Sewing, Is It a Frugal Thing To Do??
My daughters and I often enjoy sewing clothing for ourselves. Sometimes I have had people ask me if sewing is really an economical thing to do. Well no and yes. If you buy fabric at $5 or $7 a yard and need 4 yards for a dress then perhaps not. If you buy a lot of fancy and expensive type fabrics, then again, probably not. But if you are a careful and wise shopper you can find good fabric deals and sewing can be cost effective and fun as well! My daughter Hannah and I went to Wal-Mart last month and found lots of very nice fabric on sale for $1 a yard. We bought 2 yards (60 inches wide) of blue and 2 yards of green and she has been able to make 4 skirts from this using a very simple pattern for a slim type skirt. The pattern had been purchased for $1 from a previous sale and we had about $1 worth of elastic and a small amount of thread used. Our total costs were about $6 for 4 skirts. Very economical! We don’t always find deals this good, but they are still a good value. For example, this month I made a jumper for myself. I bought the pattern for $1.74. I found cotton fabric for $2.99 a yard, which is not a great price. But I had a coupon from this fabric store for 40% off. I needed just over 3 yards. The cost for the fabric was around $10 and I had $4 off with the coupon! I already had thread at home, left from another project and already had interfacing as well. So my total cost on this jumper was just under $8. I really like this pattern and style of jumper for myself and the way if fit and I plan on using it again. So every time I reuse the pattern it lowers the cost of each garment made with it! It also has a nice handbag pattern that came along with the it and my daughters want to make one, so this gives even more uses for the pattern. Sewing can be an economical thing to do, if you look for deals on fabric and patterns, and purchase things like interfacing, elastic, thread etc.. when on sale, buy patterns that have multi use such as a blouse and skirt, or shorts and top, and then reuse them. Many patterns have multi-sizes on them and if you want to use more than one size you can trace the pattern onto interfacing in order to use it for more than one person. Also don’t forget to sign up for mailers from different fabric stores because these often give coupons and keep you aware of store sales. Have fun sewing! |
