Childhood Treasures: Handmade Dolls Clothes

When my mother was a little girl, she had two special dolls: Chloe and Emily. Chloe was bought for my mum, and Emily had been my grandmother's doll when she was a little girl. Later they were both passed down to me and my sisters, and we played with them and dressed them in a lot of the same clothes my mother and grandmother had.

We were sorting through a box of old dolls clothes and other bits and bobs recently (deciding what to keep for my niece and nephew to play with, what to send to the charity shop, and so on) and I couldn't resist taking some photos of the loveliest handmade things to share with you guys!

My grandmother made this dress for Emily, using off-cuts from the outfits she made for my mum and her brother. "I had shorts and a blouse in that fabric", my mum says.  Aren't those tiny pockets adorable? You've got to love a dress with pockets.

Then here's Emily's silky pajamas, complete with pretty lace trim. I have very vivid memories of dressing Emily in these pajamas to "put her to bed" at night!

As well as Chloe and Emily, my mum had a few other smaller dolls which didn't survive to be passed down to us - but their clothes lasted and we used them to dress our modern plastic dolls.

My grandmother made this dress (with pockets and super cute piping details) for a doll my mother's aunt sent her from Canada. 

This outfit belonged to the same doll, but my mum isn't sure if it's one of her mother's creations. She remembers having some clothes in a very similar fabric as a kid, though, so chances are these were sewn by my grandmother from more dressmaking offcuts.

These clothes were sewn by my grandmother from a kit, for another small doll. Maybe someone in your family bought the same kit and stitched these, too?

Chloe had some handmade dresses too, of course!

A pretty yellow dress and matching knickers (love that collar)...

... and a floral print dress, with a stylish waistband:

When I was a baby, my mum knitted me this cardigan and matching hat, mittens and booties... and when I outgrew them, they were inherited by Chloe! I spent many happy hours dressing Chloe in these, buttoning and unbuttoning those buttons to get her ready for all kinds of adventures.

Finally, what did Chloe wear when we tucked her in at night? Not a chic pair of pajamas like Emily, but a sweet floral nightdress.

My mum took Chloe with her to boarding school - she had a homemade nightie in this floral fabric and a matching blue dressing gown, so my grandmother made a matching set for Chloe! How adorable is that?

Fancy reading about more of my childhood treasures? I've also blogged about Sylvanian Families (and the handmade furniture and other things we made for them as kids), my shell collection, my badge collection, my sticker album, my eraser collection, Fuzzy Felt, Keypers, lots of puzzles and games, some of my most beloved childhood books, and a bear I stitched for my sister when I was eight.

Crafty Ladies: Meet Ginny Farquhar

This week's Crafty Lady is Ginny Farquhar, who designs and makes and writes and sews and teaches!

She's half of crafty duo Alice & Ginny who run sewing workshops together, and whose latest book - Sewing For Kids - I'll be reviewing next month. Ginny also sells her photography and pretty textile jewellery under the name Sweet Myrtle.

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Hello, I’m Ginny! I love being creative and also love sharing my skills and helping others get creative too.

I live in Hampshire with my husband, two teenage daughters and a black cat called Magic.  I work as a sewing teacher and craft workshop leader and also write sewing books and projects. Under the banner of Alice and Ginny, I collaborate with my best friend and we run regular sewing and dressmaking classes for teenagers and adults in Hampshire, Surrey and Sussex. I love my job and love meeting so many different people and I get so much pleasure from being part of their sewing journeys.

 

I take lots of photos of nature and when I am not working I enjoy being at home tending our small productive garden where we grow herbs, fruit and veg. My secret wish is to transport our home and garden to a flower meadow, high up on the edge of a hill surrounded by trees and with a view of the sea in the distance.

Recently I’ve been …

...doing a lot of dressmaking! After spending years making for others, having previously made theatre costumes for a living, I am now really enjoying making more of my own clothes. My aim is to one day have only ‘me made’ clothes in my wardrobe. My recent makes are some Katherine Hepburn inspired wide leg linen trousers and a simple top using New Look 6808 pattern. My biggest dressmaking project recently though was making a Prom dress with my eldest daughter for her school leavers Prom.

 

As well as dressmaking I have been making paper pompoms, leading a free drop in pompom workshop at a local art centre. The pompoms were used to decorate the centre for its indoor music festival where I was in my element running hippie flower crown making activities.

I’ve been working on…

...an exciting project with my friend Jen from My Make do and Mend Year, writing a chapter about hemming for a fantastic e-book she is putting together. The book will give advice on the basics of making and mending and will be out in the autumn.

 

I am also collating images of our Alice and Ginny student’s creations to put together for a celebratory display of their work at Thread textile festival in Farnham in September.

 

After a relaxing summer the time has now come to write lesson plans and prepare the materials for our autumn sewing workshops and courses which recommence in early September.

I am also just about to start making a shirt for my husband for his 50th birthday and helping my daughters plan and bake a celebration cake, based on his love of growing vegetables. Should these projects go to plan, there may be a blog post to share our results

I’ve been blogging about…

...having blogged since 2006 I seem to have become a lazy blogger lately.  I have however recently blogged about making calendula salve from marigold flowers in my garden, after seeing a great recipe on the permaculture blog. I also joined in the golden mending craze and shared my repair job after ripping my skirt on barbed wire and I've written some blog posts about the process of making my daughters Prom dress.

 

I’ve been reading…

... Letting in the Wild Edges by Glennie Kindred, a beautiful book about connecting with nature and learning to use native plants. Next on my list to read is Cultivating Your Creative Life by Alena Hennessy which has lots of art exercises and inspiration for drawing and painting from nature.

While I sew I like to listen to… 

... radio iplayer or podcasts. The Arts and Healing Network’ is a particular favourite as they have wonderful interviews on the healing power of the creative arts. This is an area I am passionate about and within my teaching work I see daily the importance and benefit of creating as a way of expression, relaxation, connection and confidence building.

Ginny’s 3 Top Tips for Dressmaking

1. Start with simple garments with only a few pattern pieces and minimal techniques. Loose fitting tops and dresses or a simple A-line skirt make perfect first projects.

2. When choosing a dressmaking pattern, image search the pattern numbers you like. This way you will see what the designs look like made up in different fabrics and on lots of different body shapes. You may even find some reviews or blog posts from dressmakers who have made up the patterns with all their tips and modifications for sewing them.

3. Always do a toile first. This is a mock up of the garment created in a cheap cloth of a similar weight to the final cloth. Often calico or old sheets are used. This ‘test run’ is important to do to check for fit but also gives you an opportunity to work through and become familiar with the pattern instructions and the process of construction. It also gives you a chance to make any mistakes here so when you come to your real garment it will be plain sailing!

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Visit Alice & Ginny for info about sewing courses and workshops, or click here to visit Ginny's blog. You'll also find Ginny on Twitter.

Click here to meet the other Crafty Ladies I've featured.

Please note: the Amazon links in this post are affiliate links.  

Book Review: Merchant and Mills Sewing Book

Today I'm reviewing the Merchant and Mills Sewing Book, by Carolyn Denham.

Like Sew Over It (which I reviewed a few weeks ago) this is another vintage-inspired sewing book but I think it would be quite difficult to find another book more different to Sew Over It's retro prettiness - which is firmly in florals + bunting + gingham + cupcakes + Keep Calm & Carry On -style vintage territory. The styling of the Merchant & Mills book (like the packaging for their haberdashery range) is stripped back, utilitarian, with muted colours and a consciously old-fashioned writing style. Check out that grey board cover!

The cover gives this book a very distinctive look, but the cover of my review copy unfortunately got a bit bashed up in the post and I think it could very quickly start looking a mess as it would damage easier / get greasy marks on it / etc much more than an "ordinary" hardback book. (I think my concern about this may mean I am turning into my mother, but I do like my books to stay looking nice, especially the fancy hardbacks).

The blurb on the back of the book reads "Keep it simple and do it well. No shortcuts. No Cheating. Just good old-fashioned sewing" ... "Use for reference or as a jolly good read." The first part of the book - "the foundations" -  is very much for reference, with chapters going into lots of detail about tools, techniques, haberdashery, fabric and "the importance of meticulous pressing".

It's written in what seems like an imitation of the style of an old instructional guide or household manual, and it's illustrated with retro diagrams...

...and pictures with muted colours (often featuring vintage bits of sewing kit).

The second part of the book is the projects, with instructions for making things like bags, a tailor's ham, an ironing board cover and cushions.

Lots of the projects involve quite heavy weight fabrics like oilskin, canvas and denim which gives them a different feel to the ones found in sewing books that mostly use pretty printed cottons.

There are also two paper patterns included at the end of the book (in an envelope attached to the inside cover) - for a Fisherman's Top and a Tailored Shawl.

The paper patterns unfortunately both need enlarging by 175%, which is a bit of a shame as surely the point of including paper patterns in a book like this is so you can get some full size patterns that don't need enlarging? I think I would have preferred to see one full-size pattern included instead of two that need to be enlarged.

Each project is illustrated with black and white drawings to guide you through all the steps, which all look pretty clear and detailed.

Overall, I think the utilitarian vintage style beloved by Merchant & Mills is so strongly and consistently expressed throughout this book that I think it's a bit of a "Marmite" book - one you'll either "love" (and spend many happy hours pouring over the vintage-y details and enjoying how the book is written) or "hate".

Personally I have to admit that, as a lover of all things colourful and bright, I did find the lack of colour in the book a bit off-putting and I don't really have an itch to make any of the projects, possibly because in the chosen fabrics I just can't picture them in my house or in my wardrobe. The book actually addresses the colour issue directly in the chapter about fabric:

"A further caveat for all you colourful souls out there is that our middle name is 'drab', which the dictionary defines primarily as 'dull'. That is to say, we lean towards the darker, more muted end of the spectrum for much of our making and are particularly alarmed by bright primary colours. This is a personal choice and should not be seen as a directive." ... but actually, I think my personal choice would be to choose a reference book like Sewing Made Simple which, for me, was a great balance of prettiness and practical information.

But if the Merchant & Mills style really appeals to you  (if you've looked at the photos in this blog post and gone "oooh" or if you can't resist the siren song of their retro packaging when you see their products in shops) or you're just looking for a really practical, really detailed book on some sewing basics and don't care whether it's colourful or "pretty", I would still heartily recommend this book!


The Merchant and Mills Sewing Book is published by Collins & Brown. RRP £20. It's available from Amazon UK, The Book Depository, several sellers on Amazon USA and from many other bookshops.

[Disclaimer: Collins & Brown sent me a free review copy of this book, & the Amazon & Book Depository links in this post are affiliate links]

Book Review: Sew Over It

First up in my "hurrah for sewing!" mini-series of reviews: Sew Over It: Sew it, Wear it, Make it by Lisa Comfort which I totally meant to review last year and then got too busy and forgot (oops).

I have to admit to having never heard of Lisa Comfort or her sewing cafe "Sew Over It" when I got sent this book to review last year, and then she popped up on Kirstie's Vintage Home a few weeks later which was nice!

Sew Over It is a smallish hardback, about 9 or 10 inches high and about 160 pages long. It's very pretty book with a retro, vintage-y feel to it. Each of the chapter headings features a double page fabric print...

... there are nice little touches like a button or a pin next to the page numbers at the bottom of the pages (depending which chapter they're in), and the end papers feature a lovely paper-sewing-pattern design:

There are also lots of pics of Lisa wearing snazzy vintage outfits and shopping for lovely supplies (these are all very nice photos but to be totally honest they do feel a little like padding at times).

The book starts out with an introduction to Lisa and how she started Sew Over It...

... then there's a short introductory guide to basic skills like threading a needle, simple hand stitches and using your sewing machine.

The rest of the book is made up of simple projects, with an emphasis on beginner- or learner-friendly ideas and skills to help you gain confidence in customising, adapting and updating your wardrobe.

There's a chapter on "Customising Clothes", which includes ideas like swapping plain buttons for pretty fabric-covered ones, and tips on embellishing clothes with sequins, motifs, beads, buttons, ribbons and strips of fabric.

All the project ideas are explained with step by step instructions and clear photos.

Then there's the chapter which I think I'll personally find the most useful: "Altering Clothes". This chapter is perfectly designed for someone like me who loves to buy vintage and other second-hand clothes but doesn't have the confidence to alter my finds help them fit me better. The chapter includes are some vintage shopping tips and guides to useful things like turning up a hem, shaping side seams, elasticating a waist, and changing sleeves.

The next chapter is "Making Accessories" with some quick projects like making a vintage scarf necklace, sewing a simple headband, or decorating a tote bag with appliqued shapes. These are the sort of projects you could sew in an afternoon or make at a fun crafty evening with friends.

The final chapter - "Challenging Yourself" - features a guide to measuring yourself, and instructions for making a tote bag with plaited straps and three styles of skirt including this Sex & The City inspired tulle skirt.

If, like me, you fancy a wardrobe full of handmade clothes but find the sort of "proper" dressmaking featured on The Great British Sewing Bee a little bit intimidating, I think the ideas for customising and adapting clothes included in Sew Over It are a great solution.

It's probably also a lot cheaper to buy a dress from your local charity shop and customise it than it would be to buy metres of quality fabric, etc, making this a great book for students or anyone else on a budget. If time machines are invented tomorrow, I am totally sending a copy of this book back in time to myself when I was a student - there were so many great frocks I left on the rails of Bristol's charity shops with deep sighs because they needed a bit of altering to suit me!

Sew Over It is published by Ebury Press. RRP £15.00. It's available from Amazon UK, The Book Depository and a selection of sellers on Amazon USA.

[Disclaimer: Ebury Press sent me a free review copy of this book, & the Amazon & Book Depository links in this post are affiliate links]