Making your own clothes

“Then finally when January came around the time finally opened up in my calendar to get to know this new machine and begin sewing. I decided on a flow-y loose fitting dress as my first project because I thought it would be more forgiving if I didn’t quite get the seems right. I used a Hemp fabric and was grateful I had ordered the physical pattern, as it made cutting the fabric to the right size much easier. Though measuring my actual body to find my size turned out to be a little trickier than expected since my pregnant belly is growing a lot and I didn’t choose a maternity pattern! The whole project took me three days [...] I learned how to sew a buttonhole, how to turn a fabric tube inside out, how to think creatively to make a dress smaller, and overall my confidence grew a lot when it comes to making my own clothes. I definitely have a lot of work to do before I have neat, tidy seams and can confidently sew in a straight line, but luckily even if it isn’t perfect the dress still holds together and looks wonderful on :)”

“You know when you take 10 pairs of skinny jeans into the fitting room, filled with hope and excitement, only to emerge, slightly disheveled and broken hearted, to hand them all back to the attendant because none of them fit? I avoided that feeling for an entire year. That alone is reason enough to me to keep sewing. I don’t have a mannequin-shaped body, or even a Big Four pattern shaped body. But when you have to sew everything you plan to wear, you start to work out fitting pretty quickly. I spent a month making myself a basic pants pattern - 5 muslins, and I’ve been tweaking it ever since - and it was an absolutely worthwhile use of my time.”

“During my first garment-making class, I messed up sewing the sleeve on a top. I made a common mistake—fabric from the body of the shirt got caught up in the sleeve. “The Stephanie Domet special,” I joked to my teacher, who replied, kindly, “You are so hard on yourself.” Her comment opened a space for me to be with myself, noticing and interrupting my very chatty inner critic. It was, after all, the very first sleeve I’d ever tried to sew onto a shirt (never mind that I made the same mistake on the other side, which was, after all, only the second sleeve I’d ever tried to sew onto a shirt). It was a mistake easily undone. And, it turns out, rushing to judge myself before anyone else could was simply unnecessary—and it sure didn’t help me learn and build my skills.”