I’ll give you a little advice. I am a firm believer in the phrase ‘never stop learning’.
I always remember in an A Level business lesson, the term ‘Kaizen’ being used.
.“Kaizen (改善) is the Japanese word for "improvement". In business, kaizen refers to the activity of continuous improvement.
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After finishing my learning through traditional routes such as school and university, I turned to teaching myself. I read lots of books and studied many a garment in high street stores to work out how to make something, but by far the best tool that I have ever used has to be Google!
Reading other people's blogs and watching other people's YouTube videos has answered no end of my sewing related questions, on all aspects of sewing, from how to insert an invisible zip to full bust adjustments.
I may be the biggest advocate for saying ‘just Google it’ because you’ll always be able to find the answer. The sewing community has been a constant source of inspiration and has helped me through many a sewing pickle!
Some of my favourites are...
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Tilly was a contestant on the first series of BBC2’s The Great British Sewing Bee, and went to creating her own patterns as well as writing two books, one of which is 'Stretch!' Which has helped me tackle sewing with jerseys, and is full of helpful tips and tricks, as well as 6 awesome sewing patterns!
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For honest pattern reviews, and general sewing how - to's on their vlogs. The battle of the culottes are one of my favourites!
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Lauren Guthrie is the owner of Guthrie & Ghani & another Great British Sewing Bee alumni (Series 1 Finalist!) She has a wonderful blog & vlog, full of really useful tips for sewing with different fabrics, tackling various indie patterns as well as a shop full of beautiful fabrics!
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By Hand London is an independent sewing pattern label, they’ve also got a pretty active blog, where we show you how to hack up your old clothes, make something entirely new from scratch and some detailed sew-a-longs too.
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I also stayed in touch with my A Level sewing teacher Abi Jackson, who I would regularly spend afternoons at her studio working on my own projects or helping her out with some of hers. She is always been there to help me if I ever needed help with a tricky collar or just a cup of tea and sewing related chat.
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Abi in her amazing studio.
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Along with help from others be it in real life or on the internet, I'm also a firm believer In just having a go at something and if it works then great! I’ve now got the confidence to keep going and if it doesn't work then it just makes me more determined to try again and to make it work, no matter how hard it is. I think that the determination comes from my previous failure at not finishing my Degree, but also from the perfectionist in me, which definitely helps but it can also hold me back sometimes, when actually what I’ve made is fine but I think it must be 110% rather than 100%!