Great British Sewing Bee Series 2 |

As I mentioned in my review of the second Great British Sewing Bee book, I’ve made the baby dungarees for my nephew using the pattern in the book. I used some cute spotty cotton in suitably non-girly colours (my nephew is so cute he frequently gets mistaken for a girl!).

Because he wears cloth nappies, my nephew has a larger bum than babies that wear disposable nappies do, so I made a practice pair to check that the dungarees would be big enough to go around him. I made the biggest size, 12-18 months as I made them for his first birthday and he’s quite big for his age. I stuffed them with pillows to see the full size and they were luckily plenty big enough – I feared I would have to work out how to do a FBA – Full Bum Adjustment! Don’t they look creepy?

The dungarees came together relatively quickly, because they’re so small and there aren’t too many pieces. I think like the patterns in the old book, this one could have been drafted better. The straps are sewn into the hem a the back so they look like this:So I decided to sew them again, so they they didn’t fold back the hem.The other part that wasn’t clearly explained or well written was the button tabs on the sides. The way it was written, there would have been some raw edges and I’m a bit too anal about things being neat on the inside and outside, so I fudged it a bit. You have to cut the seam allowance at the top of the side seams here:

Then the instructions tell you to just fold the tabs back twice to hem them, which would leave a raw edge at the bottom of the tabs on the outside:

So I turned the bottom edge over before sewing it:

I’m pretty pleased with how they turned out. When my sister unwrapped them, quite a few people at the party assumed I’d bought them, which is possibly the highest compliment you can get for homemade garments! I sewed one of my name tags in the back, but forgot to take a picture.

I also added a little pocket on the front in a matching shade of orange, which was just some polycotton I had left over from when I made my sister’s apron. I used the pattern for the pocket from the first Sewing Bee book’s Boyfriend Shirt .

The only other change I made was to sew on normal poppers instead of the stronger snap things that the pattern suggests, the ones you put on with that clamp thing.

This seemed like a fine idea until I realised they all undid as soon as my nephew moved around in them! Oops. He did look cute though.

First one leg undid….Then he was basically wearing a weird-shaped dress…..

They didn’t restrict his movement, though – he still managed to make a bid for freedom!

I’m tempted to make more kiddies’ clothes as they’re small and therefore quick to sew up and they’re so cute!

So I know I’m way behind the times, since the series has been over for weeks now, but I’m sharing the second Great British Sewing Bee Book with you today. I got a copy free from work (one of the perks of working in a bookshop is not only cheap, but sometimes free books!). I think I enjoyed the second series of the Sewing Bee a bit less than the first, partly because I felt like some of the challenges were hard for the sake of being hard – but maybe they had to do that as they can’t make the same things in every series. And although I enjoyed the no pattern week, it kind of irritated me that it was a bit Project Runway and that I would imagine the majority of home-sewers do use patterns always.

Anyway, these were small niggles, and the patterns that come with the book are pretty good – and you get printed pattern sheets with this book instead of having to print and stick the downloadable ones like with the first book.

I think the first book had a pencil skirt in, but I prefer the one in this book. Maybe I’m just drawn to the pink and the spots!?

I really love the 1930s blouse that they made and have it traced already to make!

I also thought the baby dungarees they made were really sweet, and I was so glad the pattern was included in the book. I have already made these for my nephew (who turned 1 the weekend before last!). I’ll be posting the full details later in the week.

I also love this bowling shirt – it seems quite rare to be able to find a bowling shirt pattern. I think it could also double up as a Hawaiian shirt pattern – I have some gorgeous, genuine Hawaiian fabric that I desperately wanted to make into this shirt, but there’s only about a metre and even with a contrasting collar and cuffs, I can’t get the pattern pieces to fit, boo 😦

I’m thrilled that they included the pattern for Tamara’s 1960s coat! I would definitely not use the same fabric as her as that stuff looked like a bitch to sew with, but I really love the 60s and this coat is a really nice shape. I’m determined to make a coat at some point, so maybe this will be the pattern?