I got into sewing in early 2025, for no real reason except that I was bored and wanted to try a new hobby. It was much easier to pick up than I expected, and I ended up really really enjoying it! I'm still very much a beginner, but I made this page to keep track of my projects and learning progress ...and maybe to even inspire other people to start sewing. It's not as scary as it seems! :-D
supplies
I'm a big proponent of saving money and not being wasteful, so I'm currently trying to stick to only using sewing supplies I can get for free. This mostly means I steal them from family members. Currently I have:
- a 1984 Singer sewing machine
- about 20 years worth of leftover fabric
- whatever random notions I can scrounge up
- a growing pile of even more free fabric scraps
My personal challenge is to see just how far I can stretch my new hoard of scraps before I finally cave and have to actually buy fabric. I also try and stick to free patterns/tutorials as much as possible, and I've linked the ones I used for each project below.
As I improve at sewing, buying materials and patterns will eventually become more worthwhile, but so far I've been lucky enough to be able to learn and practice for almost no cost!
projects
Here are some things I've sewn so far, ordered newest to oldest. Click an image to jump to that project's description!
cheese-kun
september 2025
I made this for a friend! Yet another case of me completely winging it while sewing. This doesn't seem like it would be a problem, since Cheese-kun is essentially just a pillow, but don't look too closely at his hat. Anyway, this project made me smile. I enjoyed having an excuse to bring out the embroidery thread.
patchwork skirt
july 2025
I used up a whole bunch of ancient fabric scraps on this. It turned out surprisingly well considering I was more or less winging it. I didn't use a pattern, but I did search up how to do a bunch of new things as I went, such as gathering, adding an inseam pocket, and adding a zipper!
I also tried to add a lining, which went...okay. Next time I attempt that I will definitely be doing research first. I also ended up making my pocket a bit too small and positioned too low. The main takeaway from this project is that it definitely pays to think through every step before starting, instead of just figuring it out as I go. On the other hand, doing that is actually quite difficult when you don't have much sewing experience. So in this case I think jumping in was actually a good learning experience!
bow
july 2025
I made this with 20dollarlolita's headbow pattern, as my step 1 assignment for their pattern school. It was a super quick project, and I think it turned out very cute! I have to remember to actually clip the corners before turning in the future, though...
froggy hat
july 2025
I made this by following this pattern/tutorial, and then added on the froggy eyes. Worth noting that I did not have any interfacing, so I just left it out. I feel like the hat still turned out fine without it, maybe since my fabrics were heavier than regular quilting cotton? Anyway, it was fairly simple to make, and I think the end result turned out really nice! Definitely a good beginner project.
noishe plushie
june 2025
My main goal with this project was to help me transition to using the sewing machine, so I only used handsewing where absolutely necessary. This was also technically my first attempt at a pattern hack, since I used Sew Desu Ne's arcanine pattern as a base and tried to modify it to make one of my favorite weird video game creatures. Obviously I ran into various issues here. I ended up sewing his eyes/nose on too early, leading to them being placed somewhat oddly, and the feet were just...annoying. But whatever, I love my weird dog. And I felt a lot more confident using the sewing machine by the time I was finished.
denim skirt
may 2025
I made this to attempt to salvage an old pair of jeans that had ripped. I mostly followed this video tutorial. I had some issues while making it, partly because I wasn't very comfortable with machine sewing yet, and partly because my machine is evil and did not enjoy sewing so much denim. The final product has some pretty glaring flaws, but it's still more wearable than the original jeans were.
garf & yobbo rag dolls
april/july 2025
I made these ragdoll versions of Garf and Yobbo mainly because I thought it would be funny (it was). I did not use any patterns or tutorials whatsoever and it shows, but this just makes them funnier. It was nice to be able to just wing it and see what happened, since Garf and Yobbo would still be freaks no matter how high quality the sewing was.
frog plushie
april 2025
After deciding I wanted to try and get into sewing, I hunted around for a simple project I could do, and settled on this frog plushie pattern. I sewed him entirely by hand, since I was a bit apprehensive about jumping straight to machine sewing. He did not turn out looking like the pictures on the pattern, but I think he's still kind of charming, and he did prove to me that I could finish a sewing project! He's pink because he's supposed to look like Poptart. Plus I had a lot of pink fleece.