sewing

Redheads Writing In Cafes: Why I’m obsessed with thrifting & making my own clothing!

(except when it’s from my bedroom)

I was asked recently why I love making my own clothing (I get asked often) and this led me down a rabbit hole of all of the whys including why I thrift or go antiquing rather than buy anything new. Oh and of course why I will repair things, until they are literally falling apart. One reason, it’s in my blood, the other, well, there are many and you will need to read on.

My Mother Made Our Clothes We grew up poor and with a growing family and no extra money to buy things such as clothing for her growing children, my mother had to rely on hand-me-downs or making clothing herself. Like myself, my mother was taught the basics, but is mostly self-taught when it comes to sewing. Not only did she sew our clothing, she self drafted patterns AND would use what ever material was available to her. Discounted ends of bolts, old dresses, sheets… she was beyond crafty! Along with sewing our clothing, she knit us lots of outfits as well. I know this brought her a lot of joy and was a creative outlet for her.

Creative Outlet I have always been a creative person. Growing up my mother always made sure I had art supplies, writing journals, yarn and fabric at my disposal. Since she didn’t have time to do art herself, she made sure that her children could. Out of the four of us, I am truly the creative one. Along with doing art (mostly drawing) Sewing, knitting, crochet and cross-stitch helps my mental health. You heard that right, it helps with your mental well-being. While I am working on projects, I can go off into a meditative state. When I am done, I calm and in many cases have been able to work out problems and issues that were irking me.

Thrifting vs Buying New Many people want to participate in ways to help the environment beyond recycling and composting, but don’t always know how to do that. Thrifting rather than buying new actually makes a huge impact, especially in regard to clothing. Did you know that fast fashion contributes to Climate Change because of how much of it ends up in landfill! Check out this article! When you thrift vs buy new, you are not only helping the environment. you may come across some vintage gems that are generally better quality than much of what we buy today. Not to mention, I have found basically brand new small appliances at my local Value Village!

Antiquing falls under this category as well. I love, love, love going antiquing. It’s like going on a treasure hunt for me. We have a few favourite spots, but I’m always looking for new places to go. I love walking up and down the aisle, trying to find that one particular item or take a chance and see if I find something I wasn’t actually looking for. I always make sure to love in every corner just in case something has been hidden away.

You Save Money That’s right folks! You save money! That alone should get you excited about thrift stores!

Do you thrift? What do you look for when you do?

Stay The Fuck Home Sewing Tutorials Part Deux Edition

I am incredibly lucky to have so many creative and talented friends and of those friends several are sewists who do sewing tutorials or give examples of dressmaking tips via Instagram stories. You should follow them all! Now get sewing!

Ask Sarah www.asksarah.com.au

A Vintage Vanity https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJnOck4zrUzFllmzvX7Rhzg

Kirsten Ronald (fashion designer at Lila & June) https://www.instagram.com/kmakesthings/ and lilaandjune.com

Liz Von Villas https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC00iQfZSTRjr0qP8SaytQQA

Sewcial Dee and sewcialdee.com

Stay The Fuck Home Sewing Machine Maintenance Edition

Sewing has always been a skill I am really glad I have. I’ve went through phases of doing it as a hobby or doing it as a way to make extra money. These days a lot of people are pulling their machines out of the closet, dusting it off and putting it to work. But, and there is always a but, some of those machines have been sitting there for years and that means, before you use it, it needs to be cleaned and oiled! In a regular situation, you would take it to a sewing machine repair person and have it done, but in times like these, you are going to need to do it yourself. Additionally, you really should be cleaning your machine every time you use it.

Now, before you start yelling at me, there are three levels of cleaning. The every time you sew cleaning is basically blowing the lint out of your machine and can be done with canned air. I do right before I sew. All kinds of lint from your thread and material get inside the presser foot and throat plate and bobbin case and can cause issues.

Then there is level two. In this level, you remove the presser foot and throat plate and the bobbin case. You again give it a good cleaning with canned air AND oil all accessible moving parts with sewing machine oil.

Level three is when you take it in for yearly maintenance.

For level one and two, I am including links below for tutorials on how to do it yourself. Everyone’s machine is different and because of this, please also refer to your machines manual. If you don’t have the manual try looking for it via google. Unless your machine is a hundred years old, then… I don’t what to tell you. Though in those cases, it will likely be a treadle machine and I know there are specialists out there for that too!

This is a great step by step article. https://www.mybluprint.com/technique/clean-your-sewing-machine

This is an older video, but a really thorough one on how to clean and oil your machine.



Stay The Fuck Home The Sewing Edition

I’ve always been a strong believer that there are certain skills that we all should have. Sewing, knitting, how to grow food, how to cook/bake, how to start a fire and how to use a hammer and nail. Sadly, these aren’t skills that are regularly taught any longer. I was fortunate to either learn them at home or in school. I really wish they still have shop and home ec in school! However and thanks to YouTube, you can still learn all of those things, especially sewing.

Below are a few of my favourite YouTube channels. Check them out and give sewing a try.

Gertie is by far my favourite pattern maker. You can buy her sewing patterns here. {including PDF} Once you do, she has sewing tutorials for a bunch of them. In the end you will have a gorgeous garment to wear.

Evelyn Wood is a sewing genius. On her channel you will not only learn sewing basics, you will also learn how to refashion thrifted items!

A Vintage Vanity is a lot of fun. Her channel is a mix of sewing and other vintage things such as hair and other craft tutorials.

Liz Von Villas is another fun channel. Yes… I think you are seeing a theme here. I sew vintage reproduction!

Arthelia’s Vintage And Handmade

Annika Victoria

Rosy Sews Modern Vintage

Back To Basics

Once upon a time, in days of the past, there was a woman who made her own clothing, made do and mended, was a thrift queen and lived a happy, not contributing to landfill life. Oh hold on! That’s not actually a fairytale… that’s me!

Imagine living in a world where you lived garbage free, everything was made from recycled materials and you never had to worry about your fast fashion ending up in landfill. Take a moment. Let that sink in. Ok. Ready? Open your eyes. Tada! It can happen. It has happened before and it wasn’t that long ago before it stopped happening. In the last few decades, we’ve gotten lazy, we stopped making our own clothing and rather than repair something, even with the tiniest repair needed, it would be tossed into the garbage and a new garment bought. Then off to the landfill, that pile of garbage that grows into mountains of clothing that could have been repaired and worn another day.

Before you start yelling at me, I know it’s not EVERYONE who does this. I grew up in a household that was all about creating your own garments, make do and mend and thrifting. My Mamasita is the thrift queen to this day. Between her and my Grandma Betty, I learned to knit and sew. Later in life, I taught myself to crochet (thank you Carlin for the encouragement and YouTube for the videos). I’ve never really been in a position to run out and buy myself a spanking never wardrobe, not that I would, so I’ve either depended on thrift shops or making my own clothing. The only things I actually buy brand new are undergarments, leggings, and stockings. At some point I’m going to learn how to make my own undergarments and leggings, so the only thing left is stockings and trust me, I wear those until they are literally falling apart. The 1930s/40s mentality of making do with what you have was taught to me at a very early age and I’m thankful for it. I’m also thankful to see a large number of others who do this or are beginning to do this. As a matter of fact there is a huge movement, which I am proud to be part of, of people who sew, knit, crochet, refashion, thrift, buy vintage and make do and mend. Let’s follow with their lead! We don’t need to buy fast fashion!

There is nothing more satisfying than creating your own garment or refashioning something you found in a thrift store. For those who think they can’t do it, you actually can. You don’t need a fancy sewing machine. You can find machines for a few hundred dollars that have the basic stitches, because basic is all you need! Don’t know how to sew, YouTube has a BAJILLION that’s right BAJILLION videos for beginners. All you need to be able to do is sew a basic stitch. I don’t own a serger or a fancy machine with embroidery stitches. I have a basic Kenmore sewing machine. It’s amazing the things you can make with a straight stitch! One of my favourite channels to watch is Evelyn Wood. She is a refashion genius!

If you don’t want to learn how to knit, sew or crochet, you can still help stop the contribution of adding to landfill. There is still make do and mend AND go clothing thrifting. Clothing thrifting is a lot of fun! You can make it an adventure either by doing it yourself or with friends. Do a show and tell together once you are done or take the items you found and refashion them! Anything you can do to help keep landfill from growing is a way to help Mother Nature out and trust me, she needs our help!

Today is going to be a sewing and writing day. I try to set aside one day a week to sew garments and I do my mending while watching a great classic movie or cooking shows on YouTube. I find it very therapeutic.
If you do one of these things (sew, knit, crochet, mend, refashion, thrift) you are helping. Please stop buying fast fashion and let’s get back to the basics!

Day 27

Day 27! I cannot believe it’s already day 27! Today was another challenging video, but I personally prefer the ones that make me work! I think by round 2 I will be able to hold and do most of the moves except Crow Pose. That one is going to take work. Otherwise, I’m doing pretty good!


Since I was quite young I have been intrigued by Marilyn Monroe. Over the years I have watched and rewatched her movies, purchased and read many books about her (I have kept my favourites) and watched lots of documentaries about her. She was incredibly fascinating and super talented, she was also someone who suffered from depression and a sense of low self-esteem. Many of us can understand that to certain degrees. She had a beautiful soul and died way too young. When asked if there was anyone dead or alive I would love to meet Marilyn is at the top of my list. I would love to have had a coffee chat with her.


As many of you may or may not know, I make a lot of my own clothing. This year I have a goal to make 2 of her many fabulous dresses. The well known blue dress and the red dress from the movie Niagara. For the blue dress I am going to be using the Lila + June Picnic dress (I just need to find the right material) and for the red dress a Gretchen “Gertie” Hirsch pattern. Both I will be making over the next few months! I’ve always wanted to make them as a tribute to Marilyn and this year I’m doing it!

Day 15

Day 15! Halfway there! I plan to keep on with daily yoga after this. It’s good for me in so many ways! I will stop posting about it once I’m done day 30. One thing it did help with is getting back into the process of blogging again.


Now onto the picture and why I chose it.


Every single time I watch a classic movie, I am drooling over all of the clothing and dreaming about making them. Look at the gorgeous outfit Joan Crawford is wearing. Back on day 3, I mentioned that I make my own clothing. I wanted to talk a little bit more about that because making my own clothing and thrifting makes me happy. I also want to talk a little about bullying.


In High School, our Home Ec teacher was treated with a lot of disrespect and bullied by a group of girls. Many times they tormented her to the point of making her cry. Those girls still live in my small hometown and have literally done nothing with their lives. Being bullies got them nowhere. More about bullies in a moment.


There was also a small group of us who loved our Home Ec teacher. We benefited from that. She went off the lesson plan with us and taught us how to finish garments, fancy seams and how to self-draft. To this day I still self-draft many of my garments and when I do I remember that wonderful woman.


I find the process of making my own clothing therapeutic and rewarding. This year I am going to fully learn how to use drafting systems and I want to learn how to grade patterns by hand and on the computer.


Back to bullying. Yesterday I shared a post (in my feed) about walking away from people who make fun of or put you down over your successes. When someone belittles your hard work and makes fun of it trying to make you look foolish for being proud of your work, that is a type of bullying. If you work hard for something, and someone tries to diminish that success, tell them to go away. Never be afraid to stand up to bullies. Never be afraid to walk away from friends who do that to you because and here’s a little tidbit for you, those people aren’t friends. Be proud and celebrate your successes. Do not let anyone take that away from you!

Day 3

Day 3! This morning was about doing things that are hard. Yuppers. There are still a few moves that I realize I’m not quite strong enough to do fully yet, but I will get there. But, that’s been my life. Do things that are hard until they aren’t.

Who joined in this morning or is doing the yoga challenge later today?

Today’s photo is sewing. I make many of my own clothing. Sew, knit, crochet. I also prefer to thrift instead of buying fast fashion. AND most importantly, make due and mend. I grew up with a mother and grandmother’s who promoted this. My mother taught me how to sew on a treadle sewing machine. The machine was built in 1898 and has been passed down from great-grandmother, grandmother to mother to me. My Grandma Betty taught me to knit and I taught myself to crochet.

Show-a-long

We’ve had many requests to do a certain type of sew-a-longs AND the most popular has been to do a themed SAL and one that is based on a television show! The most requested show is….

Drum roll, please!

To create a  garment from The Marvellous Mrs. Maisel! I’m excited to say that our February 2019 SAL will be just that!  Once we decided it was time to do this SAL we did a poll to ask if you all wanted to do specific garment or a choice from a selection of options. The winning poll selection is to choose your own garment. The idea of this SAL is to replicate an outfit, though it doesn’t need to be an exact replica, please show us your inspiration from the show and your finished garment.

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You will find the sew-a-long over at https://www.facebook.com/groups/killerkitschvintagewips/.

As always, here are some links to both self-draft tutorials or places to purchase patterns to help you along! Please feel free to use your own patterns as well.

The SAL will run from February 1 to 28. As always, if you post on Instagram please tag @killerkitsch13 and use hashtags #killerkitschsewalong #mrsmaisel-a-long.

My Social Media Diet

Many years ago I discovered something. Each morning I would leave for work in a fairly decent mood. I would be freshly caffeinated and ready to take on a new day.  By the time I finished my thirty-minute commute I was angry. In the beginning… I struggled to understand how or why my mood could swing in the span of leaving my front door and arriving at my job. What event was affecting my state of emotional well being?

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Then it clicked.

My morning commutes usually had my nose deep into a novel until I discovered the free newspaper. I’m not talking about Now or Eye Magazine, I mean the mini edition of the news. It was a new phenomenon that had men and women shoving them at you as you graced the threshold of the subway station. Eventually, I was enticed and began reading them on the way to work. An unusual step for me and one I now understand I shouldn’t have taken.

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Most of my life I have avoided the six or eleven in the evening news, it has mostly been a radio droning on in the background with my ears occasionally picking up the odd important bit of news. When the paper arrived I would pull out the entertainment, fashion or Arts sections of the newspaper. Something that drove my father nuts. Why waste your time on the fluff, the real meat was in the news section he’d say. You see, my father is a bit of a newsaholic. He will read the paper cover to cover and does so every single day.

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Why was I avoiding the news part of the paper?

I have always had a dark imagination and can go down some very horrible rabbit holes and because of this hearing about the horrors of the world affected me greater than others. I’m sensitive to it. I always have been. Growing up during the 80s there was always a threat of nuclear war and that weighed heavy on me. I would go out of my way to avoid reading or talking about it. It upset me.

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Fast forward to today and the news of the of the horrors of the world still does and to the point where it will throw me into depression. I realized this one weekday as I stared down at the free newspaper that was open in my lap. That was what was making me angry. That moment the bells went off and I chucked the newspaper into the recycling and haven’t picked one up since.

Oh… but wait… welcome to our new future. Welcome to Social Media.

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When I first joined Facebook, I loved it. I was able to connect with communities, find new friends and check in on old ones. It was an actual fun place to be. Now… not so much. That fun went away when they added the newsfeed. In the beginning, it wasn’t so bad. It was generally full of horrible Meme’s and false worlds created by the user. Then… that all changed. My feed was full of fake news that people thought was real, photos of animals being tortured and many other awful, angry posts. People took on new personalities thinking that this platform was a free for all to shit out any and every thought they were having. Yes… I too was guilty of this until that moment when I realized I was doing it. I would try avoiding the feed, but it was always right there when you logged on. On a few occasions, I would deactivate my account only to realize I needed it to help promote events. I hated the fact that I relied on this social media platform to connect with audience members and communities. I hated being on a platform that wasn’t social at all.

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Then I started feeling depression creeping in again. This time I knew what the culprit was but didn’t know how to throw it in the recycling bin. I wished there was a way to promote myself, my event and run my Vintage Groups without logging on. Someday I will find a way, for now, I have a temporary solution.

Wow… that was a long way around to talk about my social media diet….

I am now limiting myself to only five minutes a day on Facebook. It can be five minutes in one shot or over a few logons. But once those five minutes are up, that is it for the day. Oh… I also don’t look at the feed. As a matter of fact, all I do is check my notifications, my events, my groups and see if there are any other events I might be interested in and then I log off.  Let me tell you, not only has it lifted that heaviness I was feeling, I realized how much of my day was wasted on there. I now have chunks of time to fill in. I’ve started drawing again. I have dedicated time to sew my own clothing. I actually feel like being social again! I’m almost to the point where I don’t even need to log on at all. There is an app for messenger, there is an app to check my pages. I believe there may be one for events, now if they would just bring back the groups app!

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This all said I do still use Instagram. The difference here is I customize what I see. I follow vintage, artists, and people I like. I am inspired by much of what I see. It is a happy place for me.

Do you also avoid Facebook? Are you willing to try the five-minute diet?