About

Hello and welcome!

I’m Liz Haywood. In my blog I hope to share, inform and entertain on all things about sewing, fashion and zero waste patterncutting.  I post weekly on Mondays, but occasionally Sundays and sometimes Tuesdays.

About me: I trained as a clothing patternmaker in Adelaide, Australia in 1990/91, but started my career as a junior cutter in a Cut-Make-Trim (CMT) factory. I worked as a patternmaker and/or cutter in the fashion industry in Adelaide, doing active/swim wear, school and corporate uniforms, bridal, fashion ranges and various freelance jobs. I worked in London as a temp patternmaker during the Cool Britannia era of the late 90s. I’ve also worked as a sewing teacher and knitting pattern writer.

In 2010 we moved to the country, South Australia’s Clare Valley, with our very young family, and so I no longer work in industry.

In 2016, when the babies had started school, I started this blog and almost at the same time read about zero waste patterncutting. I gave zero waste a try as I was curious to see if it was difficult, and immediately clicked with it. I enjoyed it far more than regular patternmaking. At the beginning of 2020 I went hard core and decided I would only make zero waste patterns from now on.

I’m the author of The Dressmaker’s Companion – A practical guide to sewing clothes (2017) and Zero Waste Sewing – 16 projects to make, wear and enjoy (2020). I’m currently writing a new book, A Year of Zero Waste Sewing – A year of exploration, making and musings on zero waste patterncutting and clothes, which was experimentally published in instalments as an e-zine, and is now a proper book.

I also publish pdf zero waste sewing patterns.

As well as this blog, I write a monthly newsletter on anything I’ve found interesting in the sewing & fashion world that I think you would like too. Subscribe in the Newsletter Archive in the top menu. All the back issues can be read here.

Recovering from Long Covid since June 2022.

Thanks for dropping by 🙂

Feel free to contact me by email on liz@lizhaywood (dot) com (dot) au. I always reply – it’s just me here!

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