March 2025
Book birthdays, a new skirt pattern in the works, and some links you'll enjoy
Hi Everyone!
Welcome to the March newsletter, and a warm hello to new subscribers.
This month, Zero Waste Sewing turns five and A Year of Zero Waste Sewing turns one. I like to mark book birthdays (they’re on the calendar) although I don’t go so far as to bake a cake.
With books containing sewing projects, it’s really hard to predict which ones people will want to make. Not everything suits every person. This happens in ready-to-wear fashion too: when I was a patternmaker for fashion designers, there was always much speculation by everyone who had worked on the range. What would be the best selling garment that season? I’d say we were correct maybe 50% of the time.
These are the garments I think were the most popular in those books.
But who really knows? I can only guess by Instagram, and their hashtag search function is now limited…and there’s plenty of people not on social media who sew.
Coming soon: zero waste party skirt
I have a new pattern in the works, which is coming on very slowly but steadily.
It’s a handkerchief hem-style skirt, with two great pockets, and the options of a regular, elastic or stretch waistband. It also has excellent twirl factor :)
Cool books from the library
As you may know, I’m a regular library book borrower, and we have three beauties in the house at the moment.
L-R:
Fashion, Disability and Co-Design - A human-centred design approach by Grace Jun (Bloomsbury, 2024). If you enjoy reading about design process, you will love this. Specifically, the book is about designing clothes in collaboration with the disabled person who’ll be wearing them, with the goal of increasing social inclusion, independence and comfort. Lots of case studies.
Fashion in Colour - A journey through every hue by Megan Hess (Hardie Grant, 2024). Glorious fashion illustration by the author of the children’s series Claris the mouse and fashion books. Each chapter features a colour with examples of iconic fashions.
Fashion Gamechangers - Re-inventing the 20th century silhouette (Bloomsbury, 2016). A book to accompany an exhibition of the same name, it traces innovations in fashion design over the past 100 years. Fascinating to read and some really gorgeous photos. For lovers of fashion history.
South Aussies: these books are all in the SA public library system.
Some things you might enjoy
How to sew ruffle flowers from fabric scraps.
Tauko magazine's spring and summer issues are open for designer submissions. The themes are creative pioneers and pockets.
How did I miss this? A livestream sewalong of the free hat pattern from my website…from three years ago.
A plus-size patternmaking book is coming out in October. Watch an interview with the authors (Instagram, about 1hr).
Add a dose of hilarity to your day with these vintage photos of men's fashions in the 1970s. (I have to say, I never saw men wearing this level of fashion growing up in 1970s Aussie suburbia, although it wasn’t a particularly kind era for menswear.)
Vale Claire Shaeffer. Read a tribute by Threads magazine.
A drycleaner's list of clothes which are difficult to care for.
Mend a slit-shaped hole in fabric using parachute stitch.
The problem with deadstock fabrics. More discussion on deadstock fabrics on the CYT podcast.
A short read on waistbands.
On the blog lately
A roundup of the past month’s blog posts from my website, lizhaywood.com.au.
Feel free to subscribe to my blog for weekly posts direct to your inbox, however, if you don’t need more emails in your life, I always do a roundup here.
The fabric made me do it. First time sewing a large-scale wax print.
Three ways to sew a crownless sunhat. An experiment with the low-waste sunhat pattern, which could be used for other hat patterns.
Making the Shirt from Couture Zéro Chute, a French zero waste sewing book, and finishing it here.
From the blog archives
Discovering Halston’s bias cuts. A sort-of book review with some thoughtful comments from readers.
Many thanks for your well-wishes after last month’s newsletter. I’ve recovered from covid but not long covid, and am back to the pre-Christmas baseline.
Cheers,
Liz x