Sewing community challenges

Are you looking forward to sewing in 2019? Perhaps you are looking for some ideas of what to make? It’s a great time of year to get involved in a new sewing community challenge to help you plan your handmade wardrobe.

A great place to start is having a look at your current wardrobe and seeing where the gaps are. You may also want to try on your existing outfits to see if you still want to wear them this year. When you have a list of garments you want to sew, it’s time to find patterns to match!

We’ve listed some resources from the sewing community below that can help you  plan your sewing projects in 2019. Don’t forget you can see all the latest sewing pattern releases from our brands here.

Planning

Image source: Colette Patterns

A popular tried and tested blog series to help look at your wardrobe and plan your makes is the Wardrobe Architect by Colette Patterns. There are a huge number of resources to guide you through the process of identifying your style.

You can follow the week-by-week blog posts covering everything from exploring shapes to choosing colours and accessorising. It really is the most comprehensive wardrobe planning tool in the sewing community!

Choosing sewing patterns

Image source: Lucky Lucille blog

One of the most popular sewing challenges happening at the start of a new year is the Make Nine Challenge #2019makenine, organised by blogger Rochelle of Home Row Fiber Co. You pick nine patterns to make for 2019 to help you plan your sewing throughout the year.

Now that you can find all seven brands together at SewDirect, it’s never been easier to stock up on new and exciting designs. There is sure to be something that takes your fancy for your #2019makenine!

Styling your outfits

We find that the greatest inspiration for our sewing comes from seeing what everyone else is making. You can get lots of ideas of what fabrics work well with different garments from following us on social media and the hashtags #simplicitybyme #mccallsbyme on Instagram.

Also if you are ever looking for a specific pattern try searching with the hashtag for a pattern e.g. V9075 for Vogue® Patterns 9075 on Instagram, you’ll be amazed at all the outfit inspiration from makers around the world. There are 426 images to browse for Vogue® Patterns 9075 alone!

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Don’t forget to share your latest makes with us on social media using the hashtags #simplicitybyme or #mccallsbyme. We can’t wait to see what you’ve been making. There are prizes to be won each month too!