The fact that people were producing on their own clothes or fixing things by themselves is true. They had to do it by themselves, because there was no factories to make clothes or things that have to fix individually.
Firstly, humans were able to make everything at home because it was part of their life due to having much free time after work and there was nothing expect of fixing or doing other activities to spend time, consequently, they were making clothes for example to loved ones or only for them. Especially this kind of activity were doing women, due to being most of time at home, consequently, the producing the things like this, would be the only activity they were able to do.
Secondly, making things single-handedly was a productive skill that can help you to fix something on your own, which is requiered ability. This kind of occupation can be used as a cultural tradition, for example these operations are in use in my country especially in holiday events, and these skills are used only to make something, and present it like a gift to a relative. But unluckily this type of hand-mades are not popular among young crowd. And its getting worse every year making it slowly a true for my country too.
In conclusion, the attempt to popularize this ability would be these events like national holidays or competitons. But everything in history is appearing and being forgotten like these.