Mini People!

One of my many alter-egos is being a consulting contractor in projects. Basically I assist project managers, ensuring they abide by certain methodologies, complete appropriate documentation, report to stakeholders etc.

Last year whilst working for a local firm I made some really great friends who were really encouraging of my creative side, they liked to see what things I had been working on and enjoyed me sending them odd cartoons based on situations at work or weird things people had said.

One of those friends was Abi, she had started in the February and we became firm friends. Similar sense of humour and we had a great laugh. I discovered one day in April that her birthday was the following day and I thought that I should make her something that would make her smile. In UK projects we tend to follow a methodology called PRINCE2 (PRojects IN Controlled ENvironments), something which Abi knows a lot about. Her PRINCE2 manual went everywhere with her. She also often talked about how she loved savoury buffet type food, pork pies, scotch eggs etc. So I thought I would make her something that incorporated some of the things I knew she liked – and so I made a Mini Abi…

I made her using felt for the clothes and accessories, wool for hair (with a ribbon in it) and backed with a funky owl fabric and lightly stuffed. She has her PRINCE2 Manual and a pork pie. They are held on with Velcro so can be removed as required. She absolutely loved it! It remains on her desk and is something she often shows people.

After making Mini Abi, my work colleagues insisted that I make more, so I made this one of one of our project managers – Brian.

As our projects often involved work with the emergency services it seemed fitting to use a fabric with a police car on the back.

I then made one for our head of Testing – Paul. He needed some cheering up. He had been brought in to help give proper structure to the test team and to ensure we had proper test documentation and generally sort things out!

So by day, he was mild mannered Paul, drinking tea and writing test strategies…

But when he hears the distressed call of a project manager he drops his cup of tea (or carefully places it down) – rips off his tie and transforms into Super Test Man!!!

He was backed with some super awesome pac-man fabric for that bit of geek chic.

I then made one for the lovely lady I sat next to – Mel. A rather stylish woman who was a keen swimmer.

Her work attire (complete with fashionable scarf) was attached by a couple of wrap around velcro ties which could then be removed…

 It’s like something out of Baywatch!

Then finally I thought it was time to make one of me. So this is what I did – with some fab tattoo fabric (as I do rather like tattoos and have one on my back) and with a cunning accessory!

Yes – it’s a Mini Me with an even Minier Me!

She now sits on my kitchen windowsill – overseeing my sewing – along with polka dot pots of felt tip pens, painted pebbles and a yellow glittery sunflower made out of a Costa frappe lid – oh and this little lady I made ages ago!

Clothing and Patrick

I’ve been really enjoying watching the latest series of The Great British Sewing Bee, although strangely enough I am not at all interested in making clothing. I don’t know if it is because I lack the confidence to make something for someone that has to fit right and not make a right hash of it, but I’ve just never looked at clothing patterns and gone ‘oooh I’d love to make that!’

(Image from http://www.theguardian.com)

My Mum is a really great sewer, she has been doing it pretty much all of her life. Back when she was at school in the 1950s girls just did sewing as part of their normal lessons. Mum did dressmaking and often made her own clothes, she made her own wedding dress – purposefully made a short dress to annoy her future father in law who kept going on about her having a long floor length dress. She then some years later chopped up her wedding dress to make a little dress for a doll to celebrate the Queen’s Silver Jubilee. (A doll I later had and promptly scribbled on her face with a Biro…)

My Mum has made me and my siblings clothes when we were kids, she was always on hand to fix things if they needed mending (like when my hamster chewed a hole in the collar of a very expensive coat I bought!) She made outfits to wear to parties and to my sister’s wedding and made me a skirt to wear for my A-Level leavers dinner. She also knits a mean little dress…

Don’t you just love the 80s? That is me in the red knitted dress…

So she is not a stranger to the dressmaking pattern, to sewing in concealed zips, box pleats, darts, rolled hems and bias binding. She also makes curtains for people and cushion covers, and has made bedspreads and drapery for four-poster beds. In short my Mum is a very talented seamstress. It doesn’t mean she never makes mistakes, we often have a laugh talking about the times she has had a bit of a paddy at the machine when it has decided to eat up a load of thread or voile, or the times she panics thinking she has cut the fabric out wrong for something when there isn’t any spare fabric to do it again (99.9% of the time it turns out to be totally fine and she has just got herself in a tizzy.)

So why do I watch The Great British Sewing Bee if I am not into making clothes? It’s all about making clothes. I think it is just to learn a few bits and bobs in general about sewing. I was never any good at school, and haven’t ever had proper lessons. I am impatient and not mad keen on having to measure everything out perfectly!

I’m not a mega fan of the presenter Claudia Winkleman (who my mother lovingly refers to as a ‘Bumhole’) but she makes me laugh sometimes and I like seeing how different people can make something from the same pattern or item of clothing.

But, one of the main reasons is probably for Patrick Grant, one of the two judges on the show. Tall, well presented, with a beard (my husband has a beard so according to him I must therefore fancy any other man with a beard…) He is a designer and Savile Row tailor, although his background is in engineering which surprised me when I Googled him the other night. He knows his stuff and has a good eye but also a good sense of humour (which is the sort of thing that attracts me to someone – rather than facial hair alone.)

So I’m never going to be putting myself forward to be a contestant on the show, definitely not. Not just because of my lack of interest (and skill) for sewing clothing, but because I hate to be the centre of attention, hate having my photo taken so being on TV would be horrible for me! So I’ll just carry on making my weird little bits and bobs and perhaps just encounter Patrick in my dreams so he can tell me off about misaligned darts and then whisk me away for some naughtiness on the fabric cutting table…

Mmmm yes please – take my inside leg measurement! (Image from http://www.retailgazette.co.uk)