A FEATHER MAXI SKIRT?! how cool would that be…. or so I have been saying for at least 10 years, since I first saw this class by Anna Maria Horner on Creative Bug. It has taken me so long to get around to crossing this off my ‘to make’ list and yet again, I am left wondering why on earth it is so, when I always knew it was a lovely project.
Read MoreMaking the Merchant and Mills ‘Mary White Sailor Top’ has been quite a challenge, but I am over the moon it. See how it went…..
Read MoreI finished this project just before we set off for Summer travels and I am just delighted now that autumn is approaching to have it ready and waiting for the cooler days ahead. I’m a little bit in catch up mode with journal postings so you may have seen this on instagram a few weeks ago, but I wanted to document it in a little bit more detail as it is just such a lovely thing.
Read MoreWith the BBC’s ‘Sewing Bee’ in full flight at the moment, I find myself with twitchy fingers to try a little dressmaking and I had long harboured a dream of making a long floral duster coat. Jubilee Weekend seems like the sort of time you would wear something like this and as much as it is a wistful backwards glance at those Laura Ashley days, it is also quintessentially English in it’s style and as comfortable over jeans today as it has would’ve been a couple of decades ago.
Read MoreBack to dressmaking here today and spring/summer wardrobe planning….did I really say that? I am not a wardrobe planning kind of person, but it was one of my resolutions this year, to declutter and reorganise my wardrobe and making some new things is part of it. However, the course of true sewing love doesn’t necessarily run smoothly and this one most certainly didn’t!!
Read MoreI am absolutely thrilled to see that waistcoats are making a bit of an impression on the fashion scene this autumn - not that an I am avid follower of fashion you understand - but seeing one of my favourite items given a new look in the shops is just the inspiration I needed to get going with this project.
Read MoreHello and welcome to Autumn. It is such a glorious season here in England and perhaps I appreciate it more because of all the years we lived away on overseas postings. When we first returned, I was immediately struck by how the seasons here are so clearly defined - in both Russia and Sweden, Spring and Autumn were barely a whisper - it just seemed to go from Summer to Winter in a matter of weeks. I remember how we would return to Moscow after the summer holidays, ready for the start of school and we would still be in cotton tops and then a sort of grey stillness would descend upon the city and the temperature would drop by the day over just a couple of weeks and soon and then it was Winter. The trees that lined our boulevard seemed to shed their leaves in a single shake and all was calm and in waiting for the first snow. Here in Yorkshire, Autumn has time to really show off it’s golden hues and wild heathers and the colours make me want to start on new projects. This year, I seem to have excelled myself in lining them up!!
Read MoreOf course it is not everybody’s style but the thing to take away from this posting is that you can make what you want, taking ideas from fashion magazines, movies or historical costume and just have a go. Think about the key points you want in a garment and look to mix and match elements and find the style that really reflects your personality. In the end, getting older is all about being yourself - not a mum, a wife, a job - just yourself.
Read MoreA 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.
Read MoreHello and welcome to a New Year on the blog. I hope you will join me in my sewing adventures this year and to start things up, I am putting another item into Ruby’s wardrobe of extraordinarily pretty things. As a novice dressmaker, I am slow and a bit sceptical about making my own clothes, but you don’t know until you try and my quest to find clothes that I like (as a 57 year old) and that fit me (as a 57 year old) is never going to be easy. The Hinterland Dress by Sew Liberated often pops up on my instagram feed and it looked like the kind of easy wear dress that would be good in winter or summer weight fabric.
Read MoreOver the past few months, I have collected a few japanese dressmaking books and am constantly inspired by images on instagram. Following on from my love of japanese embroidery, these books are extremely enticing. I love the japanese aesthetic - simple, clean lines, a little bit vintage, a little modern, practical and pretty at the same time. They use gorgeous fabrics too - fresh cottons, wool and silk and the look is a careful one. No sloppy stretched t-shirts, but with comfort in mind and just tiny details which make a difference. I wasn’t feeling brave enough to attempt one of the patterns - they are all in japanese script and so it would be a diagram only effort… but I did want to make something with the feel of these lovely garments. The Merchant and Mills Top 64 pattern has been sitting on my cutting table for a while…. it was time.
Read MoreFor the next item in Ruby’s wardrobe of extraordinarily pretty things, I wanted to make a dressing gown. I’m thinking sort of country house weekend …. you know, the sort of thing you could take to wear whilst staying at some rather grand house in the rolling hills of …. wherever. Well, a girl’s gotta dream! Anyhow, generally, I think a lightweight, easy to pack robe is a useful thing to have and with the PJ’s also in mind to make, I set about planning the project.
Read MoreMaking Embroidery Modern
