I bet you have these grand plans in your mind about
learning to sew and make your own clothing,
but where on earth do you start?
How do you actually learn how to sew?
Like where should you start?
Do you get a machine first?
Do you start getting patterns?
What kind of fabrics?
What do you do?
How do you put into zip?
Who knows all these things?
So I know it can be so overwhelming and sewing is
such an enjoyable hobby.
And being able to create your own clothes is I can
set up a life skill.
So today's video.
I want to go over with you step by step in
a sort of a process and like an order of your
learning. If you will,
to help you kind of declutter and demystify and make it
a bit simpler and easier for you to follow and to
be the most successful in your sewing journey.
Welcome back to my channel.
Lovely ladies and gents.
My name is Evelyn Wood from EvelynWood.com.au.
And I'm the creator of VintageSewingSchool.com
where I take all of my skills.
I've learnt as a professional dressmaker in lifelong,
so are specializing in vintage style and I teach new.
So is just like you online,
how to get started.
And that's exactly what we're going to talk about today.
Let's start at step step zero.
Just, how do you actually get started?
Let's walk through the process.
So let's get the really sort of obvious ones out of
the way.
First, first of all,
you need to get a sewing machine and you need to
get a little toolkit happening.
Now you could borrow a sewing machine.
You could go out and buy something new or secondhand,
and there's many different sort of basic dressmaking equipment that you'll
need to get started with.
Now. I've already made videos on both these topics in which
I will link up below everything I talk about today.
I'm going to have in the description box below,
I'm going to have listed everything I talk about.
So make sure you go there for all of the links
to everything we talk about today.
So once you have the obvious sewing machine and all your
equipment set up,
the next thing you need to do is to make a
little space at home where you can call your sewing space.
If you're lucky enough to have a whole spare room for
this fantastic.
If not,
don't worry.
Your kitchen table will be just fine.
Just make sure if you have to pack it up and
pack, you know,
reset it up every time you use it,
just make sure you kind of organize some space and get
it all in one spot.
So it's easy to access because if it's too difficult,
you're not going to do it because you'll be just loading,
setting everything up or finding everything.
And you want to do that.
You want it nice and easy.
So set yourself up with a nice little spot.
Be it a permanent little area or something that you have
to pack down and pack up that make it easy to
jump on your sewing machine and keep practicing.
Okay. The next thing is you're going to need help.
Yes. Trust me.
So just picking up a pattern and expecting to be able
to learn to sew from one of these is an unrealistic
expectation. I'm sorry,
I didn't want to burst anybody's bubble there.
So these paper patterns were designed at a time where there
was a huge amount of assumed knowledge in dressmaking,
things that you already knew.
So you can just look at the pictures and you would
already know how to put the garment together much at the
level that I'm at now.
That's what I can do.
But when you're learning,
you can't do that.
You don't know what all the terminology means.
You don't know what the pictures mean.
It's all gibberish.
Let's be honest.
It's all complete gibberish so you need help be it either
online or in-person.
So my advice is to seek out help from someone either
in-person is best of all.
Of course,
if you have a family member or seek out your local
classified ads or email,
maybe you can find some group classes that you can attend.
Just find someone that you really feel comfortable with,
and that might be teaching you how to make things that
you're interested in making.
So I'll never forget when I first got my sewing machine
for Christmas and I was about 14 and came with some
free sewing lessons.
And what we got to learn,
how to make was the highlight was learn how to make
bike pants and a t-shirt yeah,
bike pants.
I didn't want to learn how to make bike pants.
So if you can pick someone who's sort of style that
you really,
you know,
you want to want to learn how to make it will
make it a lot more enthusiastic for you rather than trying
to make something that you you're not interested in.
Or the other alternative is to find someone or lots of
many people on line and find an online sort of sewing
mentor that you can follow along with,
be it online classes and schools,
or, you know,
tutorials and so alongs.
So I'm going to link to a few people below that
may be of help to you that you might like,
but find someone who's teaching style.
You like,
and you really kind of want to do what they're doing.
It's gotta be exciting.
Okay. So once you've maybe located someone to help you now
you're ready to get started sewing and start basic.
So obviously you're going to start with the basics of learning
about your machine,
how to sew fabric,
what the different stitches do,
and maybe make up a very simple first project that will
combine all these really skills and just sort of help you
practice it.
Little bags are perfect for this.
So we're talking,
you know,
basic, basic first few lessons of sowing.
Now I actually do have a free class on all of
these things.
So it'll get you started with threading your machine and your
bobbin sewing fabric and making it a little 1920s bag.
So the link is going to be below where you can
sign up for free and get started on that class.
So the next step I recommend for the most success in
learning how to sew is to then step up to altering
and refashioning clothing that you already have.
So why do I suggest this?
I actually suggest it because a lot of the time,
most people haven't even looked inside a garment to see what
seams look like,
how they're finished,
what is overlooking,
what does it look like?
What is a facing?
What, what the inside of a garment actually looks like most
people have never taken much notice of this and have no
idea what it even looks like.
So starting with looking at inside of garments already,
and just sort of fixing things,
you know,
re hemming,
maybe redoing a zip sort of working up to more and
more difficult things,
but using garments that are already constructed shows you a lot
because you get to look the B guts,
if you will,
inside of a garment and see what it looks like,
and you'll get so much more familiar with what it should
look like and what kind of finishes look good,
what they don't work.
Things should look like inside and out.
And of course here start with simple mending and move up
to, you know,
altering in replacing zips,
doing all sorts of hemming.
There's so many different types of hemming re fixing,
maybe split seams.
And as you get more and more confident,
you can build on these skills and move on to full
refashioning and sort of really get your creative juices going and
changing garments up completely.
And obviously refitting them to your size as well.
And changing up the style completely.
There's kind of a little process that you can go through
in, in that area of working with ready-made garments.
Then once you're sort of confident at sewing and you kind
of have a really good feel for what garments should actually
look like in the sewing process,
then I think it's time to start with patterns.
So start with simple basic paper patterns.
Now start with something simple.
So even something with maybe elastic and maybe don't even do
a zip first up,
don't do anything with fancy colors or buttons.
They're kind of things that you will build up to.
So against the start,
simple, maybe just a little gathered skirt or a simple shift
dress, or a little shift blouse.
Now definitely no stretchy fabrics that comes later,
but just keep it simple.
And then as you get better and better at using the
patterns again,
this is with your sewing instructors help of course be it
by following along and so longs or in-person lessons,
or maybe you've got a online,
like an e-course to follow along with,
but you're going to need help to learn these patterns and
all the terminology and how all of the patterns work and
go together.
So start with simple things and then add more onto this.
So then,
you know,
make sure that you learn how to do zips and elastics,
make sure then you can build up and do collars.
Then maybe add some,
being able to do buttons and button holes using your machine,
and maybe even hand sewing as well.
And just build on your skills and gets,
and sort of pick a garment that's a little bit more
difficult, a little bit more difficult,
a little bit more difficult.
So every time you're kind of learning something new along the
way, there's definitely this sort of process you want to go
through when you're looking at making garments from scratch now in
the next step,
once you have made up several,
several garments from scratch,
using patterns and have done many root fashions and alterations,
and now you're pretty confident sewing things together.
You've started a broad range of skills.
The next thing is to start making simple alterations to the
patterns themselves.
Now you can do a lot of really simple alterations using
your commercial patterns.
You can do things like changing the neck lines and really
work on making alterations to the pattern so that it fits
you and your body perfectly learning how to make these changes
to the patterns and things like changing the lengths and maybe
even adjusting the bodice lengths to suit your body.
Things like this are really pretty simple changes that you can
learn how to do very,
very easily.
And this is definitely the next step in adjusting your garments
and getting them perfect.
So the next step in your sewing journey.
So from here now you're really beginning to master this sewing
thing. And the last step is to really start challenging and
up your skills from there.
So make sure that you try two things either in pattern-making
you can start maybe drafting patterns from scratch and learning how
to do this,
really understanding how to grade and draft patterns and how they
work. So as well as drafting complete patterns from scratch and
really designing from a picture and being able to then create
your own pattern and then garment from that is also ups
upskilling on your sewing skills.
So make sure you can,
you can do things like bound button holes,
welt pockets,
jet pockets,
all sorts of manner of colors,
and you understand the role lines and how they work on
a garment.
And perhaps it's using different kinds of fabrics,
like using stripes in a very particular way that,
you know,
matches. So think pattern matching,
but stripes where they're all on individual angles in the pattern
pieces that create the look of the garment,
it can be very difficult and might be something that you
want to upskill too.
So make sure you're always challenging your skills from here and
looking at different things that you might not have used,
maybe it's even using stretch fabrics or velvet or silky silk
satin. That is really quite difficult to work with.
Keep challenging yourself because trust me,
you never finished learning sewing.
I'm not finished learning yet.
I will always learn something new in how to sew.
So I hope this has really sort of helped clear the
kind of sewing path ahead of you,
if you will,
and kind of make the idea of learning how to so
less overwhelming and a little bit clear in the steps and
the sort of process that you should go along to build
your skills along the way.
I always like to think about it as building skills,
so start simple.
And every time you do something new,
just try something new and new skill and learn something new
each time and build upon those skills.
And you'll get to be a really great sower in no
time. And now I want to hear it from you.
I would love to hear in the comments below,
what is the process that you've taken?
Is it similar to this or was there one particular thing
that really did help you in your processing?
Like your sewing journey?
I'd love to hear below,
so comment below.
And of course,
if you're new to sewing,
make sure you read all those comments below.
It might give you some inspiration and a few little tips
to yourself to help you get started.
So remember everything we talked about today,
look in the description box below because I'm going to have
links to so many things down there.
And of course,
head on over to VintageSewingSchool.com,
where I have some great free resources for you to get
started in learning how to sew now like this video,
if you like it.
And remember to subscribe to the channel below here,
to make sure that you get all of the fun sewing
and vintage fashion related videos in the future.
And now I will see you next time.
Bye. I had to make notes,
so I didn't forget anything,
but I kind of forgot to read my notes as I
went along.
So hopefully I didn't miss anything important that I wanted to
tell you.