On the Rise: Sewing

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Sewing, like cooking and cleaning, seems like one of those skills that everyone inherently knows how to do; however, according to a survey conducted by the British Heart Foundation, 59% of people don’t know how to confidently sew.¹

In the same BHF survey, 16% of people said they ask their grandmothers to sew their clothes, with 50% asking the same favour of their mothers. Admittedly, my own grandmother is an incredible seamstress, and I would be lying if I said I hadn’t asked her countless times to hem a skirt or take in the waist of a dress. Moving away to university has removed the safety blanket of having a more proficient relative wave her magic needle and fix all my mending needs.

While by no means an expert, I am still able to make basic repairs, taking in a pair of trousers here or sewing on a button there. Indeed, as a chemistry student, patching up the holes in my lab coat has kept me with an ongoing project during term.

Back at the start of April, the term 'diy face mask' reached a peak number of searches on Google.² With non-essential shops closed, and visiting relatives out-of-bounds, for every four searches of 'sew face mask' in the UK, there was one search for 'no sew face mask'.

In that same BHF survey, 16% of those polled said they would rather buy a new item of clothing than fix a lost button. Not only is this attitude is wasteful, it's also an incredibly expensive alternative to quickly stitching on a button yourself and contributes to the 235 million pieces of clothing that end up at landfill sites in the UK per year.³ This attitude has been fuelled by fast fashion, which produces cheap, low-quality garments that are often not built to last.

Granted, there does seem to be some revival in home sewing. In 2016, sales in sewing machines increased by 30%, partially as a result of television shows such as The Great British Sewing Bee.⁴ Since lockdown began in March, the haberdashery Hobbycraft has seen increased interests in the purchase of sewing machines, thread, and fabric.⁵

Luckily, learning the basics has never been easier, with thousands of videos and whole channels dedicated to the topic on YouTube. And for most repair work, all that’s needed is a needle and some thread. It would be interesting to go back now and see how the answers from the BHF's 2017 survey may differ today, after a national lockdown that left many looking for new projects to take on, and many more looking for ways to pass the time.

For now, I will continue to improve my tailoring dexterity; reaching grandmother-level sewing skills is, after all, yet a long way off.

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Sources

1. BHF exposes UK sewing skills shortage to launch The Big Stitch

2. diy face mask, sew face mask, no sew face mask | Explore - Google Trends

3. Over 235 Million Items Of Clothing Will End Up In Landfill Sites In The UK This Year - Here's How To Change That | HuffPost UK

4. A stitch in time – new era for home sewing | The Guardian

5. How we became a nation of sewing fanatics during lockdown