All posts filed under: Crafty stuff

Sewing for wee ones

While I mostly sew for myself, I do occasionally sew for other people – especially if they are tiny. Well, little. I don’t love sewing for newborn babies, but if you are a close friend of mine, and you have had a little girl in the last oh, 20 years or so, chances are your wee one has been given a version of McCalls 8121: This poor, battered pattern was my Grandmothers, and ever since I inherited it I have been using it to make little frocks and bloomers for the girl toddlers in my life. It’s got duckies on it! And the girl has a kangaroo toy! Most of the early versions of the dress I made have had the duck applique (after all, I do love ducks), but lately, I’ve been branching out. Here is a recent-ish duckie one: It’s made from the fabric that remained from making my sherbet stripes dress, and is trimmed with vintage piping, and a bit of replica 1930s floral fabric. Here is dearest Mum-to-be opening it (with …

Adventures in Elizabethan ruff-making

Published by The Dreamstress

I made an Elizabethan ruff! And it turned out really well (not perfect, but really well). And I am extremely pleased with myself. And it’s really, really close to perfectly historically accurate! Making a ruff turned out to be a lot harder than I thought it would be simply because there is so much rubbish information about ruffs on the internet. (Granted, there is rubbish information in books too – Tudor Tailor doesn’t do a good job of making it clear when they are using a historically accurate method and when they use a theatre one, for example, and even Saint Janet got things wrong on occasion. So I like to read EVERYTHING and then collate all the evidence in the hopes of arriving at something at least reasonably plausible.) So I had to weed out all the advice about 1) cutting yourself a really long strip entirely on the selvedge (this immediately read wrong to me because it’s hugely wasteful of fabric, and fabric wastage is rarely historically accurate. Plus the grain will be …

An Anne of Green Gables in New Plymouth photoshoot

Published by The Dreamstress

Last Monday was Labour Day in New Zealand, so it was a long weekend. A couple of friends and I took advantage of the day off to have a girls weekend in Taranaki, staying in the cottages on Rachel’s farm. How do you know when you have awesome friends? When, as soon as you have agreed on a weekend away one of them says “we get to get dressed up and wear corsets and take pictures, right?” Yes! We decided on a 1900s Anne of Green Gables theme, as a good look to go rambling around a park for a couple of hours in. Also, it fit in well with the outfits I just finished for the Katherine Mansfield photoshoot, and my make for the Silver Screen challenge (gee, I wonder what my inspiration is…) Still, Miss Stella & I were up till 11 the night before we headed off, taking up tucks in a skirt for the petite Miss Priscilla, sewing her blouse in under three hours, re-shaping hats, and doing hems and …