We have been partly in a state of semi-hibernation here this winter and partly it has been a time of learning new things for all of us, which I hope will continue during the year. Jeremy and Ewan have been taking guitar lessons at The Old Town school of Folk music and I have decided that I want to improve my sewing skills. I had learned the basics at school – thanks to Mrs. Neil, but I hadn’t sewn much in a while and was out of practice. I was also getting increasingly fed up of not being able to find clothes that I liked that fitted me well. I’m only 5ft 2″ish and standard sizes are often too, long, but petite sizes can sometimes be too short.
I decided that I wanted to put together my Christmas money from family together this year and to buy myself something that I have wanted to buy for quite a while. I ordered a dress form from PGM, through Amazon. Her name is Audrey, partly after Miss Hepburn and partly Audrey Tatou. As well as helping me to fit clothing and designing jewellery, I think she will also be useful for photographing my jewellery and knitwear as well. Ewan is very amused by Audrey, he kept saying “she has a butt”, over and over.:)
https://www.instagram.com/p/Bfdq8fxH3wf/?taken-by=janatherton
https://www.instagram.com/p/BfecAFjH4KG/?taken-by=janatherton
Both of us have been watching lots of you-tube videos on sewing and how to drape on a dress form, particularly those by Sten Martin Jonnson and Nick Verreos, both have very different presentation styles, Sten is quite quiet, shy and methodical, Nick is bubbly and more gregarious, but the enthusiasm both have for the subject shows through. Nick may be familiar to those of you that watch Project Runway, I wasn’t familiar with that – I tend to watch The Great British Sewing Bee more. I have been trying out making my first drape on the form, which hopefully will become a muslin, then perhaps a summer top, if it works out. I will post again once i have more progress on my current projects.