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Have been thinking about this post, and comments therein. My conclusion: either I'm a total lightweight and that there are some uber-sewing skills that I've never learnt and which apparently takes lots of time to master, or that I'm an arrogant jerk in thinking that simple (I emphasise simple) sewing skills isn't that hard to learn provided you are interested and have reasonable motor skills (and time and money for equipment and such).
I learnt to sew when I was in school for O levels. I started off with a gathered skirt (guh, really horrible but I did wear it at home - waste not and all that) and my final projects were a collared shirt and a child's dress. That child's dress was... my god the embroidery that went on it. It was a totally unrealistic dress for a kid to wear: it was long and white, with yards and yards of itchy fabric, aforesaid embroidery and a goddamn sailor's collar.
I cannot make skirts because I suck at making waistbands, so I make blouses and dresses. I mean, I'm not at all on the level of Pattern Magic, but I can make a simple lined dress that's ok for normal office wear and blouses or camisoles to wear with storebought trousers. I can't get over the idea that homemade clothing means (only) gathered skirts with drawstrings and apparently amateurish rectangles sewn together. It's not. Mind you, lack of commercial equipment does mean that buttonholes don't look as 'finished' and such but you can work around these things and I can put in a zip just fine...? You can make reasonably nice clothing even at home, always supposing you want to. Yes, they can look 'different', as in, not fast fashion, as in 'not like what everyone else is wearing'. But it doesn't mean they look bad or cheap or second-rate or unprofessional. It does help that I use reasonably nice, good quality fabrics. Nice fabrics do the heavy lifting in modern fashion.
(I've been forced to question whether I've been looking like a factory reject all these years or or whether my homemade clothing does stand up to some scrutiny. Hehe.)
***
Born from the Earth, Tony/Steve (eventual), Alpha/Beta/Omega dynamics and AU, explicit sex, WIP, Iron Man and Avengers, by venusm. Please read author's notes and warnings.
Hm, I think this is my first A/B/O rec. Or not, maybe I've forgotten the previous instances. I do tend to be wary of them, entertaining as they (some of them, anyway) are. This one is pretty good.
Temeraire, Bond/Q, Skyfall, by professorfangirl (lizeckhart). And so is this.
Jagged Little Pill series, comprising also Scar Tissue, Good Riddance, and The Day the World Went Away, Bond/Q, Skyfall, by beederiffic
I learnt to sew when I was in school for O levels. I started off with a gathered skirt (guh, really horrible but I did wear it at home - waste not and all that) and my final projects were a collared shirt and a child's dress. That child's dress was... my god the embroidery that went on it. It was a totally unrealistic dress for a kid to wear: it was long and white, with yards and yards of itchy fabric, aforesaid embroidery and a goddamn sailor's collar.
I cannot make skirts because I suck at making waistbands, so I make blouses and dresses. I mean, I'm not at all on the level of Pattern Magic, but I can make a simple lined dress that's ok for normal office wear and blouses or camisoles to wear with storebought trousers. I can't get over the idea that homemade clothing means (only) gathered skirts with drawstrings and apparently amateurish rectangles sewn together. It's not. Mind you, lack of commercial equipment does mean that buttonholes don't look as 'finished' and such but you can work around these things and I can put in a zip just fine...? You can make reasonably nice clothing even at home, always supposing you want to. Yes, they can look 'different', as in, not fast fashion, as in 'not like what everyone else is wearing'. But it doesn't mean they look bad or cheap or second-rate or unprofessional. It does help that I use reasonably nice, good quality fabrics. Nice fabrics do the heavy lifting in modern fashion.
(I've been forced to question whether I've been looking like a factory reject all these years or or whether my homemade clothing does stand up to some scrutiny. Hehe.)
***
Born from the Earth, Tony/Steve (eventual), Alpha/Beta/Omega dynamics and AU, explicit sex, WIP, Iron Man and Avengers, by venusm. Please read author's notes and warnings.
Hm, I think this is my first A/B/O rec. Or not, maybe I've forgotten the previous instances. I do tend to be wary of them, entertaining as they (some of them, anyway) are. This one is pretty good.
Temeraire, Bond/Q, Skyfall, by professorfangirl (lizeckhart). And so is this.
Jagged Little Pill series, comprising also Scar Tissue, Good Riddance, and The Day the World Went Away, Bond/Q, Skyfall, by beederiffic
no subject
You can make reasonably nice clothing even at home, always supposing you want to. Yes, they can look 'different', as in, not fast fashion, as in 'not like what everyone else is wearing'. But it doesn't mean they look bad or cheap or second-rate or unprofessional.
I agree with this 100%. I'm pretty sure you never looked anything less than what you aimed to be. :)
I feel like there are some weird jumps in assumptions there…. If you plan it out well you can use your curved seam “leftovers” for something else – headbands, belts, quilting, patches, dolls dresses - and I've certainly bought cheap polyester and other modern fabrics on the cheap to take home.
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I think that having a family influence does help? My grandmother is about as mainstream Australian as you can get, but was a seamstress before she got married; she still does a lot of sewing, and her various grandchildren don't treat home sewing as some sort of strange and foreign beast - both of my cousins (male and female) do sewing at her place; one of my sister's does a lot of sewing via her reenactment group (and uh, has a little bit of an ongoing black market on rabbit pelts) and my other sister at the very least has sewing projects that she talks about periodically (that sound totally awesome and I would totally buy if I found available - a fur lined hoody with little cat ears!!! XD)
There's some sewing skills which are very complicated to do (like making a hoop skirt); but if you have the time, space and money for the intial investments (like a sewing machine that makes your life soo much easier) I don't think it's a overly difficult skill to learn.
I don't sew myself these days because it's not something I have the time, space, or to be honest patience for it at the moment.
But I've made my own clothing in the past when I couldn't find what I wanted, and it can be rewarding. Like a set of skirts when I was a.... teenager and found 1 skirt I liked and nothing else mainstream (all I wanted at the time was something shiny & below the knees!!! for the dance party things.) so I used that to make a pattern - and then I had four skirts that material wise combined were certainly much cheaper than the original (it was a $49 skirt)... and didn't look too different from the original apart from the uh, colouring choices (the original was silver, & I made a gold, a red, a lilac & a rainbow one. [again, teenager] :3)
no subject
Yup, family influence helps a lot - if nothing else, there's someone to borrow a spare unpicker from! (I keep losing mine.). And to raid other people's store of zips and lace bits and buttons.
A lot of my sewing projects start off by seeing something in a store and copying it at home because who can afford to buy expensive clothes all the time? ^__^