A Dose of Gingham Goodness

By lizhaywood | March 17, 2026 |

I’m making a nightie for my teen using a Jane Austen-era pattern for a shift, following on from last week’s post on using an historical sewing pattern. The pattern is in Costume Close-Up – a book of patterns from garments in the collection of the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation in the USA. Beyond the patterns, the…

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Using an Historical Sewing Pattern

By lizhaywood | March 10, 2026 |

Following on from last week’s Marx-Etzel trousers, I thought it would be fun to discuss historical sewing patterns. These are patterns for clothes that are… These patterns are almost always zero waste, and a quick search on the Internet will bring up examples. They can also be found in books: However, if you’re used to…

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99 years of the jumpsuit: re-creating the Tuta

By lizhaywood | July 2, 2019 |

Photo source: Wiki commons Do you own a jumpsuit? Maybe you have many. Have you ever sewn a jumpsuit? It’s been 99 years since the launch of what we now call the jumpsuit. Its inventor was Italian futurist artist Ernesto Michahelles (who adopted the palindrome pseudonym Thayaht) in collaboration with his younger brother Ruggero Alfredo…

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