Put together a professional sewing kit for under £50

Sewing can seem like an expensive or gadget-heavy hobby, especially when a visit to the haberdashery section in a department store or craft shop reveals racks and racks of tools, threads, fastenings and other bits and bobs. If you want to take up sewing to care for your clothes and live a more sustainable lifestyle, buying a lot of new items (often encased in plastic packaging) might seem counter-intuiative and off-putting. 

We’ve all heard the saying “A bad workman blames their tools” but when you are sewing a variety of fabrics, quality tools make all the difference. Novelty sewing kits look really cute but they won’t always contain the best tools for the job, and the cheap haberdashery basics available from supermarkets or corner shops will be fine for sewing on a button but won’t last if you’re planning to sew on a regular basis. Poor quality pins and needles can snag your clothes, and blunt scissors make cutting fabric more difficult than it needs to be. 

Of course, it’s possible to put together a cheaper sewing kit than the one I’ve assembled, but all the tools on my “must have” list are items I use every day as a professional costume maker: they are practical, durable and help to make sewing jobs a pleasure rather than a chore. It’s tempting to buy everything you might possibly need when you start a new hobby, but investing in a few key tools to start with and adding to your kit as the need arises is a more cost-effective in the long run, and means you don’t end up with a lot of excess clutter if you’re short on space. (Prices for the items on this list are approximate, and I haven't factored in shipping costs if you buy online.) 

Here are the eight items I wouldn’t want to be without:

Fabric cutting scissors

I am left-handed but learned to cut with right-handed scissors, so they are useable, but the shaped handle (like this pair of orange Fiskars scissors) gets uncomfortable if I am cutting out for a long time. The Fiskars soft-touch multi purpose scissors have a soft grip and a spring mechanism, so they are great for ambidextrous stitchers and anyone with joint problems. Specialist left-handed scissors are also available from craft suppliers, but you’ll have less choice and they may be pricier. I've seen Fiskars scissors available for between £13 and £18, so it's a good idea to shop around.

Embroidery scissors 

I use a small, sharp pair of scissors for snipping threads, and for unpicking; I find the tiny pointed blades are more accurate than the hook of a seam ripper. My 4 inch Kai embroidery scissors are my favourite all-purpose pair, but if you’re attached to your seam ripper, the classic "Stork" embroidery scissors are a good buy. Kai scissors are around £13-£14, Stork scissors are between £6 and £8.

Tape Measure

This is something you don’t need to spend a lot of money on, but as a left-hander I prefer one with measurements on both sides, otherwise I often find myself measuring in the “wrong” direction, or upside down! Extendable tape measures are fine for taking body measurements that don’t need to be perfectly accurate, but I find the flat metal end of a wider tape measure more useful when I’m measuring and marking an alteration.A decent tape measure will probably cost £2-£3.

Needles

Hand-sewing needles are a real personal preference; I prefer using a long, thin needle unless I’m sewing something very thick, but that won’t suit everyone. John James make professional quality needles, but sell them in sensible amounts for home sewing too. If you’re just getting to grips with hand sewing, I would recommend getting an assorted pack, then buying a specific size if you end up having a favourite. "Pebble" packs, where the needles come in a handy little container, are £1.45, needles in ordinary packaging are around £1.

Pins

These should be a straightforward item to get hold of, but if you’ve had to throw away half a pack because they had blunt ends, or had them bend out of shape or snap in half, you’ll know all pins are not made alike! Prym make a variety of pins in different lengths and widths; long thin pins for delicate dressmaking, and shorter, wider pins for tougher fabrics. A 25g box of Prym pins is just under £2.50

Safety Pins

Really useful for fitting garments on yourself; your carefully pinned alteration won’t come undone as you take that piece of clothing off! Again, you want a sturdy pin with a sharp point that won’t damage delicate fabrics, in a variety of sizes for different garments and alterations. A pack of good quality safety pins will be around £1.75

Tailors Chalk

This is perfect for marking alterations before you sew; the Hemline chalk is available in yellow and white as well as red and blue, and has a slightly waxy feel to it. It’s great for marking the insides of your clothes, or on fluffy fabric where a softer chalk won’t make a longlasting mark. The Hancocks chalk is loved by tailors because you can mark the right side of a garment with the white chalk and it brushes off easily. I like to keep the edges of my chalk sharp so I can draw a neat line; you can buy a chalk sharpening gadget, but I usually just use the blade on an old pair of scissors. A pack of 2 Hancocks chalks is about £2.50


Thimble

Not everyone finds they need a thimble for hand sewing, but if you do want to use one it’s important to find the right size! People with medium to large hands will probably find something adequate in most haberdashery suppliers; if you have small hands or narrow fingers your best bet is probably Thread and Trimmings who supply seven different sizes of thimble (compared to the usual three - S,M and L).I’ve also found really comfortable thimbles in antique or bric-a-brac shops. A decent thimble shouldn't cost more than about £2.

Total: around £45.

Other useful tools I’d recommend adding to a sewing kit if you are doing a lot of mending and alterations would be pinking shears, a measuring gauge, a technical drawing set square and a darning mushroom! There are other pieces of kit that come in really useful if you are interested in making clothes from scratch, and I’m planning to cover sewing thread in a separate post, because using the correct thread can make a real difference to the success of a sewing project. Leave a comment or come to find me on social media to chat all things sewing-related, or if you think I’ve left something vital off this list.

Refashioning project: dyeing a dress for Greenpeace and Fashion Revolution's MAKE SMTHNG Week

As part of a campaign to reduce overconsumption, Greenpeace and Fashion Revolution have joined forces for MAKE SMTHNG week; encouraging everyone to get their craft on rather than shopping for new things.

As well as sewing professionally, I also enjoy doing it as a hobby, but it does mean that personal projects get neglected if I feel like I need a break! There are other ways to refashion or upcycle your rarely-worn clothes if you just can't get on board with lots of time-consuming sewing, and this week's refashioning project is a great example - a home dyeing project to make a dress more wearable.

I found this vintage Escada dress on a secondhand shop sale rail a couple of years ago; it was in good condition apart from some missing buttons, but it was a pale lemon yellow and the shoulder pads were a little too much, even for me! 

I knew I was unlikely to wear a pale yellow dress (it's not a practical colour when you travel everywhere by tube and constantly worry about spilling coffee on yourself) but the dress was 100% silk so I was fairly confident I would be able to dye it at home. 

Dyeing is a great way to transform your clothes, but you need to be aware of a few basic rules before you start. 

• Natural fabrics like cotton or silk dye best. It's really hard to dye polyester with the most readily-available home dye kits, so check the label on your clothes first.
• Dyeing won't really cover up a pattern, and might not cover up a stain unless you dye the whole garment a much darker colour.
• Bear in mind that although your garment may be made from a natural fibre, it might have been sewn using synthetic thread, so if the garment has any visible stitching this could retain its original colour. 

• You also need to bear in mind that with home dyes, the original colour of your garment will affect the final result. The colours shown on dye pack illustrate the result of dyeing white fabric, throwing another colour into the mix will definitely have an effect on paler colours. If I had tried to dye my yellow dress navy blue, I probably would have got a reasonable result, but if I had tried for a pale blue, I would probably have ended up with a green! In the end, I chose green on purpose; I knew I wouldn't get the exact colour on the packet because the dress was yellow, but I wasn't going to end up with an unexpected clash. 

I used a Dylon hand dye, a deep bucket, a long-handled spoon (for stirring the dye bath) and some sturdy rubber gloves! I put some pvc oilcloth fabric down on the floor and wore old clothes; home dyeing shouldn't be too messy, but the dye can stain other clothes and furnishings, so it's better to be on the safe side.

Hand-dyeing is the best option for delicate fabrics, but it's also possible to dye fabric in the washing machine. I've had good results with machine dyes too, but I'd only use them for large garments or long pieces of fabric, as you have to run the washing machine several times so it uses a lot of water.

Follow the instructions on the packet (some dyes also need salt to "fix" to the fabric), and you should be fine, but here are my two top tips:

• Make sure the garment is thoroughly washed (and still completely wet) when you place it in the dye bath (or washing machine)
• If the packet tells you to stir the dye bath for what seems like an excessive amount of time, do as you're told! This will ensure an even, professional-looking finish. Make sure your dye bath is big enough to move the garment around without too much splashing!

Once the dress had been thoroughly rinsed and dried, I added some vintage buttons to replace the missing ones. You can see on the photo of the dress label that the overlocking on the seams was done with a synthetic thread, as it was still white, but fortunately no stitching was visible on the outside of the dress.

I'm looking forward to wearing this dress (finally!) now that it's a colour that suits me. If you're planning any dye projects, remember to dispose of the dye carefully afterwards. Seeing the warnings for harmful or irritant chemicals on home dye kits make me even more aware of how toxic certain elements of the fashion industry are to the planet, so it's worth choosing your dye (and method of dyeing) carefully to minimise your impact.

Sewing is a modern and radical act, not just an old-fashioned hobby

Sewing was one of my first hobbies; as soon as I could hold a colouring pencil without poking myself in the eye my grandmothers were buying me children's tapestry kits, showing me basic embroidery stitches and encouraging me to make simple toys like sock puppets. I loved art and textiles at school, and I have been sewing full-time for fifteen years (I can hardly believe it myself!) 

So it sometimes takes me a moment to remember that not everyone has had the chance to learn such a fun and useful skill, and that at first glance it can seem like it's not for everyone. 

Sewing, even in the context of fashion and clothing manufacture, is rarely mentioned in any discussion of the garments themselves. When it is, it is in the context of something extraordinary; the hours (usually running into days or weeks) it took for a team of seamstresses to make a couture gown or show-stopping film costume. Even in the world of home sewing, the number of 'must have' gadgets on offer in a specialist sewing shop can seem overwhelming, and sewing (or dressmaking in particular) can look like a hobby that is only suitable for people with time, money and physical space to spare.

Yes, it does take time (and patience!) to get really good at sewing, but that's part of the joy of it for me. There is always something new to learn; a new technique or fabric to work with, new challenges to master.

A basic sewing kit needn't cost a lot or take up a lot of space- my must-haves are surprisingly similar to the contents of my grandmothers' sewing baskets.

Just because the fundamentals of home sewing have stayed the same for so long doesn't mean it is a tool of oppression, or a regressive hobby that has no relevance to modern life. Sewing and embroidery have been used as methods of both self-care and protest by people of all genders for decades; ideas that have been revived by activists like the Craftivist Collective for a 21st century audience. 

The world's problems (and our 24/7 access to endless documentation and discourse about them) can seem overwhelming. There is no way that we can, by ourselves, fix all the things we worry about. But, by sewing, we can fix something. It may only be a tiny thing; a button on a cardigan or shirt, a hole in a favourite jacket or pair of trousers. We don't have to return our garments to their original state, we can help them evolve, making them unique to us, a way to showcase our skills and personal style. We can keep our clothes out of landfill for that little bit longer, and push back against a system that is desperate for us to buy more and more stuff, even when our bank balances and the environment can no longer take the strain. 

And of course, the beauty of sewing is that you can always unpick it and start again! If only that was possible for more things in life. By seeing sewing as a creative process rather than just a way to get from 'broken' to 'fixed', we can enjoy the act of sewing and allow ourselves the room to make mistakes as we learn. So be brave! and tackle something in your 'I can't wear this in its current state' pile today. You'll feel better for it, trust me! 

Making work for idle hands - my renewed love of knitting

During 2016, I accidentally took up a time consuming and ultimately self destructive hobby: Anxiously Scrolling Through Social Media, Waiting For The Next Disaster. It’s the opposite of my ideal hobby, involving passive consumption rather than active participation, and it will never lead to a tangible result or goal. And yet at times it became almost a compulsion, so I turned to knitting. With my hands full of yarn and needles, trying to decipher the unique language of knitting patterns, I wouldn’t be able to sneak a peek at any of my mobile devices.

As well as enjoying knitting as a cosy, solitary activity; holed up in my flat binge-watching box sets on Netflix, I’ve also become a social knitter- in a pub, cafe, someone’s house or any welcoming indoor public space. I’ve found social knitting has cemented and deepened some of my friendships; the lure of doing something creative as well as having a drink and a chat has encouraged me to make more plans with friends after work, even on cold dark evenings when the sofa beckons after a long day.

Both my grandmothers were avid knitters, and I’d inherited a lot of knitting needles and the remnants of their yarn collections - I recognised some of the colours from cardigans they had knitted for me when I was a child! Trying to figure out what to do with these odds and ends (not enough to make something substantial out of, but I just couldn’t bring myself to throw them out), I discovered Knit for Peace, and knitted up a baby jumper just before Christmas. The pattern turned out to be the perfect size to use up my pink and purple yarn.

As well as trying to turn my leftover yarn stash into presents for other people, my family and friends have given me some fantastic knitting themed gifts recently, and I spent a really relaxing Christmas knitting this super cosy scarf/shrug hybrid.

After receiving some lovely natural yarn from the Yorkshire Wildlife Trust shop as a gift, I’ve also started thinking about how I’ll source my yarns for upcoming projects once I’ve depleted my current yarn stash a bit; if I’m going to spend weeks or months making a garment I can afford to take my time to look into some eco-friendly, sustainable options.

The hours it takes me to complete a simple project means it’s a hobby I won’t be able to monetise, but that’s one of the things that makes it so relaxing to me. I enjoy watching a garment come to life in slow motion; the action of creating, of focusing on making something beautiful, is its own reward.