New Pattern! The Near-Zero Waste Sunhat

Friends, it’s my pleasure to announce a new pattern that I’ve been chasing for over a year. It’s a sunhat with less than 5% waste. You’ll be able to try this pattern for FREE, as I’m presenting it at the Making Zen Online Retreat, 27th-31st May. Register HERE (this is an affiliate link). Along with…

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Publishing Day! A Year of Zero Waste Sewing

Today is publishing day for A Year of Zero Waste Sewing, a book I started two years ago and experimentally published in instalments as zines. It’s now a proper book. It explores zero waste patterncutting concepts, making clothes for longevity, my own opinionated thoughts on various sewing topics, and stories from zero waste designers. Fashion…

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Crafting a Book: A Year of Zero Waste Sewing

Things are coming together as A Year of Zero Waste Sewing moves towards becoming a book. I thought I’d use this post to share the process of independently publishing a book. 10 years ago, I was determined I would never self-publish, but now I’m a convert! If you have something to write about, it’s never…

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How to adjust a zero waste pattern

It’s not always easy to do an adjustment on a zero waste sewing pattern. This is because the whole cutting layout IS the pattern, and the shared cutting lines mean that if you change one piece, the pieces around it will be affected. There can be a hesitancy to make alterations because “it won’t be…

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Finished! A Year of Zero Waste Sewing: November and December

Yesterday afternoon I finished the final instalment of what’s turned out to be a two-year project, A Year of Zero Waste Sewing. It’s a book I’m experimentally publishing in instalments as zines. Each zine comes as a file to print out at home (it prints out on 3 double-sided pieces of paper, which are folded…

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Sleeves, Triangles, and the Arc T-Shirt

Last week’s post had (I thought) satisfied the head-scratching on using triangles as sleeves. But was it “correct”? Here’s a quick re-cap: This is how I thought the sleeves might be formed: Here it is tried in fabric, full-scale. It works OK, although I’m not sure how to control the width of the sleeve for…

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Cutting zero waste sleeves from triangles

Zero waste sleeves have been on my radar lately. Sleeves were the theme of the newly-published September zine for A Year of Zero Waste Sewing, and I looked through lots of new and old sleeve ideas while writing it. Of course I turned to the influential and significant Zero Waste Fashion Design to see what…

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September and October: A Year of Zero Waste Sewing

Hi Everyone, A Year of Zero Waste Sewing – A year of exploration, making and musings on zero waste patterns and clothes is a book project I started nearly 2 years ago (Mr H says it should be called TWO Years of Zero Waste Sewing). I’m experimentally publishing the book in instalments as zines. The…

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A Better Hat

Last week’s zero waste hat pattern has had a few tweaks and been re-made in a more…erm…exciting fabric (it’s not hard to beat khaki!). I had mixed feelings about the khaki hat, but on the same day as making it, we had a family dinner and it was enthusiastically tried on by all and declared…

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The Hat Challenge

I happened to see that #sewover50 on Instagram have a mini challenge to sew a hat. I thought I might sew one, maybe using the free hat pattern on this website. Then I remembered I had a prototype for a zero waste hat lying around behind my sewing machine – maybe now is the time…

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