Sewing for the frugal, via Indietutes

It has come to my attention lately that, as much as I like to pretend that sewing Ruby's clothes myself is a good way to save money, there are certain pitfalls that can make it seriously costly. You find yourself a sewing machine in the street and you think "Ooh, marvelous. Now it won't cost me a thing to make the small one's clothes. Just think of all the money I'll save!" But the fact is that it can be a bloody expensive 'hobby'.

Of course, there are many, many other reasons why I make clothes for Ruby. I think it helps to discourage the disposable attitude that is so easy to develop when you can buy ready-made clothes for a handful of pennies, that can (and has, to my shame) lead to just throwing away things that have developed a little hole or acquired an unshiftable stain. There are the obvious ethical issues involved in buying clothes with a price tag that implies seriously unfair trade in their affordable little pasts. There is doing it for the love of it, because I get to see my baby wearing something that has been made with thought and time and love. I have lots of reasons for making Ruby's clothes, which you can read about here, but that doesn't change the fact that unless you are very careful, you can end up costing yourself a lot of money, whilst at the same time sort of losing sight of why you are doing it in the first place.

And then I found this nugget of wondrousness, the most inspirational and motivational list of ways to keep sewing frugal and stick to the mission plan, and Vegbee over at Indietutes has very kindly allowed me to reproduce some of my favourite suggestions here. So these are my top ten picks from a very long list of truly great ideas, and once you are done reading these, I suggest you go over there and peruse the whole lot.

1. Organise your stash. Until you know exactly what you have, you will find that you keep repeating yourself. You can tell yourself otherwise as many times as you like, but there is such a thing as too many Liberty florals.

2. Keep track of discount days at local fabric stores and shop with a list (or, in Vegbee's wise words, a small child, because nothing will convince you to get what you need and get out like trying to control a 3-year-old in a fabric store).

3. When buying new, cheap fabric doesn't always mean a deal. Some cotton prints and flannels are always priced cheap because their quality is poor. You do not save money (or feel good) if your hand-made garments look faded and tear after just a few washes. If you are spending good money, make sure it is on quality material.

4. Search your local freecycle network and put the word out amongst your neighbours that you will take away the extras from other sewers' stashes. If you have just done #1 and you have some things going begging, you might be able to negotiate a trade-off. Most people looking to downsize their stash will be happy to give it to someone who will appreciate the fabric and use it well.

5. Thrift stores and yard sales are great resources, not only for fabrics. You can often pick up large grab bags of notions for a dollar or two, but steer clear of vintage thread – it dries out and snaps. If buying buttons make sure there are enough matching buttons to finish a garment.

6. Reconstructed garments are the ultimate in thrift and creativity, especially if you revamp your own wardrobe using what you've already got. I try to do as much of this as I can, and it's one great way that I can make things for myself as I am not quite brave enough yet to make adult clothes from scratch, but I can sure as hell restyle a badly fitting dress, or turn an old sweater into a skirt.

7. Check out sewing books at your local library. Most libraries will stock several older books full of general knowledge (which will cost a mint to buy new) as well as some of the new hip books on reconning that sell for 20 smackers or more in the bookstore. Also, and this is too obvious, the internet is an amazing source for free tutes and patterns. But you know this. As an aside, I have a set of books in the UK given to me by my best friend's mum, from which she learn everything she needed to know to make all my friend's clothes when she was little. They were a bit over my head when she first gave them to me, but now I cannot wait to get home and get stuck into them.

8. Keep your machine in good shape by cleaning and oiling frequently. Don't bother to use canned air to blow out the lint from your machine – a set of inexpensive make up brushes work just as well, can be used for years and are a fraction of the cost. Better maintenance means fewer service bills.

9. Don't get sucked in by all the 'essential' products sold as sewers' aids. Buy what is helpful and then make use of what you already have at home. For example, used dryer sheets are a great stabilizer for embellishments, appliqués can mostly be held in place with pins to avoid the need for bonding papers. Old sewing books (see #7) are full of great inexpensive techniques from an era that had never hear of liquid anti-fray agents.

10. Keep the original motivation and intention in mind. Remember that sewing skills were, once upon a time, used to save money and reduce waste. The darning of socks, patching of holes, mending of rips, and clever placing of appliqués can all save stained or worn clothes from the bin – and if you can't save them in their original incarnation, then try to work out how you else you can use them.

There are loads more ideas and suggestions over at Indietutes, so make sure you take yourself over there and have a look. I'd love to hear any other tips and tricks too, so leave a comment and share your wisdom. Thanks to Vegbee for such an inspiring post!

Sweater to skirt in 30 minutes.

I'm going to make a disclaimer of sorts now, and say I have no idea how robust this design is – my sweater says hand wash only so that is what I will do – but if you have a sweater that is on its way to the sweater cemetery then you can't possibly have anything to lose.

I found this particular beauty for $4 in an east village thrift store, so I didn't have an enormous amount at stake. I'm not suggesting they all need to be quite this garish. You need to start with a sweater that fits comfortably around your hips. It also needs to be long enough from underarms to hem for you to be comfortable wearing it as a skirt. You can cut it shorter but not longer. You will also need a length of wide elastic, 1-2" shorter than your waist measurement.

Take the length of elastic you cut and sew a seam with the right sides together, to make what will become your waistband.

Open out the band you just made, and use a zigzag stitch to secure the raw edges. This will avoid any scratchiness on the waistband.

With the sweater the right side out and the waistband the wrong side out (so right sides facing), insert the bulk of the sweater inside the waistband, up under the arms. You will be sewing along the upper edge of the elastic.

Stretch out the elastic and pin in place at intervals around the sweater so that the stretch is even.

Zigzag stitch around the waistband, stretching it out as you go to ensure it is spread evenly around the sweater. If you are very brave and experienced you can cut the skirt first, but do so at you peril. I was such a scaredy puss that I zigzagged twice around the waistband before daring to cut.

When you are feeling secure enough in your stitching, you can cut the top part of the sweater off, following the line of the elastic. Rest assured that in the fullness of time I will think of something worthwhile to do with the upper body of your sweater.

Turn it back on itself and, voila, you have a skirt. Send me pictures of your own sweater-skirts and I'll stick them up here. Enjoy! xx

Upcycled t-shirt dresses

So, there are several hundred things I am supposed to be doing, but instead I am here, posting pictures of a few of the things I have made with my rescued sewing machine. As I mentioned before I got a bit carried away with a bunch of thrift store t-shirts.

The first one I made is still my favourite, but I don't have any pictures of it, and it is currently in the wash, so you'll just have to use your imagination. They are all a variation on a theme though, so here are a few of the others, not particularly well-photographed but I promise I shall work on that.

This one makes her look like a pink Charlie Brown.

Here it is in action.

I love this one, particularly the ruffle on the bottom. My friend sent me this video clip when he saw it, and I now can't not think of that when Ruby wears it. I may have to teach her the song.

This one is from a t-shirt given to me by a friend with a bar in the east village. Marginally more effort went into this one, as I went to the trouble of removing the sleeves before cutting it all up and then refashioning them into little puff sleeves, rather than just cutting the bodice and sleeves in one piece as I have with the others. It gives it a different look, a bit more polished, but to be honest I like both versions.

Tutorial coming soon.

Here it goes.....

So, this is the first post. How ever so terribly exciting.

I already blog for T5M. At least, in theory I do, she says, slapping herself on the wrist for the embarrassing length of time since the last post and resolving to try harder. But I thought I'd have a go at doing a more crafty, clothes-making-related one with the intention of even attempting a few tutorials...

So here we go. The general gist of it all is that last year I made a pledge that Ruby would only wear second-hand or home-made clothes, partly in an attempt to save money, partly in a knee-jerk reaction to my rapidly accelerating disposable attitude towards baby clothes (well, when you have a wardrobe filled with approximately seven thousand babygros and one of them gets poo on it you do tend to think "Sod it. I'll just chuck the thing out."), and partly because I drink less wine when my hands are occupied with cutting, pinning and sewing.

I did really well with this pledge, although admittedly I was fortunate enough that Ruby's birthday is in May and we were given a few lovely pieces that I could swear people chose because they knew they were things I wouldn't be able to (read: wouldn't be bothered to) make. Jeans, a fancy dress or two and a couple of cardies, all of which served us very, very well and complemented the hand-made stuff brilliantly. I made it through to september, when I gave in and admitted that there were a few things madam needed that I hadn't been lucky enough to find in decent nick and/or the right size in charity shops, such as jeans, jumpers and coats, and which I wasn't likely to make because, well, I'm not a masochist.

So I caved, and then I caved some more, and then I came over to the States for a bit where I had no sewing machine, and basically the whole thing fell by the wayside. But then, fate decided that my excuses had got out of hand and left a sewing machine literally on my doorstep. (As an aside, I love New York for that: people just leave things they don't want by the side of the road or in the hallway, there for the taking.) It needed a bit of attention, such as the paintbrush I stole from Ruby and parcel-taped onto the side to replace the missing spool holder, and it's not exactly very advanced – you can't adjust the stitch length or owt – but it works, and that is all that matters.

So my excuses are gone, spring is rapidly approaching, and I am starting the pledge all over again. Somewhat fortuitously, I haven't bought her any clothes since Christmas either, so I can conveniently backdate it to New Year and pretend that I had intended to do it all along. I will warn you now that I am giving myself advance permission to buy jeans new if I can't find any second-hand in the right size. And possibly the odd thing I see that I simply must have, although I may try to get through that with the birthday loophole, by pointing generous relatives in the right direction.

It won't all be clothes-making, but a mixture of that and some baking adventures and general toddler-related fiff-faffery, so bear with me while I waffle away. Since I recently went a bit nuts with a bunch if thrift store t-shirts I rather conveniently have a whole bunch of dresses all ready to photograph and show off, which will surely make me appear all industrious and resourceful. Read on.......