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[Intro music]
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Hello, welcome back to my YouTube channel!
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I'm starting this video with showing
you this amazing shirt that I thrifted today
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Oh my gosh! Juggling. Pochi! MERR.
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And this hat that I crocheted -
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It's the second thing I've ever successfully crocheted. I've only just started crocheting in the past month
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and I LOVE it! It's so much fun. And this hat turned out really really cute and I was made from Fairtrade
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wool from Uruguay, so... yayy!
And I'm also sitting in quite a dark room
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because I'm still having troubles with migraines and light sensitivity
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so if this looks really dark
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that's why. If it looks nice and bright then future Annika has done a really good job on post-production.
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So hopefully it looks good! Whoo!
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So the other day I was browsing through different patterns for clothing that you can buy online
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and I was like wow, these are really prohibitively expensive for someone who's maybe
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just getting into sewing and doesn't have that much money. I've also been looking at
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fabrics recently and thought the same thing...So I wanted to make a little list of all the
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tips and tricks that I have learned while being someone who is relatively broke
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learning to sew, because fabrics and classes and
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books and textbooks and all of that stuff... Sewing accessories, you name it are all quite expensive
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it's a pretty expensive hobby to just pick up on a whim,
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if you don't even know if you're gonna like it or not.
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So this video is gonna be how to get started sewing without spending a fortune.
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My first tip is to go to thrift stores to find your fabrics.
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You don't want to be buying especially fabrics for your first ever projects from places like ...
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Spotlight and Lincraft are the big craft stores in Australia,
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I think you've got Joanne's in the US is that one called Michaels - or am I making that up right now?
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Anyway fabric from these places is expensive and you're probably also gonna honestly mess it up
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because you're learning how to sew and sewing is a little bit hard.
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So when I first started sewing I used things like old bed sheets -
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you can actually find old bed sheets in quite cute floral patterns.
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I got one which was all like cute vintage looking teacups that I made a dress out of
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actually that I used to make the first tutorial on this channel.
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This orange one here was floral bedsheets!
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This pinafore was an old bedsheet... Bedsheets are great,
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especially if it's for your first projects and you just mucking around with things. Another thing that
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bedsheets can be useful for is for making prototypes,
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so before you use the really nice fabric,
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if you're using like a light cotton or silk or something like that as your final
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fabric, then you can use a bed sheet of the same or at least similar sort of fabric to make your prototype.
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Now I know that a lot of you say that you don't have good thrift stores in your country.
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And unfortunately that might be the case you might be able to shop online instead - places like Etsy or eBay
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often sell secondhand fabrics.
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But if you do live in a country that has pretty good thrift stores then you can definitely find good fabrics,
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though if you're someone
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who thinks they never have good luck thrifting then you're probably looking in the wrong places.
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And I'm actually going to link to a video on how to thrift which is very applicable to finding fabrics -
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even though the video I made was about clothes. Aside from thrifted bed sheets
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you might also hit the jackpot and find a craft section at the thrift store. I found these today:
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Two metres of gingham, 3 metres of sweater fleece fabric
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2 metres of wool tartan, 2 meters of this nice drapey
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chiffon pattern material it's really pretty
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4 metres of this really nice drapey tartan for $4! Thrift store prices!
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And it's not just fabrics like often there will be a little craft haberdashery section in
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different thrift stores like today I also found a handful of zippers
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and I probably got all those fabrics and zippers for the price of maybe one or two
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metres of fabric in a normal craft store.
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Another thing that is great from thrift stores - sewing textbooks, so
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this is a woman's day complete book of handicrafts,
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a giant, hardcover, like, tome that I got for $3.
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I got that today at the thrift store and while it's from the seventies the instructions and
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step by step photos
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to do all of these different crafts are
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really well detailed like I've learnt quite a lot of stuff from it just from reading it today
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There's a whole section on metric equivalents. So I don't have to google it I can just use this as a reference.
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We've got how to measure every single part of your body for different
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clothes a sewing guide for the thread you should use and how many
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machine stitches per inch for different types of fabric,
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and this whole thing is just on how to iron fabrics like this thing is awesome, and it includes a bunch of
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tutorials of how to make things and patterns so like,
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yes, this might be a 70s design but a lot of the patterns that they give you are fairly timeless besides seventies
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stuff is fashionable anyway! I found this awesome one from the 80s a while ago for 50 cents,
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which is also a really good step by step guide
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to following patterns and making clothes and this thing I got today as well, which is
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from the summer of 87 to 88... You would see people wearing this today!
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Like I'm pretty sure seeing that girl on Instagram recently. So don't discredit older sewing guides from thrift shops
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just because of their age they are actually often really well-written,
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especially if there's something like women's day if you can find women's day books,
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I have two of them - they're really well written. Another good place to get cheap fabrics and craft supplies is
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places, like estate sales and garage sales... Estate sales,
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you might be able to score with fabrics because often it might be an older person who has passed away who has
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hoarded fabric their whole lives. That is definitely going to be me in the future
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I pity the person who has to go through my fabric stash -
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or if you know people who have relatives maybe like their grandma
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recently moved to a nursing home and left all her fabric stash
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they might be like, please please take this off us! I have had three different people
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give me huge like roomfuls of fabric that they didn't need anymore because
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they knew I liked so that brings me to another tip
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let everyone in your life know that you like sewing! Make it be known that you are now the sewing person
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because not only will you find these people who might have stashes that they want to unload.
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They might just be like, oh, I'll buy this person a present. I'll buy them a sewing machine for Christmas.
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That's what happened to me.
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I showed an interest in sewing and for Christmas that year my dad
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noticed that there were sewing machines on sale at the post office and he was like awesome
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I'm gonna get that for Annika and the rest is history.
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Talking about sewing machines - if you're going to be spending any money
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this is where you need to spend it.
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You don't wanna be spending your money on fabrics, on patterns, on classes, on books...
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You want to be spending it here.
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Because if you have a bad sewing machine, if you go for like the
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cheapest worst type, your projects probably won't work out and
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you're probably gonna think that it's your fault that you're a bad sewer when it's
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actually the sewing machines fault. It can totally put you off sewing for the rest of your life.
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Not a good idea, and the benefits to investing in a good sewing machine is that you will have it for years
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so you can save money in the long run because you're able to make all your own clothes. If you
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improve a lot and really take to it, you can even make money selling things.
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So I just really think this is the one thing you really should invest
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in if you're getting started sewing.
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That said, there are some really decent sewing machines out there for beginners that are only around
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$100 - $200. I can only speak from personal
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experience, but I really like my Bernina machine it is a beginners, but semi computerized machine
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which meant that it has let me do a lot more intermediate stuff not just beginners only stuff
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like I can work with swimsuits really easily or I can work with denim and I've had it for -
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I think it's four years at this point - and
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it's I've never even had it serviced and it just works perfectly like the day I got it.
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Of course I'm also going to mention free sewing tutorials on the internet!
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So if you're just learning to so I actually compiled a whole page
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of free beginner sewing tutorials on my website.
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And of course all of my tutorials are free and I have
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a whole beginner's playlist that you can go through which is ranked in
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order from easy to hard. They're all free. Please use them!
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My last tip is that there are plenty of places to get free sewing patterns
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and I'm going to be linking some of my favorites down below.
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Colette does a couple of free patterns, Peppermint magazine has a lot of free patterns,
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Tilly and the buttons has some free tutorials,
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these are all quite beginner friendly and
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ones like Tilly and the buttons and Colette
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actually teach you how to sew while you use them if you do spend any of any money on them
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it's kind of like a class and a pattern all in one.
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So it's quite a lot of value for money, but I'll put the links to these
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and some are in the description box down below,
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so that you can find some good quality beginners patterns that are free.
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Also make some sewing friends!
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Anyone who is friends with me and shows even the slightest interest in sewing
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I like load them up with a bunch of fabrics to take home.
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Is the answer to this one...become friends with Annika?
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No, but I think you'll find that the sewing community is really passionate,
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eager to help and teach others to learn so making friends who love sewing and
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letting the world know that you love sewing is definitely
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not a bad idea! Speaking of making sewing friends
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It's been like a week since I launched the make thrift try
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community challenge and there have already been so many photos on
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Instagram who have taken part in the challenge,
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or they've gotten started on the challenge or what they're like posting works in progress,
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and it's been so cool to see. Um, thank you so much for posting them
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I am so excited to see more throughout the month. Remember it finishes
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at...
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31 days after?
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My last video was posted
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So if you want to join in get started with some sewing - it doesn't have to be super professional!
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If you're a beginner you are more than welcome!
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Then please join in!
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If you have any more tips or tricks on how to get started sewing without spending a ton of money
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on places where you might be able to find cheap craft accessories
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or if you have any favorite free pattern websites that aren't linked in the description box below!
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Please leave a comment! When I witness like a nice friendly interaction in my comment section,
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I get so happy and I'm like.. FRIENNNDDDSSSS!
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It honestly makes my day. So please do that. I hope you've enjoyed my little
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skater beanie, Emo hair in this video. I think it's very cute. I love this beanie. Anyway, thank you for watching
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I hope this video was helpful, and I'll see you all next time. Bye!