Making a quilted voile Ogden Cami

Making a quilted voile Ogden Cami

A little bit of 18th century Provence

A spinkle of Alabama Chanin style

An echo of Sashiko

A twist of Danish flare……..

That sounds a bit of a concoction doesn’t it?! Hi there, glad you’ve landed here today as I have an interesting dressmaking project to tell you about, which was in short, an experimental idea using a trusted pattern. The inspiration, as you can see, came from all sorts of different sources and spun around in my mind over a few months until it fused together to become this idea. I had no idea if it would work and maybe the jury is still out on that one, but it is so fun to experiment with stitch and texture and well, anyhow, I will let you be the judge of it.

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Making a capsule wardrobe of extraordinarily pretty things

Making a capsule wardrobe of extraordinarily pretty things

Recently I went to see the film ‘Little Women’ (twice). Have you seen it? It is Greta Gerwig’s new interpretation of the novel and I loved every second of it. In fact I was so enamoured of it that it plunged me into the world I used to inhabit as a teenager of Victorian style fantasy. I always desperately wished that I could wear the clothes of days gone by when women looked like women and wore what I may describe as ‘extraordinarily pretty things’. I remember when we were over the US a few years ago and we took the kids to Gettysburg. Driving away from it, I saw a shop selling civil war costumes - Scarlett O’hara style for sure. Oh how I wanted a crinoline dress. My husband laughed ‘what on earth would you do with it… wear it do the washing up???’ Of course he is right - I am neither actress or a drama queen. But after seeing ‘Little Women’, I saw lots of ideas that could easily be adapted to today’s wardrobe, which in my case, would absolutely have to include jeans.

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