Our situations and goals may be totally different; nonehtless, here is another approach:
1. find recycled clothes at dollar-a-pound thrift-esque stores or simply ask your friends for their old goods.
2. reverse engineer existing clothes into patterns by de-stiching them, or make your own patterns through trial and error.
essentially: you can learn to sew if you want, it just takes time to get good (like any skill). it's quite fun. the biggest expense is the initial sewing machine, though reuse and craigslist and community centers can solve that, too.
My advice is to take the long view and keep your expectations reasonable.
Start small: add pockets to pants, patch knee holes, add a hood to a jacket, add dinosaur plates to a hood.
Hack clothes together: sew together squares of fabric to make pant legs or a shirt. recycle a pants top that already fits your waste so you don't have to muck with zippers and crotches yet. you can use pants tops to make the tops of shirts with. my last project was weaving together two pairs of jeans that I'd cut into horizontal and vertical strips.
Finally, make clothes from (recycled) scratch. my husband made my wedding dress from recycled jeans--it's the best formal wear I've ever had. I'm still working up to this level of skill, and he's still working to get to the next level. He's making a long winter coat now.
If I turn these into instructables soon I'll post back. Good luck and have fun expressing yourself.
1. find recycled clothes at dollar-a-pound thrift-esque stores or simply ask your friends for their old goods.
2. reverse engineer existing clothes into patterns by de-stiching them, or make your own patterns through trial and error.
essentially: you can learn to sew if you want, it just takes time to get good (like any skill). it's quite fun. the biggest expense is the initial sewing machine, though reuse and craigslist and community centers can solve that, too.
My advice is to take the long view and keep your expectations reasonable.
Start small: add pockets to pants, patch knee holes, add a hood to a jacket, add dinosaur plates to a hood.
Hack clothes together: sew together squares of fabric to make pant legs or a shirt. recycle a pants top that already fits your waste so you don't have to muck with zippers and crotches yet. you can use pants tops to make the tops of shirts with. my last project was weaving together two pairs of jeans that I'd cut into horizontal and vertical strips.
Finally, make clothes from (recycled) scratch. my husband made my wedding dress from recycled jeans--it's the best formal wear I've ever had. I'm still working up to this level of skill, and he's still working to get to the next level. He's making a long winter coat now.
If I turn these into instructables soon I'll post back. Good luck and have fun expressing yourself.