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How to Make Handmade Clothes Look Professional

January 8, 2016 · 9 Comments

There are a number of things we can all remember to do to make our handmade clothes look professional.

It’s a lot of fun to make your own clothes. I’ve been making clothes for myself since I was 10, and I love it! I can choose a style that I like and fabric that I love. I can make it so that it fits me. And I can walk down the street knowing that I won’t see 10 people all wearing the same thing, like we’re all off to a Primark convention or something.handmade not home made how to make handmade clothes look  professional

Forgetting to do these things below can be the difference between the thing you have made looking handmade and looking home made.

Handmade is great. Home made is for cakes.

Here are things you can do to make your handmade clothes look professional every time!

How to Make Handmade Clothes Look Professional

1. Take care when cutting out. This is especially important as you will be using the edges as a guide when you are sewing up. If your lines are all over the place, your finished garment will be too!

Use plenty of pins to pin the pattern pieces to the fabric and use a decent pair of scissors to cut out. I use these Fiskars Dressmaking Scissors.simple dress without a pattern handmade not home made how to make handmade clothes look preofessional

2. Check that the grain is running top to bottom and shoulder to wrist. This can seem like a pain, especially if you don’t have a lot of fabric and you want to squeeze as much as you can out of it.

Cutting on the grain ensures that your garment hangs right. If you don’t it might look right to start with, but there’s a good chance that it will eventually droop on one side.

If you have difficulty remembering which way the grain goes, the way to remember is that the grain runs parallel with the selvedge.

If you are using fabric that doesn’t have selvedges, don’t worry because you can still find the grain. Pull the fabric gently up and down and then side to side. The way that stretches least is the grain.

3. Finish raw edges. The seams are on the inside, but if the fabric starts to disintegrate and the seams fall apart, then it will definitely be visible on the outside!

Depending on the fabric, you might be alright pinking the raw edges.

For fabric that frays badly, it will be necessary to finish the edges with an overlocker or an overcasting stitch on your sewing machine. If your sewing machine does not do overcasting, zigzags are fine.attach a waistband handmade not home made how to make handmade clothes look professional

4. Use thread that is the correct colour. I know this sounds obvious but I have been there myself! It’s Sunday afternoon, you’re sewing, you run out of thread. You have a rummage, find a spool of thread that is the same colour but not even close to the right shade and you think to yourself, “That’ll do”.

No. No it won’t!

Using thread that is not a close match is a sure way of making your handmade clothes look homemade. Remember to check your thread situation when you buy your fabric.

5. Make sure that your stitching is straight and your top stitching is as neat as you can make it. This is where taking time with cutting out can make a big difference! Sew slowly and take care to align the edge of the fabric with the guide on your sewing machine.

Top stitching is best if you use longer stitches, but if you are sewing something fiddly or that is a difficult shape, it’s better to use smaller stitches to keep it neat.handmade not home made how to make handmade clothes look professional

6. Check seam allowances. For commercial patterns it’s usually 1.5 cm. When I make stuff myself without a pattern I find that 1 cm is usually enough.

Your sewing machine probably has lines marked on the footplate. The manufacturers  might have marked on the lines how far away they are from the needle. Otherwise you will need to measure to check.

If your sewing machine does not have useful lines, you could stick some tape on your machine to use as a guide instead.

7. Press seams as you go. I know it can be a faff, especially if you don’t have space to leave the ironing board up (or your sewing machine for that matter). It does make a difference though to how your finished garment looks in the end, especially where seams meet.10 top tips to make sewing projects easier handmade not home made how to make your handmade clothes look professional

8. Add darts if it looks shapeless. Making a belt won’t do. I’ve tried it! In this particular project, the finished dress was so awful I had to cut my losses and turn it into a skirt, but adding darts might also have worked.

If you want to read a bit more about adding darts, take a look at this post here.

9. Clip the curves. By making a series of little cuts in the seam allowance, this will allow the curved seam to be pressed flat and the seam won’t look puckered.

10. Check sleeves are the same length. Unless you have one arm longer than the other and you need the sleeves to be of different lengths, irregular length are guaranteed to make you handmade outfit looked home made.simple dress without a pattern handmade not homemade how to make handmade clothes look professional

Check the hems at the bottom of the sleeves too. If you sewed the hem 2 cm up from the bottom of one sleeve, make sure you sew it 2 cm up on the other sleeve as well!

When I make sleeves, usually I measure one, then I use that one as a guide for making the second.

11. Check your hemline. Wonky hems scream home made!

The easiest way to get your hem level is to use a dress form. Otherwise enlist a friend to help you. Husbands and older children might do in the absence of either.

What would you add to the list?

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Filed In: New to Sewing? Start Here! / Tagged: beginner, handmade, home made, how to, sewing, tips

10 Quick and Easy Handmade Gift Ideas

November 12, 2015 · 3 Comments

Making handmade gifts for friends and family at Christmas is a lovely thing to do, but how do you go about it without driving yourself insane?

One option is to start early. I know people who like to start on Christmas at the end of the summer, whether they are making gifts or buying them. The problem with doing this is that it is hard to feel Christmassy when we’re enjoying early autumn and it’s still sunny and warm. It’s also difficult to sustain enthusiasm for Christmas if you’ve already been going for several months.

A second option is to have a look at all the stuff you have made over the last year and see if you could give any of those as Christmas presents.

The drawback with this is that you might not have enough gifts or you might not have the right kind of stuff for certain people.

So option 3 is to find a list of some easy handmade gift ideas that don’t take ages to make or cost a fortune. People, read on, because here is that list!quick and easy handmade gift ideas

10 Quick and Easy Handmade Gift Ideas

1. Shopping Bagsshopping bag tutorial quick and easy handmade gift ideas

Incredibly quick and easy to make, you could run up a several in an evening.

To make them a bit more special, you could decorate them (I decorated mine with bunting!) or use several different fabrics. Adding ribbon or lace trim is an easy and quick way to jazz them up.

You don’t have to stick to shopping bag size either. Smaller ones would make good lunch bags. You could make several of different sizes in co-ordinating fabrics. Put a drawing pad and some crayons in one and you’ve got a nice present for a child which won’t require batteries or play an annoying tune.

A tutorial for a shopping bag can be found here.

2. A Crocheted Mug Cosyquilted mug cosy crocheted mug cosy quick and easy gift ideas

I made this one in an evening, including coming up with the pattern from scratch. If you are quick at crocheting, you could probably make 2 or 3 in an evening.

Or if the person is a crocheter themselves, how about a kit so that they can make their own?

3. A Kindle Sleevequilted kindle case quick and easy handmade gift ideas

I find that kindle sleeves are rather like bags. After a bit I get bored and want a change.

This kindle sleeve is fairly quick and easy; the quilting does take a bit of time though. If you wanted to skip the quilting, you could swap the wadding for fleece, which would give you a sleeve that had the desired squodginess but without the time consuming quilting.

4. A Crayon Rollquick and easy handmade gift ideas

Don’t be put off, these are not just for crayons!

Pencils, paint brushes, make up brushes, crochet hooks, screwdrivers, basically anything that somebody might have several of that could be stuffed into a series of little pockets and then rolled up.

This is the kind of thing that can look very different depending on the fabric you use.

A tutorial for making a crayon roll can be found here.

5. A Crocheted Flower Hairband or Bracelet10 ways to use crocheted flowers quick and easy handmade gift ideas

These would probably make a nice gift for a tween aged girl.

You can find tutorials for making crocheted flowers and more ideas for using them here.

6. A Circle Skirtattach a waistband quick and easy handmade gift ideas

These are unbelievably easy to make, but you will need access to the recipient’s measurements.

If you decide to make one for a little girl, how about making a matching one for her favourite dolly or teddy?

Full instructions can be found here.

7. A Purse

These can be as easy or as complex as you like. Obviously adding pockets or embellishing the front will take longer.

This little purse doesn’t need anything extra as the fabric is so beautiful and the lace zip is decorative as well as functional.

tiny purse lace zip quick and easy handmade gift ideasThis purse has an appliqued flower on the front and a pocket on the inside, but you could always leave those out. If you didn’t want to make your own pattern for the appliqued flower purse, you can buy a pattern here.

Appliqued Flower Purse quick and easy handmade gift ideas

Or for a very easy, quick little purse, try this button purse.

easy button purse quick and easy handmade gift ideas8. A Water Bottle Carrierhow to make a water bottle carrier quick and easy handmade gift ideas

This makes a nice gift for a child, but adults who enjoy day trips and long walks would probably appreciate one too.

You can find a tutorial for a water bottle carrier here.

As with the kindle sleeve, the quilting can take a while, so to save time, you could replace the wadding with fleece and skip the quilting.

9. A Phone Cosycrocheted phone cosy tutorialquick and easy handmade gifts

Chunky yarn is great for quick projects!

This phone cosy is very quick to make and the cable on one side gives it an interesting texture.

If sewing is more your thing, you could adapt the kindle sleeve to fit a phone.

10. Never Underestimate the Power of the Jarmaking jars pretty quick and easy handmade gift ideas

Don’t drink out of them. No. That’s weird. Decorate them and put stuff in them.

Jam (decorate the jars afterwards!), cookie or brownie ingredients, homemade bath salts (there’s a nice recipe here), a sewing kit, mini highlighters and other little stationery items, mini cookie cutters and a ball of playdough. The only limit is your imagination! Or Google.

To make the jars special, you can decorate them. There are some ideas for doing this here.

And a bonus one!

11. Dried Fruitquick and easy handmade gift ideas

I know this sounds bonkers, bear with me.

Citrus fruit dried out in the oven can be used to make all sorts of decorations.quick and easy handmade gift ideas

In the past I have given tree decorations and garlands to people whom I might otherwise have given chocolates or wine.quick and easy handmade gift ideas

I always worry about those kinds of gifts in case somebody is on a diet/ isn’t much or a drinker/ only drinks red etc.

If the recipient is crafty, you might like to just give them the fruit and some suggestions as to what they could make with it.

You can find instructions for drying citrus fruit here, instructions for making garlands here and here and instructions for making decorations here.

What would you add to the list?

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Filed In: Christmas / Tagged: Christmas, craft fair, easy, gift ideas, handmade, how to, quick

The Value of Handmade

April 20, 2015 · 19 Comments

One of the difficulties that crafters face is how to price their work fairly. Nobody wants to undercharge, especially if it means selling things at a loss, but nobody wants to ask too much either and put customers off as a result.

In my experience, crafters tend towards asking too little for their handmade items, worrying what people will think if they ask for a bit more, or whether it will prevent people from buying the things at all. Crafters often massively underestimate the value of their time and their skills.value of handmade

A year or two ago my mother in law and I wandered into a craft fair in Great Yarmouth. MIL knits and makes cards. Her favourite shop is TK Maxx but she’s also addicted to shopping channels so she knows how much craft materials cost.

Among the lovely handmade things and incidental weirdness, there were a couple of people selling hand knitted baby cardigans. One person was selling them for £8 – £12 and the other person was selling hers for £3.50. To which MIL said, “Well, if she’s selling hers for £3.50, why does this other woman think she can charge so much?”

I’m not much of a knitter, although I can knit, mostly because I am the slowest knitter in the world. Yet, I know that even for a speedy knitter, it would probably take at least a couple of evenings to make a little cardigan, and I know what yarn costs.value of handmade

Taking that into consideration, £10 sounds about right, probably more than that if it’s complicated. The lady selling hers for £3.50 was probably not even covering the cost of the yarn, never mind the time they took to make. But while she was charging so little the other baby cardi lady had barely any hope of selling anything, as most people would surely react in the way that my MIL did.

Here’s another example.

A couple of years ago I was reading a card making magazine. The letters page featured a woman who had sold handmade Christmas cards in her local supermarket to raise money for charity.

She had made literally hundreds of cards, each one of them different, and she had sold every last one, raising £200. Studying the photo of her smily self and her cards unfortunately caused the warm fuzzies I was feeling to become an unpleasant taste in my mouth.

I had spotted a sign on her table which read, “Handmade Cards 50p Each”. No wonder she sold them all! If I walked into a card shop wanting to buy a special Christmas card for a close friend or family member, I would expect to pay rather more than 50p. And that would be for a mass produced card.

The idea of selling handmade cards for 50p is lunacy. It would cost more than that to make them, even if she had used paper packs that came free with magazines. She would still have needed to buy cardstock and embellishments, not to mention the time it would have taken to make them.

This makes it very difficult for crafters who try to price their work fairly. While people are so massively underselling themselves, it is much harder for others to ask a fair price for their work.

Of course, crafters underselling themselves is not the only problem. For those of us who can remember a time before foreign imports, “homemade” used to mean “an less expensive version of what you could buy in a shop”. So if there was something you wanted, making it yourself was usually a cheaper option.

But times have changed. Clothes are no longer seen as an investment, made to last providing they are taken care of. Now we can wander into a shop on the high street and pick up a coat for £25 or a dress for £10. The sad reasons for this are that the manufacturers use poor quality materials and the clothes are made by children in sweatshops in China and India where they are paid a pittance.

I could not make a dress for £10. The materials alone would cost more than that. The fabric I used to make my Cherry Blossom Dress was £7 / metre and I used 4 metres. I also used 6 metres of bias tape and an invisible zip. The total cost was in the region of £35, not including the time I spent designing the dress, drafting the pattern, cutting it out and making it up.

dress without a pattern

Cherry Blossom Dress

A friend of mine makes clothes for herself. She usually uses Colette patterns although she uses others too. Providing she has made a version of it already, she can whip something up in an evening.value of handmade

A friend of hers has asked her to make her a dress, but my friend is reluctant to do so. She knows that a fair price, taking into account materials and labour, would be about £60. She could not imagine somebody wanting to pay that much for a dress when they could buy something on the high street for a fraction of that.

Gertie of Gertie’s Makes and Bakes has encountered this problem recently.You can read her blog post in full here. She had made some bags and was selling them on Ebay. A customer contacted her and asked if she would make for her the same bag but in different fabric. As things progressed, it transpired that the customer actually wanted a completely different bag to the “Jenny” bags that Gertie was selling, not just in different fabric but also with more pockets.

value of handmade

Gertie’s bag

Gertie set about designing and making the bag for the customer. As the fabric, extra zips and assorted hardware alone cost more than £25, Gertie charged the customer £40, £15 more than the “Jenny” bags on Ebay. The extra £15 was for 15 hours labour at £1 per hour, even though Gertie says it took her more than 15 hours to design and make the bag.

Unfortunately the customer felt that £40 for a handmade, one of a kind, custom bag, made to her exact requirements and in fabric she chose, was too much. She asked Gertie to lower the price to £30. Believing that her time and her skills are worth more than 30p an hour, Gertie rightly withdrew the bag from sale.

So what is the answer?

I can’t claim to have all the answers, but here are some of them!

Firstly, crafters need ask a fair price for their work. To calculate this, the crafter should take into account how much the item cost to make, including materials, sundries such as thread and tape and wear and tear to tools and equipment, such as a sewing machine. The crafter also need to decide what their time is worth and apply that to the length of time it took to make. Some very good advice on pricing work can be found in Fiona Pullen’s fabulous book, Craft a Creative Business.

The link below is an affiliate link, which means that if you click on the link and make a purchase, I am paid a small amount. Be assured though that I do think actually think that Fiona’s book is fab!

Secondly, the rest of us need to recognise that cheap stuff is cheap for a reason. Poor quality, mass produced junk made by the poorest people in some of the poorest regions of the world, including children, is often the reason.

It’s no good expecting a handmade item to cost less than a mass produced version of something similar.

We all need to stop thinking about handmade in terms of what we would pay for mass produced tat and more in terms of what we would pay for designer gear, one offs and custom made items.

This is why handmade is a better word here than homemade. Homemade implies something cheaper than store bought. Handmade means something else entirely.

Handmade means something that is one of a kind or one of a limited number. With a handmade dress, you can walk down the street and not pass 14 people all wearing the same outfit as you.

Handmade means something that fits, or that meets your needs perfectly and in a way that you like.

Handmade usually means that less people have been exploited. I don’t know anything about fabric production and I acknowledge that there may be exploitation going on here too.

Handmade means something has a story, a reason behind it, and often an opportunity to find that out from the person who made it.

This is the value of handmade.

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Filed In: Other Stuff / Tagged: handmade, homemade, how to price work, value

I'm Anna and I live in rural Norfolk in the UK. My mum taught me how to use a sewing machine when I was 10 and I haven't looked back! I love making all sorts of things and I hope you find inspiration here.

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