Hello everyone

I am really enjoying watching the Great British Sewing Bee on BBC 2 – would love to live in that workshop, all that fabric and buttons and beads and cottons! I know I have a lovely craft room but that would be heaven.

Ellie, Kerry and I had our own little sewing bee last weekend and we had a lovely time cutting out new dresses for them so I thought I would show you a few pics to document the process.

We have a fairly untraditional style of garment making which mainly relies on cutting round existing garments to make new ones and adapting the pattern as we go along.

We do sometimes use bits of existing patterns for shaping such as bodices etc but mostly it is a case of cut, pin, try on and alter until it all fits.

I have the following pattern which is useful basic dress one – available from the Simplicity web site

This is Kerry’s new dress fabric with her green dress laid on top of it for cutting out. I was surprised to see how square it is at the bottom – when on these bits fold in and don’t give that impression at all.

Here she is in the original dress last year at Bolsover Castle.

This is the beautiful fabric with her cutting the back. This new one will have fitted sleeves and tippets unlike the green dress.

If you want to more about tippets or other styles of medieval women’s costume please visit my page here.

Or if you want to see a real genius at work go and visit my very talented friend Kat’s page as she makes the most amazing costume and headdresses.

Ellie is making a new version of a two coloured peasant dress using the old pale pink from the gores in the new dress. She loves this dress which is one I made about 3 years ago but it is a bit short for her now. Here is the original.

We cut this one using her other peasant dress as a pattern.

After she had removed the gores from the old dress she stitched up the new dress and voila! Here she is in the nearly completed garment.

It is a lovely sunny day here, a bit frosty but I have just been doing a bit of gardening to tidy up the back, the crocuses are out and Spring is in the air.

Now to spend the afternoon finishing a dress for another bunny while watching DVDs, I do so love the weekends 🙂

Take care and hope you are enjoying yourselves whatever you are doing.

Thanks for visiting.