Check out this wonderful applique work that one of my lovely customers Sarah made using my Liberty offcuts for her little girl Cosmo!  Love the blanket stitch.  See some of the handmade Liberty print clothes I've made for Cosmo over the past few years on my Happy Customers pages. 

I love the idea of passing down sewing knowledge.  Mum (who was a couture designer in the 60s) taught me to sew as a little girl.  I grew up making cushions & bags and even won our local Young Enterprise competition at school selling drawstring bags.  I'd made the odd dress and pair of trousers for myself but never really gone further.  I never had the time with a busy, full-time job as a radio producer.  So the very best thing about starting Peak Princess has been sitting down with Mum and learning the art of pattern cutting, design and pattern making, and, of course, beautiful sewing.

Last year I taught Chinley 1st Guides to make hair scrunchies.  Though they were great I'd advise that they are actually quite fiddly and possibly a better project one on one that trying to teach twenty odd girls at once how to work out that fiddly bit of sewing the closure.  So this year, I took inspiration from Cloth Magazine's pattern for making drawstring shoe bags.  Super simple, near instant results and very pretty and customisable with different fabrics, ribbons and decorations.

Thankfully - with 26 girls - I had a couple of Mums as well as local fabric designer Kate Yorke (from Emily Pickle who makes my hair accessories) on hand to help with cutting, ironing and learning to use the sewing machine.  We split the group with half making cards wtih local linocut artist Jill Kerr and bead badges with another local bedding linen designer Rachel Child. 

Many of the girls were genuinely fearful of the machine*, never having used one before.  My approach is to acknowledge machines can be dangerous but with a bit of respect they are easy to master and you are always in control.  Most of them took to it like ducks to water and the look of amazement on their faces when they turned the bags inside out and realised they'd made something was priceless.

(*It was also interesting to get to use the John Lewis mini sewing machine (£49).  It's great value and the speed is nice and slow but personally I think the horizontal bobbin deck made threading very fussy and it seemed to come unthreaded and lose tension quicker than the grown-up machines.  That said, I'm a massive John Lewis fan and do all my Peak Princess sewing on their basic Janome machines).  

   I'm not sure they believed me when I told them that now they'd mastered the drawstring bag they had learnt all the basic skills you need to make cushions, curtains and even a halterneck dress.  Perhaps that's next year's class!

PS I'd really recommend buying any child who shows a creative streak a subscription to Cloth magazine (just £12 a year) or go on their website's project page.

When my friend Hayley asked me if I'd help her daughter (and original Peak Princess model), Caitlin, to make a Tudor ruff for her Elizabethan themed school day next week I said no problem, imaginining I could concertina up a bit of the lining fabric I use for my dresses.

Then I started doing my research and started getting anxious. The marvellously ego boosting thing about children is that the have total faith in your skills.  But there's nothing more crushing than a child's disappointment.

Various internet blogs suggested it was a 4 to 8 hour job & required some pretty specialist skills, not to mention materials like lace and horse hair.

Fortunately I stumbled upon Dawn's Costume Guide.  I didn't have wired ribbon but I do use a lot of net which has the stiffness of starched lace.

I adapted Dawn's idea combining it with other patterns.  Using my mannequin as a guide Caitlin decided she wanted a ruff that was 8 cm wide and stands 4cm tall - just fitting under her chin.  My netting is 150cm wide.  To give extra bulk and a smooth edge we cut 16cm strips and folded them lengthways.  We made a 4cm piece of card as a folding guide...

...It was too springy and Caitlin was worried about the itchiness factor on the cut side so I ran the long side through the overlocker, though you could just using a running stitch on the machine or hand baste.

We folded up one (while turning fishfingers and trying not to let Otso the dog eat either the fish or pins).  Rather than trying to do complicated maths, we measured it against my mannequin. 

The inside of the ruff measured about 5 or 6cm.  So we reckoned with Caitlin's neck measuring 30cm round that we needed about 5 lots of 150cm sewn together.  I used a big darning needle that I use for sewing knitted seams and some strong linen thread to sew the overlocked edges of the pleats together.

Our guess-timate was right and even if we'd have been wrong we could have just added an extra one in. 

According to Drea Lead's guide to making an Elizabethan ruff, authentic closed collar ruffs like those worn by Queen Elizabeth, were lined with starched linen.  I improvised with the ivory double satin that I use for my Patty's Petticoats (named after Caitlin's grandma).  It's soft and I have plenty of it and ties easily.  Caitlin was still worried about itchiness so we actually ended up using 2 widths of 25cm one hand sewn to the top edge with trailing ribbons to tie the ruff plus an extra band sewn to the bottom edge.  I basted them together in the middle.

Proud of our achivements, we were keen to show them off.  My other half Nikalas Cook was down at our local pub, The Old Hall Inn, having a pint after an afternoon bike ride with our friend Paul Barton (one half of the talented graphic design Design Everything - his other half, Hannah, designed my new logo).

The 16th century Minstrel's Gallery provided the perfect backdrop for an impromptu photo shoot.

Spot the difference?

Queen Caitlin
Can't wait to see the ruff with period costume dress next week.