9 Free Tutorials with Easy Ideas to Upcycle Your Clothes

From embroidery to tie-dye, revamp your clothes and join the slow fashion movement with these upcycling tips

Upcycling is a creative way of reusing or recycling older, damaged, or unwanted items—essentially, you repurpose or refurbish old products, making them into something "new".

Clothes are an item we use on a daily basis, however, they also serve as a canvas for our creativity. Customizing pieces from our wardrobe through upcycling is a wonderful form of self-expression that can also extend the life of an older garment and reduce waste.

From embroidery to stencil design, these tutorials offer fun and creative ideas to upcycle your clothes at home. Check them out and get inspired by tips and tricks to give your wardrobe a more eco-friendly makeover by joining the slow fashion movement.

1. Upcycling Tutorial: 5 Hacks to Transform your Clothes

Repurposing and revitalizing items in our wardrobe can save money, help the environment, and produce one-of-a-kind pieces.

Crochet designer and author Emma Friedlander-Collins, also known as Steel and Stitch (@steelandstitch), specializes in upcycling and remaking objects. From repurposing old embroidery to reworking your scraps, in her tutorial Hacks to Transform your Clothes, she shares a few simple ways we can extend the life of our wardrobe by using simple techniques to create pieces that are original and full of personality.

2. Embroidery Tutorial: Basic Techniques for Beginners

Embroidery can make everything from a shirt pocket to the hole in your sneakers that bit more beautiful. Whether you’re interested in learning how to embroider patterns onto your clothes or to create appliqué, getting to grips with the basic steps of this ancient craft will open up a world of upcycling and patchwork possibilities.

Kseniia Guseva (@faimyxstitch) has been embroidering every day since 2016, also using it as a way to feed her other passion: upcycling. Here she shares a few basic embroidery techniques for beginners to help you get started, from how to set up your hoop to the various ways you thread the needle.

3. Embroidery Tutorial: How to Create an Appliqué

Appliqué is a great way to revive old wares and add a bit of extra character—plus, it’s a clever trick to cover and fix any rips or holes. This technique consists of embroidering your own design (or finding an embroidery you like), turning it into a patch, and then sewing it to your garment!

Learn how to create an appliqué in this tutorial, textile designer and Domestika teacher Ana María Restrepo (@anamaria_10), will guide you through her process for converting an embroidered design into a patch.

4. Embroidery Tutorial: Simple Flowers in 5 Steps

Loly Ghirardi, aka Señorita Lylo (@srtalylo), is an embroidery expert and Domestika teacher who teaches three courses exploring everything from the basics (stitches, compositions, etc) to advanced techniques.

In her embroidery tutorial on creating simple flowers, she teaches you how to transfer a floral design (for which she shares a pattern) to fabric and then the steps to create your embroidery piece. It's a stylish and personalized way to add some vibrant, summery touches to your wardrobe!

5. Embroidery Tutorial: How to Care for Hand Embroidered Clothing

If you do go down the hand-embroidery route to give your clothes a new look, it’s important not to let your efforts go to waste by making sure you look after them properly (especially as it can be a time-consuming craft!).

Here, hand-embroidery artist Kseniia shares more of her embroidery tips—this time, how to care for hand-embroidered clothing, including a number of simple and essential ways to make sure your pieces last.

6. Fashion Design Tutorial: Tips to Customize Your Sneakers

Sneakers, not only do they get you places, they also offer up a unique canvas for creative experimentation. In this tutorial, art director and founder of MYSNKRS Customs (@mysneakerscl), Juan Pablo Bello, teaches tips to customize your sneakers. He encourages you to revamp your shoes by customizing your laces, painting the body, and applying details.

He will also explain how to take care of your creations so that you can wear them for as long as possible.

7. Upcycling Tutorial: Clothes Printing

Transforming used clothes into new and original pieces ranks high on many DIY lists. There are many techniques you can choose from to give new life to a t-shirt, a pair of trousers, or any other worn-out piece of clothing. Few, however, are as fun as using a stencil and spray paint to print your own clothes.

Create designs with which to decorate your clothes, transform them into templates, and add different colors and textures through simple exercises that will lead to extremely varied results with fashion designer Krizia Robustella (@kriziarobustella).

8. Upcycling Tutorial: How to Start Patching Your Clothes

Not only is fixing damaged clothes a great way to budget, but it is also good for the environment. Patches extend the life of your clothes and act as canvases on which you can paint, draw, and embroider.

In the tutorial, How to Start Patching Your Clothes, Gabriela Martinez–an expert in embroidery and textile art and the creator of Ofelia & Antelmo (@ofeliayantelmo) will show you how to fix and customize your torn or stained clothes with one-of-a-kind patches.

9. Tie-Dye Tutorial: Crumple Technique for Beginners

When it comes to DIY crafts, tie-dye is always a favorite, producing bright and beautiful results using simple materials and beginner-friendly techniques. It’s a great way to add flair to your clothes and other fabrics.

Fashion designer Peter Wasp (@peterwasp) has always been fascinated by the way that a piece of clothing can be totally transformed through dyeing techniques—and by all the ways that something as simple as tie-dye can be used to create unique gradients, stains, and geometric patterns.

In this tutorial, he shows you how to use the crumple technique to make tie-dye pieces at home.

If you are interested in exploring more fashion design and upcycling tips and techniques, discover Domestika's online upcycling courses.

Plus, for more free tips and tricks, keep an eye on the creativity tutorials section of the blog.

You may also like:

- 10 Sustainable Fashion Influencers to Inspire Your Projects
- Vintage Design Ideas: 100,000 Free Fashion Illustrations
- 12 Online Upcycling Courses for Getting Creative at Home
- Upcycling with Embroidery, a course by Kseniia Guseva