Sew Your Own Clothing No Sewing Patterns Needed Absolute Beginners | Chantelle Taylor | Skillshare
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Sew Your Own Clothing No Sewing Patterns Needed Absolute Beginners

teacher avatar Chantelle Taylor, freelance marketer and designer

Watch this class and thousands more

Get unlimited access to every class
Taught by industry leaders & working professionals
Topics include illustration, design, photography, and more

Watch this class and thousands more

Get unlimited access to every class
Taught by industry leaders & working professionals
Topics include illustration, design, photography, and more

Lessons in This Class

    • 1.

      Fashion introduction

      2:10

    • 2.

      Tools

      2:35

    • 3.

      Basic sewing

      10:19

    • 4.

      Top

      5:19

    • 5.

      Dress

      11:54

    • 6.

      Trousers

      8:52

    • 7.

      Dress2

      11:48

    • 8.

      Class project

      1:36

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About This Class

Create Your Own clothing is 4 fashionable, beginner friendly & easy to make pieces of clothing for Absolute Beginners. If you want to sew your own clothes but are intimidated by using sewing patterns you will love using this course to make your own wardrobe without the use of any sewing patterns. the class begins with sewing techniques and tools need to succeed with this course. This Sew Your Own Fashion Collection course will help you become familiar with the basics of machine sewing, help you build your confidence at making your own clothes and develop sewing skills. The course includes: Looking at Standard stitches Seaming curved edges Straight edges, standard seam and French seams on a home sewing machine. Play with the designs to make garments you love. Beginners. You should have an interest and a desire to learn but no previous experience is required. no need for intimidating sewing patterns. 

 

Meet Your Teacher

Teacher Profile Image

Chantelle Taylor

freelance marketer and designer

Teacher

 

Hello, I'm Chantelle. A freelance social media marketer, designer and fashion blogger/ vlogger. The UK-based designer graduated from University for the creative arts with a degree in BA (Hons) Fashion. Inspired by travel, sewing, textile art, London fashion week, and Fashion trends. I decided to make my skills not only my business but my personal brand. I share my passion here on Skillshare! 

Art and Design

I have an extensive background in different forms of art and design. I have a BA (Hons) Fashion degree. 

I also have a history in video and online presence, specifically on youtube. My passion for youtube has helped me become a master in understanding lighting, v... See full profile

Level: Beginner

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Transcripts

1. Fashion introduction: Hello. Welcome to my fashion course. My name is Shannon. Tell and I will be teaching you my free hand technique off sewing any government you like without a pattern. Now, when I first started serving, I didn't really want to issues pageants because it seems really intimidating. So I kind of started off by developing this technique on DSO, figuring out how shapes worked and how to design without a pattern. Since then, I went to fashion university and learn creative pattern cutting and how to work with patterns and draping. Understand? After learning how to do pattern, cutting the proper way and combining it with the way that I had taught myself, I kind of figured out a new way or freehand cutting. It's an exciting technique that's easy to use, and it's perfect for beginners or someone who wants to make quick garments but don't want to spend too long in the whole pattern cutting, fitting and sizing kind of thing. So that's where I come in. Today I'm wearing one of the dresses that I made. This is a really fun, cute, flatly design. It actually has a wide weighs on a ruffled bottom. It is so cute. I really love this design is probably one of my favorites throughout the schools. I'll be teaching you different seems and how to construct and make your own garments. So if you're a fashion easiest affection student or a fashion lover or someone who just loves to, sir, I would completely recommend you to check out my course and see how you enjoy as well. 2. Tools: so what you will need is some Fred's. These are very important to be a strong quality, high quality. Fred. You don't want to use the leaving cheap because that can jam up your machine and make it break. You also want to use a iron. Any household iron is useful for pressing out seems and making everything look professional , oppressed, seem, can make your whole entire project looks so much more professional, and it can make your garments look much better. You'll also need some fabrics. Thes fabrics are up to you. The fabrics that you choose can really determine how your final garment looks. A completely different print and texture can completely change a design and make it so different from what it was before. So keep in mind that it's really up to you what you decide you want to make your garment from. It's so important that you choose the fabrics that reflect you the most, and you also need some sewing pins. Some straight pins air so importance because they helped to keep your fabric together once you begin sewing. So this is essential piece that you'll need, as well as a measuring tape. This will be important. Even though we're not using any sewing patterns, you'll still need a measuring tape so that you can take accurate measurements and be able to decide how big or small you want your garment to be. You also need a really nice black service for you to be able to lay out your fabric and cut it out on and somewhere. There's a space for you, too. So basically you'll also need both fabric cutting shears and also paper cut inches. You'll need the fabric cutting shears. Most importantly, this is a sharp pair of scissors made for fabric, and you can only use it on fabric. You can't use it on anything else because you could make your fabric shears blunt. So that is the holy rule off. Sewing is only using your fabric scissors on fabric. 3. Basic sewing: so I'm gonna go over some really basic sewing technique. Sewing a seam is the most basic off serving skills to learn. It's so easy to do, and there's just a few things you need to do to make it really simple for this project. I'm just shown you on some scrap pieces of fabric so that it's perfect for practicing. I recommend that you do the same as well. Use some small pieces of fabric that you don't mind throwing away. It's just to practice on. So what you will need is a sewing machine. Everybody say machine is completely different. They all have separate settings. It depends on what your so machine needs. So you must check the instruction manual freak so you want to stop by a place in the fabric right side to right side and pinning along that line, make sure you pin carefully onto the fabric so that it's easy for you to sir, you need to make sure that you take out the sewing pins before you start stitching your line because it could be dangerous to stitch over the pins. Sewing a scene is really good. The easiest thing to do on a saying machine is the key is back stitch in that is really important to back stitch at the beginning and the end of the seam backs. Teaching is like tying, and not so it locks the stitches in place. Without it, the seam couldn't open up, and this can make your fabric unravel, so make sure that you insert the needle into the fabric on. Make sure that there is 1.5 inch seam allowance once you stitched the pieces together, as you can see in this video, So now we're going to be sewing a basic ham. It's super simple. You can just do a basic role ham, and with this we're just rolling up the edge twice and pressing it flat with the iron. It's very important to press the scene is very important. Press for him, flat with the iron survey can be neat en tidy. Once you find it flat, you can start by pinning the edge on stitch it with a straight stitch or a six X stick. If you want to. Mm. With bias binding, you need to make sure that you get the fabric in between the two edges so the fabric needs to be in between the two pieces off the bias, binding and folded over the edge. As you can see undoing in the video Right now, I'm now opinion in place. I'm going t make straight auras execs stitch to stitch it down and keep in place. This is a really great, easy way to finish your hems and make them look beautiful, especially on the really tricky places like the armholes. And then that calls where it's hard to get a flat with a normal roll him. It's really nice to have the bias binding because it makes it look Sony and all of the raw edges are encased inside of the bias binding to be doing a French scene of the French seem we placed the fabric wrong side to wrong side instead of right side to right side, and then we do it like a normal seem as we stitched it. We need to cut away the excess for brick, but this is going to be folded inwards. You fold inwards and make sure to press booth iron after you pressed it, the iron you can then move on to stitching it closed when you open it up, you realized, Look at how the inside looks and look at how the outside looks. It's such a beautiful scene because everything looks clean from the inside and clean from the outside, so it's a perfect scene. Pleats are very easy to do a simple plea. You just have to fold the fabric. I'm folding the fabric now and pin it in place with depends. We're just going to do a simple straight stitch across and that will hold the folds in place in full sewing . Elastic is super easy. All you need to remember is that you need to hold the elastic taught and stretch it as you stitch along. Make sure you keep stretching it as in pulling it as you're selling it. You must always use is execs stitch. Never use a straight stitch, because when you use a straight stitch, it will snap. It needs something to bounce back against, and that's what those exact stick gives. It gives it that Eze said the elastic can stretch. She's 4. Top: So you're going to learn how to make this really amazing top. This top is very versatile. It's ruffled and it has a baggie loose, modern fit. You can customize it and make it the way you want it to look. You can make it baggy. You could make it as big as you like on all without the use off selling patterns. So I'm gonna show you exactly how to make your own top. You're going to need to start with at least 1.5 meters to two meters, depending on your size. I think two meters should be sufficient. I want you to start by folding the fabric in half so that it's folded in the middle length ways, as you can see how I'm doing in the video right now and try to get the fabric as flat as possible from him. Tried to show you that this measurement here needs to be from your neck to your ways. So, as you can see here in this clip, I am measuring the length so that I would know this is from my body shape, like he would do in your fabric and folded it in half again the width way. I am actually eyeballing it here. I know how wide I am, so I know how baggy I need it to be. But you can measure it, and I would say about double or free times, your whip, because you want this to be very baggy and very loose. So even four times your whips. So you have one to free Andi, also four layers. At this point, if he ever got four layers right now, then you need to stop and go back to the previous steps. You should have four layers. Now you can see I'm during that climb. You can use tailor's chalk, or you can use a felt tip pen if you haven't got tailor's chalk. But I would really recommend Taylor's joke. A felt tip pen isn't very good for your fabric because it can stay in it. I'm using Taylor's short because it can rub off, and it's easy to see the lines without a pattern. So I've just drawn to curves on. This is a really simple, basic top shape, so you can see once I open this up, it creates a really cool batwing effect. So you can see this is a really big top. It's oversized because I've made it double my whip. So you need to sew up. These two seems on because we cut everything on the fold. This hardly any sewing to do. You just only need to sew up the side seams. If you don't know how to do the side seams, make sure you go back to the beginning. Basic sewing lessons in this course. I actually tell you step by step, how to do a straight seem. So if you don't remember, I'm just doing the sped up because I've previously explained how you can finish. You're straight steams and how you can do your hems. This just shows you how to the symbol everything. So I finished it with French scenes. You can finish it however you like here. I'm just showing you the elastic, So I, um just looking at the garment on trying to describe where I want my elastic to be. I'm making elastic to be a part of the design. If you didn't want to, you could leave your top as it is now and where, as it is, that could be an option. As well, or you could add the elastic. It's about how you want that elastic to look. So play around with your top yourself and decide how you want the elastic to look in your top. Right now, a piece of fabric has gotten a court in the machine, so I'm just fixing it and these things happen. So I didn't edit this part out. I wanted to show you that these things can happen. Fabric can get caught. You'll have to stop. You'll have to re Fred again. Andi, you just continue and get on because no, everything's perfect and it's about trial and error. When you're sewing, when you're making your own garments were warder. You can rock your entire wardrobe by just making something simple so you can see I decided in the end just to do a little stitch there. And now I am actually cutting out some strips, so I'm going to be adding a ruffle detail to the bottom off my talk. So I'm cutting out several strips that were folded in half, and I'm going to stitch them together here so you can see on pin in it together and it's gonna be one long strip. I'm going to hem the strips and then they will be folded and attached to the bottom off my top. The reason why I decided to do this is I wanted to give it really girly. So finish. You don't have to do this. You can normally ham your top. It's really up to you. What you decide, Teoh. 5. Dress: - So first I need you to start with a two meter or free me to piece of fabric. It needs to be really big, and then you want to fold it in half so that it could be a triangle so that we can get an equal square shape. The reason why we need to fold it into a triangle is because we're going to be making a square skirt similar to to circle skirt. But instead of a circle shape, it's a square shape, so it makes it much easier to create. The bigger your square is, the longer the skirt, the smaller the square is too short of the skirt. So it is really up to you how much fabric you decide to use and make sure you cut along and make it into a perfect square shape. Now I'm folding the fabric in half again. You can see that I'm folding in half because it really helps to make sure that the fabric is even. We want there to be even corners for this skirt, so I'm cutting a circle into here. This is going to be the waistline of your skirt. You don't have to take a measurement of your waist. What I'm actually doing is eyeballing it and making it slightly bigger than what my actual waste would be are making it larger because I wanted to be a slip on dress. You can choose to make it to your exact shape by measuring your waist. Andi taking the six circumference off your waist and using that, but I am deciding to make it bigger because I don't want to. You have to use a zip, but I want this to be a very simple, quick and easy dress, so it needs to be big enough to slip on with cotton. It's less forgiving, so you need to make it larger than they actually is, so that it can fit over you without a zip. Whereas if you're using jersey, you can get away with making things smaller. I'm now cutting out the second piece of fabric I'm cutting to the length of my neck toe waist measurement, and now I'm just making sure that the edges are 100%. Even here you can see, I'm just evening out the edges here. You should have 1234 layers, so I am going to be cutting out the neckline here, Make it is what it is you need to. I'm making it big because I wanted to be able to fit on without a zip. As I said previously, I'm cutting out the arms on the waist quite wide as it's going to be a slip on dress and making it baggy so it can be very voluminous. I want to cinch it in at the wakes with elastic so that it can have a nice, flowy, voluminous look, when you fold it out, you should have this shape which you can see it. So why The top is very, very wide, and you can just pin up the sides off the side seams with the pins. And from here we are going to stitch a straight stitch and we're going to be doing a French seem. The French seam is really beautiful. Seemed because is just neatly finishes off. All the edges is up to you, which seem you want to use. But I would recommend to use a French seem way say, once your top is finished, it should look like this. And now we're gonna move on to attaching the skirt part off the dress to the top part. Now the skirt and the top part might not match as we I pulled it. We it might be one might be bigger than the other. The skirt might be wide. It in the top of the top might be widened in the skirt. That's perfectly fine. And that's the beauty off cutting freehand. So what we do from here is that we actually add pleats into the bigger item we plead to end and easy into the waste so that we can attach them. In my case, my top is slightly bigger than my skirts are completing an easy in and pin in it. As I go along. Andi, I am going to stitch it with deplete soon. This is really good for this particular kind of design. It works for this kind of design. As address is quite voluminous, it's gonna be flowy on. There's gonna be a lot off drape going on in the dress. You can use this to your advantage and add extra drip with the pleats and add extra of a lot. The luminess on make it bigger and the bigger that is, the more beautiful. The dress will turn out some just stitching and with a normal stitch, and I'm using its exact finish. The reason why I'm using XXX finish is because I'm going to be saying in elastic on the way . So here I'm now taking the A big piece of elastic on. I'm sewing that into the waste. You need to stretch it as you so it along and make sure to keep the elastic taught. As you stitch. I am using a really nice thick piece of elastic because it will not snap. Please don't use Finn elastic because that could be bad for your dress. You dress could stop and break, which you don't want it to do. You want the elastic to be really thick, high quality. Last year. Make sure you've measured it to your waist. It needs to fit taught around your waist, and that is the measurement of the elastic that your stitching into the waistband. I'm also deciding to finish off all of the edges. With bias binding, you can use a role. Ham is really up to you. What finish you decide to use. I'm using bias binding because I think it looks the best when you're finishing off any garment and then you're done, you're dressed. Could be made so quickly. And you can make these dress on a weekend and be done with it. I hope you really enjoyed making this with me. 6. Trousers: - first you need to find some trousers that fit you very well. They could be an old pair of trousers that you can take apart. It needs to be some trials. Is that still fit you very nicely on what we're using is a seam ripper to rip all of the scenes in the trousers. So just make sure that it's a pair shows is that you don't really care about that. You can tear apart and used the pieces as a template for your new trousers says You can see I'm just using the seeing Ripa and I'm just tearing it apart and tearing out all the seams until we just have a lot off the pattern pieces that we need. Once it's all been removed. Now you're ready to start pinning your pattern pieces onto the fabric. So we're gonna use the trials. Is was an outline, and what you can see me doing here is I am actually during around the trousers with Taylor's jewels, and I'm only using two hawks. So actually, when you take your trousers appalling, you'll have four pieces. You only need one front piece and one back piece. You don't need to draw around Aled the full different pieces. You just need one of each, and you cut out two front PC's and to back pieces using the front and the back make. So once you drawn around your pieces, you can start by removing them and cutting it out with a sharp pair scissors. Because he I'm just coming around the line one. When you draw around the trousers, make sure to draw a little bit away from the trousers, like half an inch or an inch to leave some seam allowance. But when you go to so your trousers back together, you need a little bit seam allowance so that they don't turn up too small. - Once you have cut the mouth, it's ready to be so together as a pair of trousers I decided to do is cut out some small pieces of fabric to add some details to my browses, I wanted them to look a little bit unique, so I am adding at PK. I'm adding reverse application details to the trousers. If you don't know reverse, act like a, it should be in the first lesson, teaching you and showing you how to do the techniques I'm adding some reverse applicator trances that add a little bill, different style and interest to the trances. I wanted them to be unique and exciting to look at. And with this I'm just using zigzag stitches. So I'm just adding two pieces of fabric. And as you can see, I'm lifting up the head of it and then I'm turning it and doing six X ditch and just doing a random pattern Well, you have to do is just be very slow when you're doing your first UK and make sure to pivot the needle every single time you want to go around in the corner. I'm lifting up. We talked and then Hibbitts in it in the media and unable to stitch really and create my ideas on this isn't necessary if you don't want to do your best. K, it's completely optional way . So now we are going to be cleaning the crotch pieces together. You need to have been the longest line so that we can know how to sew it together so that the two pieces could stay to give a waltz with Sonia something spinning along this line here it should look like this on. Then we're going to put the front the back pieces together, attaching it wide here. After this, you can stop. My sewing beside seems together and the legs. It's up to you about how you want to finish them. It's really your choice of how you choose finished. Then be French. See? You could buy fine, it seems, or little scene. By doing this method, you could have some uneven pieces. Here you can see these leg pieces a little bit uneven. This happens if there's some pieces there a bit longer than others. This can happen sometimes surges if you just have some, think on even when you think so. Another to get. I'm showing Lex together and for some reason, one of the legs longer, and I just decided to cut the end. This could happen when you're working about patterns because it's about sting, designing everything as you go along being adaptable because it's more already made to be perfectly. So you're making your own pattern go along. You're selling about patterns, so everything is not going to be 100% even when finished, so you need to make sure that just and do different things to make sure it beats some having the elastic. Make sure that you hand along the edges because we at b elastics him the baseline of him before two years ago on 11. In that stick to the leg homes, you don't have to believe in three are just that. I want them to come in a type for leg and to be a popular on, but this is finished. 7. Dress2: First, you need to start by folding your fabric into a triangle, and then you need to fold it into another triangle, so you should have it folded in four. This point, we're going to be making a curved line along the bottom to make it into more of a circular shape. So that's what I'm doing right now. I'm cutting a curved line after you've cut a curve on your ready to create the dress. - It's so simple, it's too simple cuts. We're going to re cutting a triangle shape. How so? Watch me in the video as I cut a triangle shape, I'm cutting through four layers of fabric and then when you unfold it, this is what you should have. This is your top shape. Now you have to sew up the side scenes using as execs ditch. I'm using a slightly stretchy jersey material. If you're using a jersey material, you should use a zigzag stitch because with a straight stitch, it could to snap. If you're using a jersey material with jazz materials, you should always deal, seems with six acts, So I'm using the six X Ditch to make sure it's done problem, Lee and then now you just need to cut away the excess. When you're done, we're going to be moving on to the bottom part of the address. You can leave your dress as it is right now and just him it or you can go into the next part. So what I'm actually doing is taking the square off this shiny black fabric. Andi, I am cutting into a very long strip. I'm going around in squares, as you can see me do in the video. The reason why I'm doing this is that it will create a really nice irregular shape, and it gives a little bit of fun design detail. - Now we are hemming this long strip off fabric. We're going to be adding this to the bottom of the dress as a ruffle detail. - Once you've finished hemming it, you want to place it right side to right side along the bottom edge off the dress and use a zigzag stitch to attack. You says you can see I'm six x ditching. They're ruffle onto the bottom. - And now we just have to cut away Cool off the excess. This fabric frays a lot, so I'm making sure to cut away so it doesn't unravel and cutting away all the loose friends . - And now I am just adding a little bit off elastic into the back connect. This is completely optional. It's up to you. It just gives it a little bit of a nicer look. And because this is a Jersey fabric, I'm deciding to use as exact stitch on the hems for the arm, hole and the neck hole as well. And it's the simplest that and you're finished. 8. Class project: So I hope you have enjoyed my course. If you did, don't forget to leave me Rating. It really helps me out a lot. Andi. Before we wrap this whole entire class up, I would like to give you a class project. Now it's really easy to look at all of the lessons and be overwhelmed by him and not actually make anything. And I don't want that for you. I want you to challenge yourself to make at least one or more of these governments. And when you do, make sure you post pictures. I love to see pictures off your garments. Make sure to hashtag I consitution tell so that I can find all of your designs on Instagram . If you're on instagram makes you do at Shantel fashion on, I'll be able to find your garments on to be able to like them and coming on them. And then that way we can build a community and we can see everyone's designs. So I'm so excited to see what you make. Let me see your class project. You can put your own spin and make us many pieces as long or short as you like. Changing the colors and that can completely change the government all together. So I can't wait to see what you make and what you're designing, and I have really enjoyed working along with me.