Great British Sewing Bee Live |

Last month, the day before I went to the Balenciaga exhibition at the V&A, I went to the Great British Sewing Bee Live with my friend Sarah (who it turns out has the same birthday as me!!!) and my new friend Stef. And it was ace!

There were quite a few different displays of clothes around the exhibition, like this one by either GCSE or A-Level students, I can’t remember which!

I wouldn’t be able to make most of these dresses now, let alone when I was 16 or 18! I Wasn’t really sewing back then, but still….

I failed to take a note of what these red dresses were all about – anyone else who went know what they were/why they were there? I did love them, however!

I would love to know what structure was underneath this collar.

I slightly love all the circles on the one in the middle, below.

Probably my favourite exhibition within the exhibition was a display of liberty print outfits, showing the history of liberty prints and the history of clothing shapes and silhouettes. I’m not a huge fan of the more cintzy liberty prints but I liked quite a few of the ones they had in display. I love this blue one!

I love these psychadelic 60s ones.

I also weirdly like this more 70s dress. The colours are a little washed out, and it may be the style of the dress I’m drawn to, but I do really like it.

I love this one. I love the combination of the velvet and the print. Velvet is definitely on my radar this Winter as it seems to be everywhere at the moment. I’m thinking of making a velvet party dress for the New Craft House Winter Party – maybe I’ll copy this dress!?

This green one might be my absolute favourite! I love the silhouette and the fabric isn’t totally unfortunate.

One of the best things about GBSB Live was the display of the clothes made on the actual show they had. I loved this outfit that Rumana made.

I was going to use the pattern from the hacking jacket Lauren made in season 1 as the pattern for my suit refashion, but I couldn’t fit all of the pattern pieces onto the existing jacket pieces. Boo. I still like the jacket, though, so I might give it a go in the future….with new fabric.

The 60s jacket Jade made is one of my favourite things anyone’s every made on the Sewing Bee – and I got to see it in real life!

These gowns are both amazing in real life. I want to wear both of them!

I didn’t remember to take too many other photos as I was too busy trying to spend all my money on fabric!

I resisted the urge to buy this fabric, though I slightly regret it now looking at this photo!

I like how these lampshades looked on the Higgs and Higgs stand.

And now onto what I bought. One of the things I was determined to get was some nice white fabric with a bit of drape that wasn’t see-through to make a white shirt from. I don’t have a plain white shirt and it definitely feels like a gap in my wardrobe. There was a stall called Holland and Sherry which is a fabric mill which supplies Saville Row and usually only supplies to trade and not to ‘normal’ people. They had some amazing stuff, which was all sold in specific lengths – this one was luckily 2 metres, and cost £20 which I don’t think is too bad given how good quality it is.

This lovely off white with black-brown flecks was from Higgs and Higgs. A lot of their stuff was quilting cotton and was quite stiff, but this stuff is really soft and drapey. I’m planning probably a melilot.

I also bought some basic navy blue jersey for hopefully my first Tilly and the Buttons Agnes top, but it was impossible to photograph! The last thing is this lovely linen-y cotton remnants from Guthrie and Ghani. I also bought the Kalle shirt and shirtdress from them.

All in all I was impressed with the first GBSB Live – it was really nice to have an event specifically aimed at dressmakers. It’s been a while since I’ve been to the Knitting and Stitching Show as I was disappointed with the selection of dressmaking fabrics the last time I went, though it seems to have imrpoved in the last couple of years. I met quite a few new people and saw a bunch of people I had met before. It’s really nice to be part of such a lovely community.

I’m going to Sew Brum on Saturday – who else will be there?! I plan to buy yet more fabric, but then I think I’m going to have to ban myself from buying more until I’ve made, like, 15 garments!