About me

Welcome on the Misusu & more blog!

This blog is all about DIY!
The sewing machine being my weapon of choice, it usually has something to do with fabrics or other sewable stuff.

I’m Elles, a fashion designer, passionate DIY-er and all-round creative. I live in the Netherlands with my man Martijn where we both are striving to make a living by doing the things we love.

I was raised in a creative Dutch family – my grandmother and mother are my DIY heroes. My mother taught me the art of making your own clothes, just like her mother did before her. During my teenage years we made my clothes together. Back then, I had no idea what ‘fashion’ was, but I did try to express my own sense of style by making my own clothes. I didn’t quite get it – my high school girlfriends still think back with horror of my self-made extremely flared blue velvet pants and bright green velours jacket with a big black fake fur collar…..

Luckily I did learn a thing or two about fashion during the years. After working in high fashion & commercial companies such as Yoshiki Hishinuma, IvanaHelsinki and Cakewalk, I started working as an independent designer. I started a small handmade “sophisticated streetwear” collection called Hollund and worked as a freelancer for several companies. The last six months I’ve been working as a freelancer for the Dutch Etsy community, and I’ve been writing for Dutchhandmade.

During the past two years, I reconnected again with my love for making my own clothes. I realized that my strength as a designer came from that place. I’m a practical designer – I don’t wish to design things that are uncomfortable, unsustainable, expensive, impractical or temporary. By working for commercial companies I kinda forgot that “handmade” used to be such a big part of my life. Now I’m embracing the “handmadeness” again by designing a product that I just simply love, and can help others to be creative and handmade as well!

Right now I’m in the process of setting up Misusu.co – a web shop for printable PDF Baby & Toddler DIY Patterns. I want my designs to be accessible for everyone, but also empower people to be handmade and creative themselves. If you want to stay updated on the website’s progress, free giveaways or coupons, you can sign up for the newsletter here.

On this blog you can follow and comment on my design process for the misusu pattern collection (Please do!) & read about lots of other stuff that interest me and keep me busy. Also, I’ll be submitting my own tutorials and free downloads on a regular basis!

If you have any comments or tips, I would love to hear from you! Please contact me here!

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