Fashion Design ~ Sewing Skirts

I began my project with a goal to learn about fashion design, costume design, and sewing, with the hope that by the end of the year I could have some costumes I had sewn myself to show. I had wanted to do something related to costume design after seeing a video about the work Broadway costume designers do, but I realized it would be easiest to start with sewing basic clothing pieces before moving on to costume design, since I had never sewn before. Learning to sew and make clothing was always something that interested me, but I knew it would take some time to learn since I had no prior experience, so I thought March Madness would be a good opportunity to learn a new skill that also involved being creative and having fun. I started off by taking an online fashion design class at the Putney School to learn the basics of sewing, however the person who taught me most throughout this whole process was my neighbor. She first taught me how to use a sewing machine, and I started off by practicing sewing scraps of fabric together. Once I had gotten good enough at the sewing machine, I wanted to try sewing a piece of clothing, and I decided that a skirt would be the least complicated thing to make, so I ordered a skirt pattern online to follow. I went with my neighbor to a store called Mood Fabrics in the garment district to buy the fabric for my first skirt, which was a really cool experience! My neighbor guided me through the whole process of cutting, pinning, sewing, and hemming the fabric, and my first skirt turned out well, which I was totally not expecting! Since I liked my skirt so much, and it hadn’t been too challenging to make, my neighbor and I decided to make some more skirts for friends and family, so in total we ended up making five skirts, all in different fabrics. Since we used the same pattern for all the skirts we made, after having sewn the first too or so, making the rest went much quicker and more smoothly. We definitely made some mistakes along the way and had to redo some things, but I learned that once you have made the mistakes and learned what works and what doesn’t work, the whole process is much easier. Overall I really enjoyed doing this project and the results that came out of it, and I feel like I now have some sewing experience if I ever wanted to pick it up again in the future. If I continued with this project, I would sew a few more skirts for my family and friends, probably with a different pattern than the one I used before, or I would try sewing a new type of clothing like a top or dress.