I love this thread. OP, your creations are amazing. You look great.
I grew up in a fairly frugal family. My parents had six kids and they were able to put us all through college on one salary. My dad was Mr. DoItYourself. He and my uncle built the house I grew up in and my uncle's house with their own hands. I don't remember anyone ever coming to our house to do any work whatsoever.
At one point, the couch in the living room was showing its age. Dad started tinkering with it, and before too long, he decided to reupholster it himself. It came out pretty well and he did other furniture, and ended up buying a sewing machine.
My oldest sister dated a guy with an uncle in the garment business. My folks were chatting with him at a party, and lo and behold, he had a lot of extra fabric left over that he had to dispose of, usually not huge lengths, but often several yards of the same pattern. He started shipping us cartons of free fabric.
Dad started sewing in earnest. Every night in the winter, he would get home from his engineering job, eat dinner, and disappear to the basement to sew. He made his four daughters (me included) and my mom some really lovely dresses and outfits. He made our prom gowns and the bridesmaids gowns when we got married. He made all the curtains in the house. He made himself some really nice tailored Pendleton sport coats. It was awesome, and nearly all free.
The funny thing though, was that it was the family's dirty little secret that Dad sewed. Some families have criminals, some have drug addicts, some have funny uncles. We had a Dad who sewed. When they went to a fabric store to buy notions, he would tell my mother what to get and he would lurk outside the shop. She couldn't sew on a button, so often she would go thought a hilarious routine pantomiming her questions about what weight of interfacing or what length zipper to buy through the window, while he'd pretend he wasn't watching.
I can sew a bit, enough to do simple alterations and killer Halloween costumes and curtains. A few years back, I asked dh to buy me a cheap, basic sewing machine for Christmas. The school where he teaches was just getting rid of a bunch of sewing machines and instead of getting me a new $125 Brother, he got a used one for a song. I hit the jackpot--it's a Bernina. It doesn't do fancy stuff, but it is an absolute joy to use, much better than anything else I've ever used. If you see one cheap on Craigslist, go for it. I recently lost a bunch of weight, and I'm taking stuff in. If fabric wasn't so expensive, I'd do more sewing.