I'm really happy to be today's stop on the Tilda Bumblebee blog hop! As you can probably imagine, I'm a bit of a sucker for anything with bees on it, so I jumped at the chance to sew something with this lovely collection.  This is such a sweet selection of pretty florals in gorgeous colours, and I thought that the blues and oranges would make an adorable dress for a tiny girl. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your perspective) I don't have a tiny girl of my own, but my friend Kelly volunteered her niece, and we chose the Geranium dress from Made by Rae with a sleeveless bodice and patch pockets. Pockets are essential for all those pebble/feather/half-chewed sweet storage [Read more...]

Read all about my double gauze butterfly dress on the Andover Fabrics blog!

I'm sure that I've mentioned this before, but just in case I haven't, a major part of my love of dressmaking is down to the fact that it gives me the chance to wear clothes that are slightly less than conventional. In this case, a dress covered in peaches. With ric-rac. And a big pink border at the hem. Perfectly normal attire for a forty-three year old, amirite? The starting point was this fabric by Melody Miller, from her Fruit Dots collection for Cotton and Steel. Bright pink peaches printed on unbleached cotton. Love it. I managed to snag a couple of metres in the sale at The Village Haberdashery, as well as some pink ric-rac and a chunk of solid pink cotton to match. I then [Read more...]

Anyone who has watched the final of The Great British Sewing Bee will probably know that I had more than a little trouble with the (bloody) zip in the back of my (sodding) evening gown. That damn thing reduced me to a sweating mass of gibbering tearfulness, all of which was totally unnecessary had I just taken a step back and thought for a minute. But, you know, time pressure yada yada yada. Excitingly, all the clothes I made on the show were sent back to me last week, so I finally had a chance to redeem myself. Also, to use the pintuck shirt as a fire starter (but that's another story). Here is the back of the dress with the original zip. Pretty terrible, right? I didn't [Read more...]

Well, that was quite a ride. Having kept the result a secret for the last three months, it's a bit of a shift realising I can finally talk about it. So if you'll excuse me for a moment...     EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!     Ok, got that out of my system. Much better. There's so much to say that I don't really know where to start. The most important thing is to say an enormous 'thank you' for all the support and lovely messages I've had throughout the Bee. You lot have made this experience even more amazing than it already was, and believe me that's difficult. Also, a huge thank you to my family, without whom, etc etc. My lovely husband, the kids, [Read more...]

So the cat is officially out of the bag, and I can now finally spill the news that I've been sitting on for what seems like forever. The most exciting thing that has ever happened to me (sorry, kids - it's nothing personal, but this is serious stuff!) - I am a contestant in The Great British Sewing Bee 2016! Tune in to BBC2 on Mondays at 9 pm (starting 16 May) to watch the highs, lows and general hilarity of the sewing room. It should be a lot of fun!