In 2023, I took up hand-stitching during a summer spent away from my sewing machine. I sewed a linen shirt-dress, completely by hand - including 10 buttonholes - and was immediately hooked.
Now, I've hand-stitched two full garments: the afore-mentioned shirt dress, and a simple cotton peasant top. These were both perfect for working on when it's hot out, as they are just as portable as a knitting project but not as sweaty as working with wool. I also usually hand-sew my buttonholes now, as they look so much better than the buttonholes my machine makes.
The shirt dress is a hacked All Well Box Top, with a self-drafted band collar (I used this tutorial from The Fabrics Store, which is excellent). It took a little over three weeks of sporadic stitching to make this. I used the burrito method to sew the yoke, and the rest of the seams were whipstitched to finish them, which has held up very well over the past year of wear and washing this garment.
Most of the buttonholes were stitched during a week-long visit to London, and at least two of them were sewn on a long Tube journey to Kew Gardens. I think of that trip fondly every time I wear this shirt.
The peasant top is self-drafted, and was designed to be low waste - I used a cotton remnant from Merchant & Mills to make this (it was about 70cm, I think) and have just a few small triangles of fabric left over. This tutorial from Threads magazine was really helpful as I was drafting the pattern. This shirt was sewn, in part, on the beach in northern France, and I am reminded of that every time I wear this. Like a knitting project, I find that my hand-sewn items take on a little bit of the places where I worked on them, act as little reminders of a particular moment in time.
Because I love hand-sewing garments so much, I've written a little zine with my top tips for getting started with hand-stitching. This zine includes instructions for sewing five different stitches, plus advice on where to use them and how to plan a hand-sewing project. The zine comes in both a digital and a printable format.
You can now download the zine for free in our shop!