THE DRAPERY BLOG

If you've been reading our blog for a whi le , you might remember last year, when we were all about the box dress? Well, after a sh ort hiatus, we are back on it, but this time we are hacking it into a peplum top. Oh, how we love a simple but versatile pattern , and Stylish Dress Book 2 pattern D is still a total winner. For a few years, I've been gently begging my daughter Audrey to see if she'd like me to make her a few clothes again. She's 12 now and, understandably, has firm ideas about what she likes to wear so I didn't want to push the issue. Recently , she said she'd like a top with a slight frill at the bottom - so I started up the mother-made campaign once more. She tried on one of my box t-shirts (not blogged) and asked if we could modify it. Um, YES! So, off we went. The Dress D pattern is as straightforward as it gets - just a front and a back with no darts or fastenings - so it really lends itself to modification. W...

Frocktober has begun with a number of decently warm - even hot - days. Suddenly we're putting away the boots and leggings and layers and reaching for a single summery frock! I felt the call of the Japanese pattern books, and chose the Pinafore Dress, Pattern P from Happy Homemade Vol. 1 Treasured Collection. I made it up in a beautiful lightweight cotton from Alison Glass's Handcrafted collection, which is hand-printed in Indonesia using the traditional wax resist technique. (There are even wax remnants on the fabric to prove this, but they wash out really easily!)   Neither Fiona nor I had made anything from this book before so I whipped up a quick muslin of the size according to my measurements. Lucky I did because it was vast and I went down two sizes! Now, when we talk about 'whipping up a quick muslin out of an old bedsheet or something', we really do mean quick & rough much of the time. (Although it depends of course upon the requirements of...