Hello!

Hi there! Thanks for clicking on my tiny corner of the internet!

I’ve never done the blogging thing before so I’ll just be over here muddling my way through this.

I’m Sarah, and in case you landed here accidentally – I sew things! I have been sewing my own clothes consistently for just over 18 months but have been around sewing my entire life. I have a sewing page on Instagram (@sarah.eloise.sews) where I have been documenting most of my makes for just under a year. I’ve created this blog in order to branch out a bit and really delve into my garment construction adventures – it’s a bit difficult to wax lyrical about a french seam in the caption of an Instagram photo, right?

I was very privileged as a child in that my mum enjoyed making clothes. At a guess, my mum would have made most of my wardrobe when I was a child. I’ve included some pictures here for fun, and my goodness digging those out was a trip down memory lane. I had matching tracksuits, velvet party dresses and what seems to be an endless supply of costumes! My mum is very, very talented when it comes to creative endeavours and I can definitely thank her for even knowing what a sewing machine is (and knitting, quilting, embroidery, cross stitch and scrap booking). Thanks Mum, if you’re reading this!

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Unfortunately I didn’t get right into sewing with so much of it around me. I went through the typical tween rebellious stage where I didn’t appreciate how much effort went into Mum making my clothes and just wanted to wear the same things as the other kids. I dabbled in sewing again throughout high school through Textiles classes (Home Economics for non-Australians I believe) where I made a cushion with a face, a truly horrendous bag for my sister from some old jeans and a pair of pyjama pants that I wore to the point of being completely transparent. I was so proud of those pyjamas. I sadly don’t have pictures of any of these monstrous creations, but perhaps this is for the best.

At the ripe old age of 22 I finally decided I wanted to get into sewing for real. I’d tried various creative hobbies with varying degrees of eventual disinterest, but hadn’t really considered sewing as a candidate. So, Mum got me a sewing machine for my birthday and I got my first patterns and fabric and you’d think I was ready to sew! And then I choked. I didn’t actually touch these things for ANOTHER WHOLE YEAR, before finally FINALLY cutting out my first dress because I was sick of being too scared of messing up to get on with it.

That dress was an ordeal. It was a Kwik Sew pattern (and not a beginner one, I dove right into the deep end here) for which the smallest measurement was still one size up from my measurements. I sewed the whole thing together over a month, re-reading instructions, ringing Mum to get her to explain steps to me (understitching honestly seems so pointless but turns out to be crucial), cheering when I got the zipper in first try, only for the final product to be all sorts of wrong. It was HUGE and absolutely drowned me. I looked like I’d stepped out of a period drama, which was so not my aim. So I sat down with my trusty unpicker and took the entire thing apart with carefully controlled rage, cut it down to my actual size and sewed it back together over the course of another month. And it fit! So, the rest is history. I caught the sewing bug, found the online sewing community, got an Instagram page and here we are!

I hope you enjoy my ramblings (and if not, there’ll be shorter versions on my Instagram page). They will all be sewing related because it pretty much occupies my thoughts for about 90% of my waking moments these days.

I’ll be back with some more posts soon! There’s a fancy subscribe button below if you want to receive notifications when I do post. And you can leave comments too, so don’t be shy!