Rediscovering A Love Of Sewing By Making Our Own Clothes

**Collaborative post**

Disclaimer: I was gifted the parrot fabric contained within this post by Yorkshire Fabric Shop.

While I was in the 6th form at school one of the subjects I took was A-Level Textiles, during this, I learnt to read patterns, cut fabric and to make my own clothing. Sadly our teacher went on maternity leave and they didn’t replace her, meaning that with over 8 months of this course left without a teacher we were unable to complete it and didn’t get to that my A-Level. It did however give me the skills I needed to use at a later date.

Of course, I didn’t think it would be over 20 years later that I would revisit these learned skills and rediscover a love of sewing, but it happened to be that this year we’ve all had a lot of extra time on our hands. As a result, I decided to explore the idea of turning this passion into a home-based business, and that’s when I stumbled upon the possibility of investing in an embroidery machine for home business. With the right equipment, I can now create personalized and unique embroidered items for sale, combining my newfound passion for sewing with the potential for a small business venture. It’s amazing how life can lead you back to your interests, and I’m excited to see where this journey takes me!

During the first lockdown, I spent the time teaching Emmy to use a sewing machine and she loved it, so much so that she soon progressed from her child’s machine to using my new sewing machine.

She is able to whip up a face mask and hair scrunchies without little thought now and can also cut out and put together a skirt all by herself, barring a little help needed with the zip.

Seeing her enjoying sewing so much make me rediscover just how much I enjoyed it myself, so I have built up a huge fabric pile and have taken to making all of our clothes now.

It may not always be the cheapest option but it means we now all have individual clothing which no one else has.

Here are a few of my favourite makes for myself and the children:

This fabric is actually upholstery fabric and I had intended to use it to make cushion covers, however, it was a perfect weight for a winter-style pinafore dress for myself. It features a beautiful parrot design and is lovely to sew with – I did need to change to a stronger needle due to the thickness of the fabric itself but that was the only change to my usual sewing style I had to adapt. Being an upholstery fabric it is hard-wearing and does wash well too – although I do tend to wash on a quick gentle cycle as isn’t meant to be washed as often as I wear this dress. It is so warm and comfy. It is available to purchase from the Yorkshire Fabric Shop and is priced at £18.99 per metre.

The kids love that they can choose their own fabric and I can whip it up into an outfit for them within an hour or so. These are the ones they chose for me to make for school dress-up days:

And these are the ones I have made so far as Christmas gifts for the children and their friends:

I am making as many Christmas presents as I can this year, with leggings, jumpers, tops, dresses, dressing gowns, slippers and hooded scarves on my to-do list – most of which I have the patterns and fabric already cut out for and ready to sew up – I just now need to find the time to do it.