Great British Sewing Bee - week 3, the walkaway dress

This weeks challenge was the walkaway dress. I didn't have a pattern for the dress but I found lots of diagrams online and I worked from one of those to develop a pattern.

Here are the pieces, cut out and with just the bodice darts stitched.

Here is the dress, stitched together but before the bias binding has been sewn all around. About a year ago I had bought a little gadget for making bias binding but had never used it. This was my opportunity to try it. I must say, measuring, cutting and folding the bias binding probably took longer than making the dress. However I now know how to do it and I like it better than bought bias binding which makes the dress look very much like an apron.

So, here is Serena wearing the walkaway dress. This wasn't a quick dress to make. The simple summer dress was much easier. The original idea of the dress is that the neckline is wide enough to just slip over the head without fastening. This wasn't possible for Serena as dolls heads are bigger in proportion to the body and the neckline would have ended up half way down her chest! So I had to leave one shoulder seam open and fasten it with a press stud. I love this fabric. I bought 40 years ago when I was living in Jamaica to make curtains. It is hand screen printed with a design of Jamaican plants. It didn't fit any windows when I brought it back to the UK so I've kept it safely all these years. Last summer I used most of it to make myself a summer jacket and now Serena has the walkaway dress from it - so I think this fulfils the make over challenge as well.

Finally ...

I wasn't sure I could make a loop button fastening on a doll's dress. But I used some elasticated gold cord for the loops and that worked well.

I don't think they said on the programme how it was hemmed. I turned up a small single hem and stitched it with a decorative stitch which looked good and stopped any fraying. It is a long hem on a circular skirt, I'm glad I was only making it doll size.

Great British Sewing Bee - week 2, children's dressing up clothes.

All the children wanted animal costumes and I had great fun making them.

Saskia in her cat suit. It is made from black suedette  and the collar and cuffs are white velvet. It is fastened at the back with an invisible zip. I am seriously considering adding a tutu. I loved the dancing elephant from the show.

Spike in his lion suit. He is still wearing his red trainers but I will make him lion feet.

Little Sienna has a baby bird costume.
Both Spike and Sienna's costumes were made from old T-shirts with details added in felt, fastened with press studs.

Great British Sewing Bee -week 1, challenge 3.

The third challenge was to make a summer dress using a print fabric. I have lots of dress patterns but they are all intended for little girl dolls and were not suitable for an adult. I took another look at the Sewing Bee but wasn't all that keen on any of the dresses made. I also noted that the hardest thing for the contestants was matching up a centre seam. So I decided to make my own pattern with no centre seam. I made the bodice pattern by pinning kitchen paper towel to the doll and drawing in the neckline arm holes and darts. The skirt was cut on the cross and is almost a circle.

Serena wears the summer dress.

Until I watched this programme I had no idea that an invisible zip was a special type of zip. I sent off for a cheap bundle of invisible zips and did lots of online research to find out how they should be inserted. I'm very pleased with the result of my first invisible zip. Not totally invisible, but getting there.

The neckline is faced and the arm holes finished with bias binding. I only had a limited amount of fabric - there was just enough to complete the dress.

Great British Sewing Bee - week 1, challenge 2

Make something from a denim shirt. I'm always doing that and there is not much left of the shirt!

This dress has everything, a button and a bow, tucks and lace and , of course , denim.

And a pair of trainers to match.

Here is Saskia wearing the dress and trainers. For the dress bodice and skirt I used a pattern I've used before, for a traditional Victorian style dress. Made into a short dress with the fitted denim insert. Pattern for the trainers came from 

Sewing For Large Dolls by Sherralyn St. Clair

Great British Sewing Bee - Week 1, challenge 1

The first challenge was to make cotton trousers and this was a pattern following challenge. Luckily I have two patterns designed for American Girl dolls in a book by Joan Hinds - 
Sew the Contemporary Wardrobe For 18-inch Dolls.  
I decided to make both following the instruction exactly and just adjusting for size.

For Saskia I made the Capri trousers. These were very simple and most similar to the trousers made on the show. For Serena I made flared trousers with a front yoke.

Saskia wears the Capri trousers. They have a side opening and elastic threaded through the waist.

Serena in the orange flares. They fit quite snugly around the waist and hips which isn't obvious in the picture. There are back darts, a waistband and front fly opening.

The Bee family babies - Spike and Sienna

This is toddler Spike dressed in check dungarees. I made them very quickly and afterwards thought: Oh no! May and Patrick would be sure to spot that I hadn't lined up the squares properly down the centre seam. 

I bought some remnant fat quarters of suedette fabric in 5 different colours and just a tiny piece of red was used to make Spike's "Spiderman" style trainers.

The youngest of the Bee family is baby Sienna, dressed here in matching dress and knickers made from a handkerchief and hand knitted booties. 

More Bee family - Serena and Saskia

Mrs Bee is called Serena. She is wearing The 1930's retro blouse and box pleat skirt both of which featured on last years Great British Sewing Bee and the patterns and instruction are given in Sew Your Own Wardrobe

The box pleat skirt was quite straight forward although I think if I made one again I would make the pleats deeper. I used a piece of crisp cotton fabric that was given to me. I think it may have been hand dyed, as the colour isn't regular.

I really loved the retro blouse when I saw it on the programme but it was extremely difficult to make, especially at this scale. Sewing with black fabric and black thread in the dull winter light made it difficult to see my stitching. I made it too wide and tried to remedy it by extra gathering, the collar doesn't fit well and overall it is too short. I think May and Patrick would have plenty to say about this effort!

Her daughter is called Saskia. She is wearing a simple woven T shirt trimmed with bias binding to match the skirt. The skirt is made from the yoke skirt from Sew Your Own Wardrobe. This was also difficult and I cut out and re-stitched the yoke 4 times. Even then the piping on the front yoke doesn't exactly meet up with the back. Oh dear, what would May and Patrick say! Her flip over boots are lined with the same fabric as her skirt and I used a pattern purchased from Pixie Faire website.

Flip-over boots

Mr Bee

The father of the Bee family is called Scott. He is wearing a hand knitted jumper and trousers with side pockets based on the pattern for men's trousers in Sew Your Own Wardrobe.

This is the first time I have made dolls' trousers with internal side pockets. Although I had to draw my own pattern, I followed the instructions in the book exactly.

The pictures below show stages of construction.

The fabric cut out

Pockets inserted, showing both the right side of a completed leg and the inside with pocket lining visible.

The inside of the completed trousers.

Completed trousers, no zip of course, the fly is secured with a press stud.

The Great British Sewing Bee - the dolls' story

The Great British Sewing Bee just has to be one of my favourite TV programmes. This year I was determined to join in and have a bit of fun trying some of the challenges.
As I no longer make clothes for myself I designed and created a family of dolls to wear the clothes. They are the Bee family.

Here they are before this year's series started wearing clothes based on patterns from the 2014 book Sew Your Own Wardrobe.

Mr Bee is not able to stand unaided so in picture 1 he is leaning on the sewing machine and in picture 2 that is the reason for the DVD box.

Father Christmas -one more picture

Father Christmas

My last doll for 2014 was Father Christmas, completed just in time for Christmas day.

The first time I've used fur fabric to make a wig.

His boots, adapted a pattern from Pixie Faire dolls clothes.

 Caught in the act, me photographing Father Christmas.