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Sewing your own clothes and home decor is usually believed to be the cheaper alternative to buying items that are already made. But, anyone who decides to take up sewing to save money quickly learns that this is not always the case, in fact, it can often be much more expensive to sew your own items. This doesn't have true though, there are things that you can do to greatly reduce the cost of sewing and stick to a small budget.

First, never buy patterns or home decor fabrics unless they are on sale. Most fabric stores put these two items on sale for about 2 weeks out of the month, so if what you want is not currently on sale, check back in a week or two and it will probably be 30 to 50 percent off. Check your news paper for fabric store coupons, they can usually be combined with sales, and you can end up paying just a fraction of the original price.

If you are just beginning to build your collection of clothing patterns, start with basic items. If you don't already know how, you will most likely learn how to make slight alterations which will eliminate the need for new and different patterns. It will also be good to have a basic dress and a basic suit pattern that will not go out of style in a few years, again forcing you to buy new patterns.

Fabric, especially home decor fabric, can be quite expensive. Be on the lookout when you go to home goods stores for bed sheets and table cloths that are on sale. You can often end up getting a good amount of fabric for only a couple dollars a yard this way. While bed sheets are usually thinner and would be better for home decor sewing, table cloths are thicker and can be great for making clothes.

When you want to make new clothes, consider altering what you already have first. You can take the sleeves off of a shirt or change the neckline, turn a pair of pants into a skirt or change the length of an existing skirt. If you are sewing for your children, you could take some of your old clothing apart and sew them back together in a smaller size or just use the fabric to make new clothes for them.

Save your remnants if you have the space to. This may or may not save on your sewing budget, but it certainly can save you money in other areas. If you tend to buy fabrics in similar colors or shades, you may have enough left over from each project to make a set of co-ordinating napkins or even a quilted blanket. You could use them to sew a set of fabric coasters, recover lampshades, or make throw pillows (if you don't have remnants large enough, sew four squares together as the front or back of a pillow for a geometric look), there are countless project ideas available on the Internet too that you can use remnants to make. These projects would be great to make for yourself, but they would also make great (and free!) gifts.

It only takes a little bit of effort to save bundles of money on your sewing projects and it is well worth it. We can make it so that sewing our clothes and home decor for ourselves is once again cheaper than buying them.

Learn more about this author, Christina Orleans.
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