem begin.

May 1

Queen's Park Circle. "I bought this!"

Oh, the irony of that prompt. For the first day, I tried to hit every category of me-made (sewing, crochet, jewellery). The first and so far only pair of trousers I have made is view B of McCall's 5239 I made these eight or so years ago, and I wear the heck out of them every autumn/winter. The fabric is some kind of slightly stretchy sports knit lined in some kind of nylon. I call them my granddad trousers because my granddad had several pairs in this check. I goofed in a few places: I decreased the rise but forgot to lengthen the legs, so they are a wee bit too short; I muffed up the fly at the waistband, despite redoing it several times; and while I widened the legs at the bottom (but not enough, and ugh for tapered legs!) I forgot to also widen the legs on the lining, which means I have issues when I wear these with boots. I'm super proud^* of the job I did on matching the checks in the back and at the pockets, though. This is an awesome pattern for fitting a waistband, because you basically cut the waistband to fit your waist before you attach it.

The scarf is my cream & beige infinity scarf. My earrings are refashioned from a pair I bought back in high school: 6 wood danglers hanging from a wood plaque. One of the danglers was missing by the time I got the earrings home from the store, so I took the rest off and wore them separately. I got rid of the plaques a few years ago, but I still have the extra danglers. I might take them apart and use the beads for other baubles.

(The thing I bought? is the Opus.)

May 2

My deck. "Morning ritual"

The exotic locale today is my deck, where I like to eat breakfast and drink my morning tea while listening to Metro Morning. It's still chilly enough in the morning to justify wearing my Sylvia sweater to bike to school. One of these days I'll get around to attaching the ribbon to the button-hole side. I'm also wearing burgundy and gold-coloured earrings I expropriated from Aged P back in high school and turned from clip-ons to pierced.

May 3

Roncesvalles. "This is really good!"**

The DC's brother's birthday dinner at Barque. I wore my yet-to-be-bebuttoned-and-so-yet-to-be-blogged Saturn sweater, which has been waiting for buttons since the end of February. Hasn't stopped me from wearing it. It's definitely getting too warm to wear either of those sweaters during the day. I was very glad of the sweater when the sun went down, however. My earrings are neither me-made, nor did I purchase them on my travels, so I'm totally cheating on my own challenge here but only because my friend Monica makes them and you should check out her store, Shiny Glass Creations.^***.

May 4

Visiting the cherry blossoms in High Park. "In my cup"

Totally stretching on that prompt, by the way. I was thinking along the lines of "my cup of happiness runneth over" or "in the cup of my hands" ... hey, look! Earrings!

So the sakura blossoms are finally blooming in High Park and I dragged the DC off at the crack of stupid early so we could avoid the worst of the crowds. We were mostly successful. Unlike last year, we knew where to go for the best blossoms. We took our annual shot of the bikes, and then a total stranger came up and asked us if he could photograph our bikes because they were so pretty. I'm wearing my cherry blossom earrings, wot I made special for this very day. We then came home and I made Puffed Cherry pancakes. Sort of.

May 5

Bloor-Gladstone Library. "Paper"

The debut of my first Sorbetto. I'm going to make a few more, so I'll blog about them en masse. I made these square hoop earrings last December. They took about a minute each. I don't wear them much because I think they're too big for the thinness. I've already made a better pair, and after today I can reuse the materials in these ones without compunction.

My weeks end on Sunday. Me-mades: 5/5; Sewing: 2; Crochet: 3; Earrings: 4. Can she keep it up? Stay tuned for the next exciting installment.

^*If I were British I'd say I was chuffed, but I don't think I can pull it off, even in print.

^**Apparently the Flickr group has themed Fridays. I just found out about that today. The theme for Friday was "water," and if you look closely at the picture, you will see a water glass. Empty, because I drank the water. Boom!

^***They did come all the way from Waterloo... does that count?