Sewing Challenges – January 2025

MAGAM: Jazzy January

Kick off the new year with an exciting Jazzy January! Think 1920s and 1930s styles, sparkles beading and even feathers!

Make A Garment A Month runs with a different theme each month of the year, so you’ll never be short of sewing inspiration. This challenge is always a gun test for your imagination as the prompts are open to interpretation. You’re welcome to submit multiple entries and combine MAGAM with other challenges.

To join in with this sewing challenge, share your finished garment to Instagram during January and tag hosts @suestoney @sewing_in_spain and @new_by_helen and use #MagamJazzyJanuary #magamsewalong.

JEANuary 2025

Is sewing your own jeans one of your goals for the new year? Get started right away with the #JEANuary2025 challenge from @chlome_made and @slapdashsewist!

Whether you’re a first time jeans maker or you just need another pair for your handmade wardrobe, sewing with pals is the perfect way to get motivated. Hosts Hannah and Chloe have created weekly prompts to keep you moving through your project. Decide your pattern and collect materials in week 1. Week 2 is for cutting your toile, which you’ll sew and fit during week 3. In week 4 it’s time to cut and sew your jeans. Finish up your jeans and reveal them on Instagram on the 31st January.

This will be a great challenge for building your sewing skills. If you get stuck at any stage you can ask the sewing community for suggestions!

DPL 3 Day Design Challenge

Do you fancy designing your own wardrobe but don’t know where to start? Join January’s 3 Day Design Challenge from Digital Pattern Library to learn industry standard fashion design techniques across three high-energy, beginner-friendly workshops to kick start your creative process.

This challenge guides you through the design process over three days from Tuesday 7th January to Thursday 9th January with time to refine your design over the weekend.

Enrol now over at the Digital Pattern Library website and start building your dream wardrobe.

Sew 25 in 25

Do you have different sewing needs and goals that you want to work on through 2025 but you struggle to decide what to work on? Una @sewvintageglam has created the #Sew25in25 challenge to motivate you to sew 25 items across different categories of your choice throughout the year.

First create up to five categories – for example, Una’s categories are WIPs, Upcycles, Scrapbusting and sewing from scratch. These categories should align with the sewing you want to achieve this year. You could use tags to add the categories to your projects in Stash Hub. Use a random picker to select the category for your next project. Pick a project from that category and sew it up.

Celebrate and share your makes to Instagram tagging @sewvintageglam and #Sew25in25.

Watch Una’s challenge introduction video on YouTube for more info about the challenge and inspiration for ways to get involved.

Fabric Roulette

Struggling to decide which of your gorgeous fabrics to sew up next? Leave it up to fate with Fabric Roulette from Kris @unsewcial!

Select the fabrics you’d love to get sewn up this year (Kris has chosen 12) and enter them into a random picker. Spin the wheel and sew up whichever fabric it lands on. If you need inspiration for your fabric, why not ask the sewing community?

Share your fabric picks and makes using the hashtag #FabricRoulette and tag @unsewcial on Instagram.

Check out Kris’ YouTube video to see which fabrics she’s including in her Fabric Roulette challenge.

VSR Keep Me Accountable

Making a personal challenge but need someone to hold you accountable? Share your personal sewing goal or challenge and tag @virtualsewingroom on Instagram or Facebook for some moral support and celebration when you achieve your goal. You got this!

You goal can be anything you like, whether you need to reduce the amount of fabric you’re purchasing, use your stash or complete projects before a deadline.

You can also share your progress in the Virtual Sewing Room Zoom sessions for some live encouragement from a friendly group of sewists.

Make Nine 2025

Make Nine is a very simple and popular challenge in the online sewing community. Pick nine things to work on throughout the year. These can be specific projects, patterns, fabrics or skills you want to learn.

This is a gentle challenge. It’s not one that you can fail. It’s meant to be flexible, a tool you can use to evaluate your motivations and needs for working towards specific things as the year goes on. This is meant to be a challenge focused on learning more about yourself and your making habits while achieving goals. Work at your own pace and join in at any time.

You don’t have to share your Make Nine plans but it could help inspire you to get sewing. Create a 3×3 grid with your plans and share to Instagram using #MakeNine2025

Winter of Care and Repair

Winter is the perfect time to slow down and take care of yourself and your belongings. Jeanna @thepeoplesmending is running the Winter of Care and Repair (WoCaR) as a personal challenge to help you focus on mending projects throughout the winter months.

Find out more about the challenge here or on Instagram.

Sharing is optional for this challenge. However, if you discover an amazing new mending technique, why not share it with the sewing community to help inspires others to prolong the life of their handmade wardrobes too? Use the hashtag #WinterOfCareAndRepair2024 and tag @thepeoplesmending.

Whole 30 Challenge

Do you seriously need to reduce your fabric stash this year? @pinkmimosabyjacinta has just the challenge for you! The Whole 30 Fabric Challenge encourages you to sew 30 yards of fabric in your own time. Here’s the catch – you can’t buy any more fabric until you’ve finished sewing 30 yards!

You can also reduce your stash by destashing or donating some of your 30 yards. Check out this blog post to find places that accept fabric donations.

Share your progress as you sew through 30 yards of stash fabric on Instagram with the hashtag #Whole30FabricChallenge to celebrate your achievements with the sewing community.

2 From Stash a Month

Keen to reduce your fabric stash but prefer a more gentle approach than the Whole 30 Challenge? The #2FromStashAMonth challenge invites you to sew two fabrics from your stash each month. You could combine this with another challenge if you have a stash fabric that fits the brief.

Share what you’ve made and your reflections on your stash to Instagram and tag @salixsews and @septemberfaden and use the hashtag #2fromstashamonth.

This challenge has already been running for a few months and has helped inspire projects for lots of stash fabrics.