0:00:00.540,0:00:02.100 [Intro music] 0:00:07.540,0:00:10.280 Hello, welcome back to my YouTube channel! 0:00:10.280,0:00:13.740 I'm starting this video with showing [br]you this amazing shirt that I thrifted today 0:00:13.740,0:00:17.640 Oh my gosh! Juggling. Pochi! MERR. 0:00:17.640,0:00:19.500 And this hat that I crocheted - 0:00:19.500,0:00:25.170 It's the second thing I've ever successfully crocheted. I've only just started crocheting in the past month 0:00:25.170,0:00:31.170 and I LOVE it! It's so much fun. And this hat turned out really really cute and I was made from Fairtrade 0:00:31.719,0:00:36.779 wool from Uruguay, so... yayy![br]And I'm also sitting in quite a dark room 0:00:37.360,0:00:41.339 because I'm still having troubles with migraines and light sensitivity 0:00:41.340,0:00:43.000 so if this looks really dark 0:00:43.000,0:00:48.880 that's why. If it looks nice and bright then future Annika has done a really good job on post-production. 0:00:48.880,0:00:50.760 So hopefully it looks good! Whoo! 0:00:50.760,0:00:57.120 So the other day I was browsing through different patterns for clothing that you can buy online 0:00:57.120,0:01:02.500 and I was like wow, these are really prohibitively expensive for someone who's maybe 0:01:02.500,0:01:06.320 just getting into sewing and doesn't have that much money. I've also been looking at 0:01:06.320,0:01:12.820 fabrics recently and thought the same thing...So I wanted to make a little list of all the 0:01:12.820,0:01:16.820 tips and tricks that I have learned while being someone who is relatively broke 0:01:17.350,0:01:20.489 learning to sew, because fabrics and classes and 0:01:21.159,0:01:28.228 books and textbooks and all of that stuff... Sewing accessories, you name it are all quite expensive 0:01:28.229,0:01:30.809 it's a pretty expensive hobby to just pick up on a whim, 0:01:30.810,0:01:32.879 if you don't even know if you're gonna like it or not. 0:01:32.880,0:01:36.540 So this video is gonna be how to get started sewing without spending a fortune. 0:01:36.540,0:01:40.020 My first tip is to go to thrift stores to find your fabrics. 0:01:40.020,0:01:46.140 You don't want to be buying especially fabrics for your first ever projects from places like ... 0:01:46.140,0:01:49.140 Spotlight and Lincraft are the big craft stores in Australia, 0:01:49.140,0:01:54.449 I think you've got Joanne's in the US is that one called Michaels - or am I making that up right now? 0:01:54.620,0:01:59.920 Anyway fabric from these places is expensive and you're probably also gonna honestly mess it up 0:01:59.920,0:02:03.900 because you're learning how to sew and sewing is a little bit hard. 0:02:03.900,0:02:07.470 So when I first started sewing I used things like old bed sheets - 0:02:07.470,0:02:11.400 you can actually find old bed sheets in quite cute floral patterns. 0:02:11.400,0:02:17.180 I got one which was all like cute vintage looking teacups that I made a dress out of 0:02:17.180,0:02:21.240 actually that I used to make the first tutorial on this channel. 0:02:21.240,0:02:24.260 This orange one here was floral bedsheets! 0:02:24.269,0:02:27.359 This pinafore was an old bedsheet... Bedsheets are great, 0:02:27.660,0:02:32.380 especially if it's for your first projects and you just mucking around with things. Another thing that 0:02:32.520,0:02:35.580 bedsheets can be useful for is for making prototypes, 0:02:36.000,0:02:38.620 so before you use the really nice fabric, 0:02:38.620,0:02:42.580 if you're using like a light cotton or silk or something like that as your final 0:02:43.150,0:02:49.799 fabric, then you can use a bed sheet of the same or at least similar sort of fabric to make your prototype. 0:02:49.799,0:02:54.239 Now I know that a lot of you say that you don't have good thrift stores in your country. 0:02:54.239,0:03:01.018 And unfortunately that might be the case you might be able to shop online instead - places like Etsy or eBay 0:03:01.019,0:03:03.089 often sell secondhand fabrics. 0:03:03.089,0:03:08.940 But if you do live in a country that has pretty good thrift stores then you can definitely find good fabrics, 0:03:08.940,0:03:10.560 though if you're someone 0:03:10.560,0:03:14.420 who thinks they never have good luck thrifting then you're probably looking in the wrong places. 0:03:14.420,0:03:18.920 And I'm actually going to link to a video on how to thrift which is very applicable to finding fabrics - 0:03:18.930,0:03:23.370 even though the video I made was about clothes. Aside from thrifted bed sheets 0:03:23.370,0:03:28.049 you might also hit the jackpot and find a craft section at the thrift store. I found these today: 0:03:28.599,0:03:31.980 Two metres of gingham, 3 metres of sweater fleece fabric 0:03:31.980,0:03:34.888 2 metres of wool tartan, 2 meters of this nice drapey 0:03:35.290,0:03:38.640 chiffon pattern material it's really pretty 0:03:38.640,0:03:45.040 4 metres of this really nice drapey tartan for $4! Thrift store prices! 0:03:45.040,0:03:49.220 And it's not just fabrics like often there will be a little craft haberdashery section in 0:03:49.560,0:03:53.300 different thrift stores like today I also found a handful of zippers 0:03:53.300,0:03:56.960 and I probably got all those fabrics and zippers for the price of maybe one or two 0:03:57.069,0:04:00.719 metres of fabric in a normal craft store. 0:04:00.720,0:04:05.609 Another thing that is great from thrift stores - sewing textbooks, so 0:04:05.640,0:04:09.000 this is a woman's day complete book of handicrafts, 0:04:09.420,0:04:15.580 a giant, hardcover, like, tome that I got for $3. 0:04:15.920,0:04:20.820 I got that today at the thrift store and while it's from the seventies the instructions and 0:04:21.829,0:04:23.810 step by step photos 0:04:23.810,0:04:25.810 to do all of these different crafts are 0:04:26.030,0:04:30.760 really well detailed like I've learnt quite a lot of stuff from it just from reading it today 0:04:30.760,0:04:35.769 There's a whole section on metric equivalents. So I don't have to google it I can just use this as a reference. 0:04:35.930,0:04:40.120 We've got how to measure every single part of your body for different 0:04:40.400,0:04:44.320 clothes a sewing guide for the thread you should use and how many 0:04:44.630,0:04:47.950 machine stitches per inch for different types of fabric, 0:04:47.950,0:04:53.760 and this whole thing is just on how to iron fabrics like this thing is awesome, and it includes a bunch of 0:04:54.000,0:04:58.080 tutorials of how to make things and patterns so like, 0:04:58.640,0:05:06.519 yes, this might be a 70s design but a lot of the patterns that they give you are fairly timeless besides seventies 0:05:06.710,0:05:11.480 stuff is fashionable anyway! I found this awesome one from the 80s a while ago for 50 cents, 0:05:11.480,0:05:14.200 which is also a really good step by step guide 0:05:14.380,0:05:20.700 to following patterns and making clothes and this thing I got today as well, which is 0:05:21.380,0:05:25.400 from the summer of 87 to 88... You would see people wearing this today! 0:05:25.400,0:05:32.400 Like I'm pretty sure seeing that girl on Instagram recently. So don't discredit older sewing guides from thrift shops 0:05:32.400,0:05:36.600 just because of their age they are actually often really well-written, 0:05:36.950,0:05:39.759 especially if there's something like women's day if you can find women's day books, 0:05:39.760,0:05:45.500 I have two of them - they're really well written. Another good place to get cheap fabrics and craft supplies is 0:05:45.640,0:05:49.560 places, like estate sales and garage sales... Estate sales, 0:05:49.660,0:05:56.720 you might be able to score with fabrics because often it might be an older person who has passed away who has 0:05:56.740,0:06:01.940 hoarded fabric their whole lives. That is definitely going to be me in the future 0:06:01.960,0:06:04.520 I pity the person who has to go through my fabric stash - 0:06:04.520,0:06:08.620 or if you know people who have relatives maybe like their grandma 0:06:08.900,0:06:12.420 recently moved to a nursing home and left all her fabric stash 0:06:12.430,0:06:17.709 they might be like, please please take this off us! I have had three different people 0:06:17.920,0:06:22.740 give me huge like roomfuls of fabric that they didn't need anymore because 0:06:23.020,0:06:25.540 they knew I liked so that brings me to another tip 0:06:25.680,0:06:31.720 let everyone in your life know that you like sewing! Make it be known that you are now the sewing person 0:06:31.720,0:06:35.479 because not only will you find these people who might have stashes that they want to unload. 0:06:35.479,0:06:40.473 They might just be like, oh, I'll buy this person a present. I'll buy them a sewing machine for Christmas. 0:06:40.480,0:06:42.460 That's what happened to me. 0:06:42.480,0:06:46.200 I showed an interest in sewing and for Christmas that year my dad 0:06:46.580,0:06:50.680 noticed that there were sewing machines on sale at the post office and he was like awesome 0:06:50.680,0:06:54.400 I'm gonna get that for Annika and the rest is history. 0:06:54.400,0:06:58.120 Talking about sewing machines - if you're going to be spending any money 0:06:58.340,0:07:00.440 this is where you need to spend it. 0:07:00.440,0:07:04.519 You don't wanna be spending your money on fabrics, on patterns, on classes, on books... 0:07:04.520,0:07:05.980 You want to be spending it here. 0:07:06.100,0:07:09.520 Because if you have a bad sewing machine, if you go for like the 0:07:09.540,0:07:13.820 cheapest worst type, your projects probably won't work out and 0:07:13.820,0:07:16.600 you're probably gonna think that it's your fault that you're a bad sewer when it's 0:07:16.610,0:07:19.880 actually the sewing machines fault. It can totally put you off sewing for the rest of your life. 0:07:19.880,0:07:25.579 Not a good idea, and the benefits to investing in a good sewing machine is that you will have it for years 0:07:25.710,0:07:30.650 so you can save money in the long run because you're able to make all your own clothes. If you 0:07:30.900,0:07:33.829 improve a lot and really take to it, you can even make money selling things. 0:07:33.829,0:07:37.000 So I just really think this is the one thing you really should invest 0:07:37.000,0:07:39.940 in if you're getting started sewing. 0:07:39.940,0:07:45.040 That said, there are some really decent sewing machines out there for beginners that are only around 0:07:45.240,0:07:47.780 $100 - $200. I can only speak from personal 0:07:47.780,0:07:55.100 experience, but I really like my Bernina machine it is a beginners, but semi computerized machine 0:07:55.100,0:08:00.180 which meant that it has let me do a lot more intermediate stuff not just beginners only stuff 0:08:00.180,0:08:04.880 like I can work with swimsuits really easily or I can work with denim and I've had it for - 0:08:05.000,0:08:07.440 I think it's four years at this point - and 0:08:07.520,0:08:12.979 it's I've never even had it serviced and it just works perfectly like the day I got it. 0:08:12.980,0:08:17.140 Of course I'm also going to mention free sewing tutorials on the internet! 0:08:17.140,0:08:20.920 So if you're just learning to so I actually compiled a whole page 0:08:20.923,0:08:23.500 of free beginner sewing tutorials on my website. 0:08:23.500,0:08:27.560 And of course all of my tutorials are free and I have 0:08:27.560,0:08:29.920 a whole beginner's playlist that you can go through which is ranked in 0:08:29.930,0:08:33.469 order from easy to hard. They're all free. Please use them! 0:08:33.469,0:08:37.789 My last tip is that there are plenty of places to get free sewing patterns 0:08:37.789,0:08:41.220 and I'm going to be linking some of my favorites down below. 0:08:41.300,0:08:45.260 Colette does a couple of free patterns, Peppermint magazine has a lot of free patterns, 0:08:45.260,0:08:47.500 Tilly and the buttons has some free tutorials, 0:08:47.500,0:08:49.820 these are all quite beginner friendly and 0:08:49.980,0:08:51.840 ones like Tilly and the buttons and Colette 0:08:51.850,0:08:56.279 actually teach you how to sew while you use them if you do spend any of any money on them 0:08:56.279,0:09:00.749 it's kind of like a class and a pattern all in one. 0:09:00.750,0:09:03.980 So it's quite a lot of value for money, but I'll put the links to these 0:09:03.980,0:09:06.500 and some are in the description box down below, 0:09:06.500,0:09:09.612 so that you can find some good quality beginners patterns that are free. 0:09:09.620,0:09:11.500 Also make some sewing friends! 0:09:11.500,0:09:15.260 Anyone who is friends with me and shows even the slightest interest in sewing 0:09:15.260,0:09:18.680 I like load them up with a bunch of fabrics to take home. 0:09:18.680,0:09:20.960 Is the answer to this one...become friends with Annika? 0:09:21.020,0:09:23.900 No, but I think you'll find that the sewing community is really passionate, 0:09:23.940,0:09:28.120 eager to help and teach others to learn so making friends who love sewing and 0:09:28.120,0:09:30.500 letting the world know that you love sewing is definitely 0:09:30.510,0:09:32.879 not a bad idea! Speaking of making sewing friends 0:09:32.880,0:09:36.440 It's been like a week since I launched the make thrift try 0:09:36.580,0:09:40.120 community challenge and there have already been so many photos on 0:09:40.120,0:09:43.600 Instagram who have taken part in the challenge, 0:09:43.600,0:09:45.800 or they've gotten started on the challenge or what they're like posting works in progress, 0:09:45.880,0:09:50.369 and it's been so cool to see. Um, thank you so much for posting them 0:09:50.370,0:09:54.060 I am so excited to see more throughout the month. Remember it finishes 0:09:54.880,0:09:56.050 at... 0:09:56.050,0:09:57.820 31 days after? 0:09:57.820,0:09:59.170 My last video was posted 0:09:59.170,0:10:03.390 So if you want to join in get started with some sewing - it doesn't have to be super professional! 0:10:03.519,0:10:05.459 If you're a beginner you are more than welcome! 0:10:05.459,0:10:06.800 Then please join in! 0:10:06.800,0:10:11.700 If you have any more tips or tricks on how to get started sewing without spending a ton of money 0:10:11.700,0:10:14.940 on places where you might be able to find cheap craft accessories 0:10:14.940,0:10:19.800 or if you have any favorite free pattern websites that aren't linked in the description box below! 0:10:19.800,0:10:24.860 Please leave a comment! When I witness like a nice friendly interaction in my comment section, 0:10:24.860,0:10:27.480 I get so happy and I'm like.. FRIENNNDDDSSSS! 0:10:27.480,0:10:31.980 It honestly makes my day. So please do that. I hope you've enjoyed my little 0:10:32.140,0:10:37.469 skater beanie, Emo hair in this video. I think it's very cute. I love this beanie. Anyway, thank you for watching 0:10:37.470,0:10:40.560 I hope this video was helpful, and I'll see you all next time. Bye!