Liz Haywood trained as a clothing patternmaker and worked in the fashion industry for 20 years in Australia and the UK. She worked in a wide range of areas — including bridal, swimwear, corporate and school uniforms, made-to-measure, and fashion ranges — as a patternmaker, clothing cutter, sewing teacher, and knitting pattern writer. She noticed mountains of fabric scraps thrown away by clothing factories and realized her own contributions to its creation.

In 2016, she read about zero waste pattern cutting, where the pattern is designed to use 100% of the fabric with no scraps or waste. The method caught her interest, and she immediately resonated with this garment-making approach after giving it a try. From 2020 onwards, she was determined to only make zero-waste patterns.

Liz is the author of two award-winning books, The Dressmaker's Companion and Zero Waste Sewing. She is currently writing a third, A Year of Zero Waste Sewing, published in installments as a zine. On her weekly blog, The Craft of Clothes, she shares PDF zero waste home sewing patterns. Liz lives in Australia with her family.