Sewing Diaries 1: My 2024 Fashion Resolutions

In this iteration: some musings on sewing, and six goals for the New Year.

Image Credit: J Williams on Unsplash.

Hey Matryoshkas,

2024 is upon us and I’ve decided that, health permitting, this shall be the Year I Learn To Sew. I’ve put together a list of projects to get me started, and I’d like to share it here so that anyone else thinking about teaching themselves to make or mend their own clothes can watch my progress and learn from my mistakes along the way.

As it stands, in December 2023, my sewing skills are very limited. This year I taught myself to backstitch so that I could mend a busted seam in the lining of a cute Barbour jacket I found second-hand. My handiwork didn’t look great, but – being inside the sleeve, where nobody would see it – the aesthetics didn’t matter; what mattered was that I made the jacket sturdy and wearable again. The year before that, I mended a hole in a skirt pocket with some extremely dubious stitches I couldn’t tell you the name of because I made them up as I went along. (Hey, it worked.) Each time, I felt ridiculously proud of myself afterwards. It was a joy I hadn’t experienced with my wardrobe prior to this, and it was similar to the joy of cooking a meal from scratch: the joy of accomplishment; of knowing I had done something useful with my hands.

My interest in sewing began in around 2019, when I started to learn more about fashion history and realised just how common sewing, as a skillset, used to be. Less than a century ago, people were still making their own clothes on a regular basis. Even as ready-to-wear became the norm, those who enjoyed fashion then played a far more active role in the creation of their wardrobes than we do now. Already, we’re beginning to lose the collective memory of these skills. With the rise of fast fashion companies that outsource clothing production to countries where there is no minimum wage, we’re forgetting the work it takes to make a garment. Out-of-sight, out-of-mind.

It’s a tragedy, and I could write about it all day, but in short: things need to change. And while we’re waiting for the fashion industry to right these wrongs (which will happen, so long as we keep applying pressure), learning to sew feels important to me. It’s a practical skill I was never taught in school – a skill nobody is taught in school anymore – and learning it now will help to liberate me from the reliance on consumerism I was taught in its place.

(Note: I’m not imparting a moral judgement on you if you can’t do these things. We’ve all been taught a lot of helplessness when it comes to clothing production – that’s not our fault – and for me personally, learning to sew feels like taking something back, but I recognise that for a lot of people it simply isn’t feasible. That’s okay. There are other ways to combat the bad habits fast fashion has taught us; chief among them, supporting slow fashion brands instead and speaking out against industrial malpractice.)

I’m trying not to be too ambitious with my sewing goals to start with, because A) I have ME/CFS, which limits the time I can devote to this on top of all the other things I need to do and all the naps I need to take, and B) I don’t want to scare myself off with overwhelming expectations before I’ve even begun. I haven’t given myself a timescale for my goals either, which I think is sensible, since I don’t yet know how long it’ll take me to figure everything out. Instead I’m treating this list very flexibly; it could take me a month (if I get really into it and forget about everything else) or (if I struggle) it could take me the whole year. Once I start to near the end of it, I’ll add on some more projects – but not until I’ve made a decent dent in these.

Without further ado, my 2024 sewing goals are:

• Replace the buttons on a few of my blouses

This goal is simple, and the aim is to get myself more comfortable handling a needle and thread. I’ve replaced a button once or twice before, but not in a good few years (and probably not very well). Now I want to practise some more, and to put that practise to fashionable use while I’m at it. I have a few nice cotton blouses in my wardrobe, which are very wearable but for one thing: the ugly plastic buttons down their fronts. These buttons detract from the blouses’ overall appearance and betray their origins as mass-produced fast fashion garments. (Note for the critical: I bought most of them second-hand.) I’d like to replace these buttons with prettier, metal-backed fabric ones that complement the blouses’ colours and styles. This will not only make each blouse unique to my wardrobe, but will also elevate their overall appearance to something more luxurious. Whatever happens with the rest of my sewing goals, changing a button is – I think – a fairly essential life skill, so it will be good for me to master this first.

• Clean and condition my leather jacket, then replace the buttons on it and – if I can figure out how – add an inner breast pocket to the lining

As a vegetarian, a lot of people expect me to have qualms about wearing real leather, but the truth is that I love my leather jacket. I found it last year in a second-hand shop for £20, which – for a genuine leather garment – is a steal. It’s bulky, cosy, windproof, waterproof and makes me feel fantastic. And if I treat it right, it will last me a lifetime, which makes it overall much better for the environment than a pleather alternative. (PVC, if you didn’t know, has been dubbed by Greenpeace “the single most environmentally damaging of all plastics.”) It has, however – over the last year – lost several buttons. And the leather is starting to look a little worse for wear. First and foremost, I want to learn how to treat the leather to keep it soft and healthy. Then I want to sew on some nice new buttons. And lastly, if I can, I’d like to add an inner breast pocket; the only thing my jacket is lacking.

• Make a ribbon lanyard for work

This one, I’m hoping will be easy (though in saying so, I may have jinxed myself). My current work lanyard is a boring length of cord, so I would like to replace it with something pretty and colourful. Currently, I have my eye on some lengths of recycled sari silk ribbon which I think would look gorgeous braided together. If the resulting braid is too thick for a lanyard, I can always turn it into a belt.

• Use up some of the scrap fabric I have lying around on smaller projects

Like most beginner sewers, I have amassed a small collection of fabric scraps too small to create whole items of clothing from, but I don’t want them to go to waste. Perusing lists of things to make with leftover fabric has given me a few ideas (a makeup bag? A glasses case?), though my heart isn’t set on anything yet. What I want to make sure of is that I’m learning some basic sewing skills as I go. (If anyone has any recommendations, I’d be keen to hear them!)

• Make a pocketed midi skirt

I thought I’d better put at least one patterned garment on my projects list for the year. And a lot of the beginner-friendly patterns I’ve looked at are for midi skirts, which is convenient because I wear a lot of midi skirts. I’ve made things harder for myself by choosing a pattern with pockets, but I think that challenge will be worth it, as currently none of the midi skirts in my wardrobe have any.

• Make something cosy using my nice stretch jersey

My mum cleared out her sewing supplies recently and offloaded some fabrics onto me that she didn’t want. Among them, a lovely soft length of maroon stretch jersey, which I think would make some lovely loungewear. I’ve been warned about the perils of sewing with stretchy material – and seen enough blunders on The Great British Sewing Bee to know these warnings are not to be taken lightly – but I’d like to try it anyway. Both because I want to learn and because I already have the fabric. If nothing else, it’ll be a lesson in humility.

What are your wardrobe goals for the New Year? Have you ever sewn before, and could you be tempted to try it? If you already do sew – do you have any advice?

Until next year,

Holly

The Doll House