DIY - Corsage Hair Band

This little hair band or fascinator is perfect for using your favourite fabrics and finishing off outfits for weddings and occasions. It's quite nice, quick and effective.

Your will need: 5 meters of bias binding, small strips of silk or pretty fabric, thread and an alice band.

                           sewing machine, scissors and thread


1. Cut your fabric into three 5 cms x 35cms strips and edge in bias binding.

2. sew a long gathering stitch along the opposite length of fabric and gather the silk whilst twisting around on itself to form the roses.

3. Sew the roses in place and the sew to the Alice band. You can wrap your Alice band with binding or ribbon and glue to match your hair colour.

Patterns - Six Collar Pattern Download

Introducing our new set of collar patterns available for instant download via pdf. In the pack you get six collar designs, from the pretty scallop edge to the classic Peter Pan collar and tailored gentleman's collar.
Also included is the pattern for a collar stand so you have the option of making a traditional tailored collar or a ribbon tie collar in a raw edged fabric like leather or our glitter.

Available to download from our shop here.

DIY - Pleated silk bridesmaids belt.

Todays DIY is a gorgeous pleated cinch belt, perfect for adding your wedding theme colours to simple bridesmaids dresses. 

You will need: 0.5 metres of silk dupion, 2 hooks and eyes, thread

Equipment: sewing machine, iron, needle and thread

Step1: start by folding your piece of fabric in half length-ways so you have a long rectangle.
Sew together and then turn inside out.

Step 2: Take your piece of silk and fold into pleats. This is easiest done by pleating the centre, fixing in place with pins and the pressing along all the pleats with the hot iron.

Step 3: measure the waist measurements you would like and then cut to size leaving 2.5cms seam allowance.
Then tuck the ends inside the belt, pin in place and stitch with a neat blind stitch.

 Step 4: sew the hooks and eyes on the inside of the belt to fasten and there is your finished silk cinch belt.

New PDF Patterns - Cravat and bow tie set

Our newest sewing pattern set of bow ties and cravats is now in store available for instant download.
This set consists of a self tie classic bow tie design, a clip on double bow tie design and a classic Tootal style cravat.
We used Liberty London Tana lawn to make ours with and they look rather dapper if we do say ourselves. They make fabulous presents for the proper gentlemen in your life and it's a great set for weddings when you want to use your favourite print or colour.
Just cut a simple 20cm square for your pocket to finish the look perfectly.

Available for download from our Etsy shop complete with instructions here. 

Tools of the trade - Free bead dishes

Lately we've been sewing a lot of beads for the new bridal collection over at Alexandra King. When working on quite serious multi tonal motifs or designs using very small beads it's useful to have a number of dishes to separate your colours and dip into.

There are segmented dishes and trays to buy on the market but recycled dip and pudding containers have been the best at the job for us. They are completely free, you can see and pick easily and some even look pretty.
When you're working with 10 different shades and shapes of silver these completely free dishes are a savoir from having to squeeze your fingers into the mini zip bags beads come in. If you're partial to a certain brand of pudding (GU anyone?) they also stack rather nicely.

DIY - Organza Ribbon Rose Belt

This DIY belt is a pretty and delicate accessory to make whether as a gift or to wear with a dress or skirt. The use of organza ribbon and trimming it in satin adds lots of detail and texture to the sculpted roses. 

 Equipment needed: Sewing machine, thread, hand sewing needle, tape measure and scissors.

Materials:
4 meters of organza wire edged ribbon
5 meters of satin bias binding
2 hooks and eyes

Step1: measure your waist and adding 1" cut the ribbon to this length. Then cut the remaining length of ribbon into three.

Step 2: trim the edge of your man piece of ribbon that forms the belt either side with the bias binding.

Step 3: fold over the ends, stitch down and add the hooks and eyes to fasten.

 Step 4: trim just one edge of the remaining three pieces in bias binding.

Step 5: roll and secure one end of the ribbon length for the centre of your rose.

Step 6: taking the wire on the bare edge pull and gather the ribbon until it starts to curl and then wrap it around itself until a rose is formed. Stitch the gathered base together by hand to secure.

Step 7: now hand stitch each rose to your belt and there you are, all finished.

Try trimming with beads, using different colour combinations or using finer ribbon for the roses making more delicate corsage details.

Tools of the Trade - The Tailors Ham

The tailors ham is a sturdily padded ham shaped cushion for pressing curves and seams of garments. We use ours all the time for pressing bust seams and curving wool and felts so that the fabric molds around the body smoothly.

Ours is plaid on one side and white on the other and feels as tough as a real ham, available to buy from Jaycotts here.  The Sleeve rolls are also really handy for proper pressing of seams.

Our First Pattern - Sweet Heart Bodice Pattern

We've been planning to make available some of our key and most useful patterns and at last here is the very first pattern available for download.

The sweetheart bodice was chosen to be first as it's one of our most used patterns and for all of you printing out the pattern, each piece fits easily onto A4. No need for sticking all those pieces of paper together like a jigsaw before you've even started.

The pattern comes graded in five sizes and contains the instructions you need to make the bodice from start to finish including the zip.

You can download the pattern here from our Etsy shop and have a fabulous bodice ready to wear by the weekend!