Are you a beginner sewist?
Imagine creating clothes, home decor, or unique homemade gifts instead of settling for what’s in stores.
Starting your sewing journey can feel overwhelming, but trust me—you are more capable than you think. Cooking, baking, woodworking and gardening also takes time to master—but so rewarding skills to have in our everyday lifes. The key is to start small, enjoy the process, and embrace the learning curve. Every stitch is progress. Perfection isn’t the goal—learning is.
Advice for beginners
- Choose a beginner-friendly pattern such as Favorite Pants Mini or Family Apron.
- Keep in mind that the fabric choice significantly impacts the difficulty of the project. Make you first project in a medium weight cotton fabrics like poplin.
- Break down the project into sections. Print—Prepare the fabric—Cut—Sew.
- Begin with kids clothes. The result is always cute and we are less critical.
- Wash your fabric before sewing to avoid shrinkage. Iron it well.
The basic set up
A sewing machine, iron board and basic tools. Borough a sewing machine from a friend or invest in a simple machine. Invest in a basic set of tools. Other essential tools you’ll need include: Sharp scissors, tape measure, pins, a seam ripper and a glue stick or tape to assemble your pages. For jackets and shirts with buttons you need a sewing needle. For pants you need a large safety pin or a bodkin needle (to pull elastic through the casing).
Using a PDF pattern
You need to print a number of A4 pages and glue them together. Again, kids' patterns have less pages—yet another argument for sewing a kids' garment first. Here's to important things to keep in mind:
- Print in 100% — no scaling. If you ask someone else to print for you, this is important to let them know.
- Print only the size you need to avoid lots of confusing lines. You'll find help to print and assemble your pattern via the links below.
