Sewing Gage

Photo by Captured by Corinne Photo by  Captured by Corinne Photo by  Captured by Corinne Just a few pics of the Marilyn dress finally completed. I really enjoyed making this, it was time consuming but I love the result. It's the first time I made a toile to get the fitting spot on before making the final garment, and it fitted perfectly.  The boyfriend made the headpieces, which were stunning! We even made the gay press. (c) QX Magazine (c) Boyz Magazine

Just a quick update on the red dress. The bodice is almost done, just the zip to put in at the back. I'm covered in sequins, but am so happy in how's it's progressing! And this arrived yesterday, my new overlocker! It just makes life so much easier! I'm going to try and send my old one back to the British Sewing Centre and demand a refund, which may be a challenge, going on reviews from other people trying to do the same thing. Wish me luck!

Me and the boyfriend have decided to make this iconic dress from the movie Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (he's Jane Russell, and i'm Marilyn) for our Christmas outing at Cybil's House . I know it's not Christmasey (apart from being red maybe), but it's a good excuse to try and make it. Yeah, this really is a challenge! It was a challenge just sourcing the material. I searched everywhere online and only found one place that stocked it, but they were out of stock. When I contacted them, they told me that the material had been discontinued. I had tried all my usual shops, but one day I decided to visit Shepherds Bush, in West London. There's a whole street full of fabric shops there. After visiting six or seven shops, I finally found it at Toni Textiles . There was only five meters left on the roll, so I took the lot! We began by creating a toile, a test version of the bodice, so that adjustments could be made. I have never done this before, but for th...

My friend Phill approached me to ask if I could recreate the headpiece worn by Verka Serduchka in the 2007 Eurovision song contest, and of course I said yes! (I do anything for a Chinese takeaway and some wine). I started by making the start out of mirrored cardboard. There are loads of templates online to use, so I chose one and scaled it to the size I needed. I then got Phill over and made a plaster cast of his head. Once that was done, I hot glue gunned strips of thin foam to the inside, so it sat a little more comfortable. I then stuck on mirror tiles (available from ebay) with a hot glue gun. And then finished the edges with some silver trimming with more mirror tiles stuck on top of that; It then made its way to Germany all in one piece for the Kölner Karneval in Cologne.

I absolutely loved the costume in Maleficent, so I decided to try and recreate one of the costumes from the film for Halloween. I knew which one it was going to be, the gown worn during the christening scene, I just loved it; I found the perfect material from the Wimbledon Sewing Centre in Tooting Bec, a crushed polyester, at £5.50 a meter. I've never made a whole dress from scratch before, so this was certainly a challenge. First thing I needed to do was to work out how it would come together with the separate pattern pieces. I wanted the lines of the folded fabric to run diagonally, so I knew I had to cut the fabric on the bias, which would also help with the shape and drape of the dress. I started with the bodice, and, as mentioned before, cutting the fabric on the bias. These were sewn together on the overlocker to form the bodice; The skirt was cut in the same way and attached to the bodice; The sleeve...

On October 7th I was hosting an end of summer party at my flat and I didn't have a thing to wear! I had bought some gold fabric from Minerva Crafts  in the sale and I didn't have any projects to do so I decided on the following vintage pattern, which I got from the vintage pattern shop . My mum has told me since that she attempted to make this dress, but eventually gave up on it. It was tricky, but I persevered. The pattern pieces were huge, luckily I was on night shift at work so I took everything to work, laid everything out on the floor and cut out all the pieces. So from that, to this. My mannequin, doesn't do it justice!. I hope I do though!