Maker Faire Rocklin 2025
You Can Sew!
Home: California, United States
Learn how to design and sew your own clothes - no fancy tools required! Explore handmade garments, touch real fabric samples, and sketch your own designs. This hands-on exhibit shows how creativity and curiosity can become wearable art.
Maker
Melissa Clemens
Melissa is the granddaughter of a dressmaker, so you might say sewing is in her blood. She loves the way that crafting blends creativity with practicality: she enjoys both the process and the product. She has many other creative hobbies, from crochet to gardening to playing in a community orchestra, and has been known to dabble in coding and web development as well! A former teacher, she is passionate about education and wants to spread the skill of garment making throughout her community.
What Inspired You to Make This?
Every time I tell someone that I make my own clothes, they say something like "Wow, I could never do that but I really want to." I want to show people how easy it is to start making garments, and how rewarding it is to learn and improve. I feel very proud to have reached a point in my sewing where I have a collection of self-drafted, homemade garments to display, and I want to share with other people the story of how I reached this level of skill. I also put together this project because sustainability is a big part of my motivation for making and altering clothes. It saddens me to see how much waste the fast fashion industry generates, and I feel that if more people knew how to make and alter their clothing, that would be a small but meaningful way that they could combat climate change.
