economies of scale in sewing

I sew as a hobby. I have a full time job, two toddlers and no time. I also don't want to spend lot of money on clothes especially when kids are little. What I'm finding is that sewing from a good quality fabric (if I can find it locally), is not cheap. I'm sewing a few uniform pants (khaki, navy twill) for kids. The twill fabric is about $7.99 a yard at JoAnn's which comes to about $5 on sale or with coupon. That fabric is very bad compared to the pants I bought in Walmart last year which cost 5 bucks a pair. So, unless I'm sewing fancy posh dresses for special occasions, I'd better stick to RTW clothes on sale. Or I should sew because I want to. Not because I can sew better garments for less money. I could buy fabric on-line but I can't tell what I'm getting just by a picture. Especially for something like twill where I want to touch the fabric to see how it feels. What is your opinion?

Thanks.

Reply to
janesire
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Unless you are at home all day with nothing else to do and limited cash, and access to miles of cheap fabric, there's no mileage in sewing to save money. I CAN do it, BUT...

I'm a professional sewist these days, and simple stuff can be done FAST as I have the right machinery to do it. I can get good quality fabric cheap from certain outlets: it can be a bit of a gamble as I get it by post with no chance to feel beforehand, but as this same fabric goes into clothes for Next, Marks & Spencers, Barbour, Dax, Jaeger, etc. I think it's worth the risk for anything between £1 and £5 a metre. If I don't cost in my time, I can make things like jeans and trousers for a little less than I can buy them, and they FIT my awkward sized son, a large 13 YO: not fat, just built like a brick netty and waves break against him! He's 5'6", broad shouldered, has a 32" waist, and often takes a men's medium in things like sweatshirts and T shirts. His school shirts are a 34" chest and getting a little short...

And sometimes there are special circumstances, like the 4 Trouser Week this summer... The lad comes to me on Sunday afternoon, AFTER the shops are all shut, I don't drive, and his dad will be away from Monday morning to Wednesday evening, and tells me that other than his school uniform trousers, only his jeans fit... On Tuesday week he's off to Scout Camp... So we dug in the stash for patterns and fabric, I sent for one more pattern, and I got sewing. He had 4 new pairs of trousers to take to camp, despite me also having a wedding dress, a Mother of the Groom gown, a costume gown, and another project on the go.

Things like Polartec Windblock mountain jackets for the husband really are worth making, as I can get the materials (even paying full price for them!) for less than £70, and a jacket of the specs he wants would be over £250.

For customers I have to cost in my time, but even then I managed to make three cotton frocks for less than £100 for one lady (including fabric), and to buy anything similar would have cost about £50 each. And I did a floaty wedding dress for £350... On the other hand, two other projects came in at a smidge under £800 each!

It depends what you are making. With posh frockery, natty suiting, and special kit you can save a lot. Every day stuff like T shirts and sweatshirts? Nope - not when I can buy them for less than a fiver a throw.

Reply to
Kate XXXXXX

Kate presents some very good points..

I sew for paying people "on the side" (I do not do Bridal/formal, you can have that huge, huge HEADACHE, Kate.. LOL), as well as for family..

Among family, I sew for a BIG man, whose shirts generally take 6 yards of 45 inch fabric for each shirt. When I am buying everyday fabric, I generally haunt the dollar table at Walmart a great deal. You can in fact get decent flannels, twills, shirting, and sheeting, as long as you are willing to keep looking every week to see what has come in, and are carrefully selective in your purchases.. My BIG guy just wore another new shirt to work yesterday, and when he came home, he told me about all the compliments he had received about the shirt. That particular shirt cost 8 dollars to make, including the 10 buttons. But this takes quite a lot of time to accomplish properly (there is a great deal of true junk on the dollar table to sift thru).

I frequently purchase other much more expensive fabrics as well ( i.e. when I make suits, dress clothes, or winter coats, etc.), but for everyday things, I cannot afford to get really spendy..

I make clothes for family because RTW is so very poorly made (I recently bought my SIL an upscale blouse for an event (I had no time), and she wore it once and all the buttons came off during the course of a couple of hours), and because of fitting problems.. i.e. My BIG man is a size 6X (thats 6XX to some of you), In actuality he is a 6XXTL (very long torso), which is all but impossible to find in RTW..

Considering your stated time constraints, and the fact that children grow like weeds, I would suggest that you stick to RTW for childrens everyday, run-of-the-mill things, and concentrate your sewing efforts to a few very special outfits that you can buy the exact fabric you really want, and not let cost be a driving consideration, but rather uniqueness and quality be your considerations.

me

Reply to
jusme

Well, you're right. There are some things it's just less expensive to buy. Although, I will suggest, if your wal-mart has a fabric dept. look there for twills. They usually have or can get fairly decent, heavy weight twills for less than $5 a yard. And as for shopping online, I've done that for years. Rarely have I been disappointed in the fabrics. Try fabric.com for twills also. I've been very pleased with everything I've gotten from them. NAYY. Oh too, when you shop online, check out the return policies. If you get something that just won't work for you, you can always send it back. Most of the better online fabric shops will pay for the shipping if you send something back.

The main reason I sew for my kids a fair amount is for fit. Both of them have very long bodies like their father. They also got my long legs. (without which I would be about 4'10" like my older sister! lol) Some RTW works fine for them. Jeans are usually alright, although the boy is getting harder to fit in RTW pants. They almost always require some alterations to fit him well. Fortunately I know how to do that too. RTW shirts are somewhat of a PITA to fit the kids. In order to find shirts long enough, we have to buy huge sizes that just hang everywhere else. So, when they need something that looks decent, I sew for them. They are both getting into their teens too. (DS is 11; DD is 15) So style is a big issue around here. DD especially wants specific styles that we just aren't going to find on a rack around here. So I sew for her.

Now, I'm the opposite of the kids. I am pretty short waisted. Again, I sew for myself for fit issues. And style. And frankly, some of the things my tastes lean towards are not in the budget. ;) I can make a lot of the things I like for less than half the cost of RTW. When I sew for myself, it's for fun and I don't count my cost.

When I sew for clients, I can sometimes beat the cost of RTW. Even if it's just what having a RTW garment would cost in alterations. If a prom dress is $300-$400 at Macy's or Dillards, then they would have possibly $100 on top of that in alterations. Prom dresses, usually run anywhere from 10-12 hours of labor, plus materials. If it's a simple dress that doesn't require a lot of handwork, that's all at $20 per hour, that's around $200 in labor. Figure $80 or so for fabric. And since it's custom made and fitted during the construction, there aren't any alteration costs on top.

Yes, you can beat the cost of RTW in some cases. Others, no way. But still the joy of creating is hard to factor into the cost analysis. ;)

Sharon

Reply to
mamahays

Pretty much. I sewed flannel and fleece trousers for my kids when they were little and RTW didn't fit, or they were being picky, but now I hardly sew any 'daily' wear for them. I make dresses and skirts for the 16 yo (she doesn't like the stuff in the stores), costumes and odd stuff for the 10yo. I buy jackets for the 10 yo because he's still growing fast enough to outgrow even inexpensive jackets before they wear out.

I bought the uniform top for the community band I play in, because, well, it's a uniform top. The skirt was a little more flexible (the only requirements were that it be black, full-length, and not velvet), so I made that ($45 for a "long" black poly pebble crepe skirt that wouldn't be long enough versus

Reply to
Jenn Ridley

My kids wore a lot of thrift store finds for years. There are a good many shops here, and I often found brand new garments with the tags still on them for a fraction of the retail cost. I also found t-shirts (which both my boys love) with interesting imprints. Even my DH has thrift store items still in his wardrobe and he's still wearing them. Of course, I am, too.

Sewing is great for those that are hard to fit. Also for specific garments that are simply not available. I once made a Batman costume before they were in stores, and not only was it fun, it was "real" in that it could be washed and worn repeatedly. Great pjs.

Thrift stores have also been a source of extremely inexpensive yardage. So many people, myself included, buy fabric with great plans that die on the vine. The fabric winds up being donated, and some of it gets bought by me and goes into my stash (which needs weeding out.)

I've even bought garments in thrifts to cut up to make other things with

- and it's a fabulous source of interesting buttons.

Now that my family is more solvent, I don't rely so much on thrift stores -- love that internet shopping, though! Sewing is recreation and to get something that I can't buy. YMMV

Reply to
Pogonip

Just a thought on finding fabric for making shirts for your big man. I made shirts for two VERY BIG guys, both 6'8" and 350+ lbs (both University jocks-weight lifting, wrestling, and football). I found some very good quality cotton king sized flat sheets on a department store sale table for $10 each. Two white, one pale blue with small woven stripes. Lovely feel to the hand. I got 6 shirts out of 3 king sized sheets, used "Tailor Made" for the patterns. They turned out beautifully. Four (white) had French cuffs and collar stays, two (blue) with button down collars and buttoned cuffs. Since these were the sons of a good friend there was no charge for my time (I bartered chores and errand running from the boys). I sewed in assembly line fashion so they went together fast, just a little over two days. I figured about $40 for fabric, misc. notions, and buttons(sale coupon)......not bad for 6 very nice shirts in any size.

Val

Reply to
Val

Thanks for the suggestion... I have made shirts out of sheeting, but have not used actual sheets..

me

Reply to
jusme

Just curious Kate, we had a wedding dress done for the daughter and got it for what friends told me was a very cheap price at $A3,650. Another friend told me that having a gown made would cost her in the order of $A5-6,000 for her daughter. Our daughter looked gorgeous in her dress which was a strapless ruched and boned bodice made from a chiffon over a satin lining with and chiffon jacket over the top

What is the (rough) going rate for a Wedding dress in the UK?

I'd agree with that too.

Reply to
FarmI

I used to say the same thing till a friend who owned the best fabric shop in the district said to me after I made this comment to her: "You will find time for what you REALLY want to do. You don't choose to find the time to sew".

I have to say that on reflection, she was right. She ran her shop on her own, ran classes after hours and worked far longer hours than I did. She had a useless husband so she had to do all the domestic and garden chores and she wore the most drop dead gorgeous clothes that she made herself - tailored stuff, cutwork on blouses, glorious lingerie that she hung in the shop to advertise the classes she ran outside store hours etc.

She didn't sew crap, everyday stuff, she sewed to look glamorous and I learned from what she said.

I

It depends very much on your lifestyle. I don't sew clothes for around the house or farm with the exception of things that I can't buy. For example, I sew pajama bottoms in flannelette because the only ones I can buy are too short or made of really crappy fabric or don't have a full elastic waist - the manufactures put tie cords in for Pete's sake!!!!). I also sew track pants because for some reason that escapes me, the only plain black or grey track pants I can find don't have pockets and have elastic backs with a tie front on the waist rather than a full elastic waist and they often also don't have ribbing around the ankle and too much fabric at the ankle and I like ribbing at the ankles.

I sew tailored jackets because I love the journey of making them and because the ones I can buy are too expensive to get the fit I want. eg. I can buy drop dead gorgeous fabric for about $100-$200 and have a jacket that would cost me in the order of $1200+ for a similar (but less well tailored) RTW jacket.

Reply to
FarmI

I aslo use charity shops to find old patterns. And I have an idea in my head for a patchwork jacket (sort of kimino style) that I want to make out of tweed. I bought a heap of really superb quality British tweed coats that are in teh process of being unpicked to cut up for this jacket (and I have the most drop dead gorgeous labsls that will also go inside the coat when it's finished - I fancy the labels as much as the cloth since this is the only time I'll ever own anything labelled from addresses such as Pall Mall etc.)

Yes. I do that too.

Heck, I'm very solvent but I still love charity shops. I've found sewing machines there and patterns and lovely fabrics in garments that are bletch but cut upable and tortoiseshell knitting needles and all sorts of other goodies.

Reply to
FarmI

Yes, but I've been doing it for so long, I already have one of each, and in some cases, more than one. ;-) However, I did get a nice tablecloth, and dishes for the cats' food and water yesterday. And a book.

Sewing machines and patterns and sewing books; yarn, knitting equipment, I have more than enough now, and need to start thinning the crowd. There are two rooms in this house that I can hardly get into. I lie, it's three rooms.

Reply to
Pogonip

Snap! :-))

Reply to
FarmI

I've really no idea what they go for: too many variables! BHS do a nice line in budget wedding frockery:

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are more upmarket, but fairly standard at the £800+ mark... These are, of course, RTW and without alterations. Double that for something a little less mass market.

This was the one I did this summer:

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>> It depends what you are making. With posh frockery, natty suiting, and >> special kit you can save a lot. Every day stuff like T shirts and >> sweatshirts? Nope - not when I can buy them for less than a fiver a >> throw.>

For me as a standard M&S size 10 in T's it's not worth threading the machine for them, never mind hunting out the fabric in all the colours I like! For £5 a shot, or three for £12 on special offer, I can buy half a dozen for what it would cost in time, fabric, patterns and thread. It IS worth it for my XL friend who wants decent T's for teaching that have proper sleeves and FIT rather than hanging off her shoulders like a marquee. For her I skimmed a pattern off a jumper that fitted, and can put a T together in half an hour. I batch cut them and whizzed them through the overlocker/serger, giving them a variety of necklines and finishes so she had 8 in 4 colours, no two exactly the same. She drives me all over the place at times, so I make T's for her for the cost of the fabric, and they get fitted in round other customer work, as & when.

Reply to
Kate XXXXXX

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