Whew! That’s a lot of alliteration going on in that title! As it suggests, this is a quick wee post to note down a couple of fun developments as 2018 really gets into gear.

Firstly, it’s getting close to Me-Made May 2018 and I’m going to take part this year for the second year running. Woohoo! I had such an interesting experience last year and, in fact Heather from @heatherhandmade and I, met virtually to talk about it for the Sewcialists’ theme month: “Sewcialists love Me-Made-May”. You can read all about it in over on the Sewcialists blog right now if you feel so inclined…

Of course, it does mean I’ll be taking part again this year and my pledge is as follows:

“I, Claire MacPherson @belle_citadel and bellecitadel.com, sign up as a participant of Me-Made-May ’18. I endeavour to wear all me-made outfits during the month of May, with the exception of undergarments and footwear. I hope this will streamline my style and projects even further than last year. ”

If you’re not quite sure what I’m talking about or what Me-Made May even is, you can read all about over it at the blog of founder Zoe from “So Zo, what do you know” and, in fact, that’s where you sign up with your pledge. Take a gander at all the pledges if you’re stuck for ideas – there are lots of different ones!

Moving on to another topic that I’m super happy about: another of my main sewing aims this year is in progress, which was to meet some new sewists. I have made some great new sewing friends this year on an individual basis and it looks like I’ll be socialising with a bunch more as the #seattlesews hashtag (thought up by Helen and Caroline from the Love to Sew podcast) enabled a group of us to get together and hang out.

This is thanks to the lovely Susanna from @Susanna_and_katyarose who did the noble deed and set up a Facebook group as well as coordinating our first coffee meetup on Instagram. Well, we met in a coffee shop, not Instagram, but you know what I mean. It was a lot of fun chatting with like-minded sewists about patterns, fabric, mistakes, successes and everything else sewing-related you can think of.

We’ve got quite a few events and meetups set up on the Facebook group now, will post them to Instagram and would love it if any Washington sewists would like to join in the fun! I myself live north of Seattle and there are other members from Redmond and Tacoma, so it’s not a Seattle-only thing.

If you’re in the area and want more info, please do check out the Facebook group: Seattlesews Garment Sewing Community and check for updates on the #seattlesews hashtag on IG. The more the merrier and we’d love to meet you!