For the last few years, we have seen a resurgence of people making their own clothes and this is partly down to the success of the 'Great British Sewing Bee' on the BBC. People are beginning to move away from the 'throwaway' culture that we have grown to know and are starting to take more care of the items they have and create quality clothing that will stand the test of time rather than having a 'wear once' mentality. After watching the first series of the sewing bee, many viewers took themselves down to their local Fabric Store, if they were lucky enough to have one, and bought fabric and haberdashery to recreate some of the ideas they had seen on the programme. Some of those viewers who didn't have a local Fabric Store visited our website instead. I have recently been watching the BBC series, 'Back in Time at the Weekend' where a family were transported back in time to experience leisure time through the decades; from the fifties up until the year 2000 and then, into the future. During the sixties, one of the main leisure time activities for woman was sewing and many teenage girls found themselves being taught to sew by their mothers. Many of the women learnt to sew by hand however if they were wealthy enough they would be able to buy a sewing machine and this would increase the speed and complexity of the patterns that could be sewn. By sewing their own clothes, it allowed the woman of the 60's to create unique outfits for themselves and it also brought a sense of achievement that they could create their own clothes for themselves and the family. Over the years, this idea of teaching your children to sew has sometimes been lost and it is not always taught in schools anymore either which is a real shame. Sewing is an important skill to have and with programmes such as the Great Sewing Bee and the whole 'maker movement' of people enjoying handmade goods, it will hopefully be something that more and more people take up and learn or relearn. If you are thinking of starting to sew or going back to sewing why not visit your local Fabric Store to see all the goodies that are on offer. Hopefully it will provide you with some inspiration.