Ciao, le belle signore!! I am soooooo happy to introduce Ms Autumn! the fourth and final doll in my little set of four seasonal girlies…
I’m rather rapt with this young lady… her colour scheme is fab – u – lous!!! and very much right up my alley. Well, I suppose since I identify as an autumn girl myself, so yeah! This rich warm collection of tomato red, gold, rusty orange, teal blue, forest green is totally one I would choose for myself… well haha, obviously I’ve chosen all the girl’s colour schemes myself, but well you know what I mean! I’ve so much enjoyed choosing all the girl’s colours to co-ordinate nicely and I thoroughly loved choosing this one too
Like her friends, Ms Autumn has a range of clothes to choose from, so she is ready and prepared for ANY situation:
a winter ensemble with leggings, a tunic dress and knitted beanie… I gave her a kangaroo pocket on her tunic! because it’s rather lovely to have a warm kangaroo pocket you can stow your hands in to keep them warm in winter…
… little lace knickers, embroidered with a tiny, rich orange-y red rosebud…
a twirly summer dress… I only had the tiniest portion of this gorgeous rusty orange/gold print, and was so glad I managed to squeeze the little dress from out of it, because I think it’s just absolutely perfect for her!
… a sequinned cocktail dress, naturally in bright sunshine-y gold! This particular fabric is a little sheer so I lined it with cream coloured jersey knit. Well, modesty is a virtue, si?
Want to hear something a bit funny… ? I think my favourite favourite thing about her entiiiiiire ensemble is actually this little necklace?!
Up until now I’ve ade the girls’ necklaces using a simple, single loop of wire. I had some gold wire for Ms Autumn, but frustratingly it was just a little too flimsy to use by itself. This stumped me for a little bit… should I use one of the other coloured wires I had? but I really had my heart set on gold. Finally I thought about making a twisted gold necklace. It took me a few attempts of painstakingly careful twisting to get the twist nice and even all the way along! but finally I had a necklace I was satisfied with. The little catch closure was little tricky, but I’m in love with how it worked out in the end! Though I thought the little necklace was pretty cute by itself, it looked just a touch spare without a pendant, so I decided at the last minute to add a gold-apricot pearl to nestle against her décolletage…
She also a zippered forest green duffle bag, which is roomy enough to store all her things, should she wish to go off for a weekend trip, or something, and need all her stuff.
… and her dust bag, in a deep raspberry shade which also goes quite nicely with all her things, imo
My friend Meggipeg asked me recently… isn’t it hard to part with “my” girls? and yes, it’s little bit scary! but it really does make me truly happy to think they are going to homes where they can be played with; and Ms Autumn may be the last in this set, however I’m still enjoying myself so I haven’t ruled out making more? hmmm, I’ll see how I go, got so much on my plate at the mo…!
Also I guess it’s probably pretty obvious by now; all the girls, Ms’ Winter, Spring, Summer, and Ms Autumn here too, and all their wardrobes are of course made with the same patterns, one that Cassie and I have been working hard at developing as a new pattern to put in our shop! It’s going to be available very very soon… stay tuned!
Well, hello there gorgeous! I’m thrilled to introduce Ms Summer to the world! the latest in my small set of seasonal girlies…
I hand-dyed natural calico with a small army of different iDyes to get Ms Summer’s lovely cocoa-toned skin tone, however her luxuriant mane of tawny hair came ready-dyed in this wonderful range of browns/charcoal/tan and the occasional touches of chestnut… and can I just say I over-the-top love her hair!! and actually would kill to have a crazy multicoloured mane like this myself…
I have hair envy!!!!
Like her friends, she comes with a whole lot of lovely clothes, to keep her comfortable and suitably attired for all seasons.
For summer, she has this pretty little wrap dress… one can never have too many stripes in one’s wardrobe.. oui? and the blue-and-white sets off her baby blues rather nicely too, I reckon. Also I rather like the way the stripes lie which way (but loose) all over her dress 🙂
For winter, she has a turtleneck sweater in millennial pink – eeee! sah trendyyyyy! – with an attached denim miniskirt, also a pair of light periwinkle tights, and a hand knitted beanie in shades of slightly variegated lavender/mauve.
I have to say, I’m particularly enamoured of her little denim skirt… probably because when I was a teen I practically lived in little denim skirts myself. Teenaged me would no doubt have pounced on the pink turtleneck too, to be honest 😉
Of course she has cute little lace knickers too, with an embroidered rosebud on the front…
… and if she wishes to attend a soiree, or even just for strolling on the beach should such a thing take her fancy, she has a sequinned cocktail dress in a shade to perfectly highlight and set off her cornflower blue eyes.
… which she can accessorise with her classic pearl drop necklace…
… AND she has a jaunty emerald green duffle bag.. with pockets!! to carry all her kit 🙂
Not pictured above, but like all my dollies she also comes with a lavender tote bag that she and all her things can be safely stored in, when she’s not being played with.
The latest addition to my little set of seasonal dolls is finished! Please say g’day to Ms Spring!
Ms Spring is, obviously, a spring-y kind of a girly; she is actually made from the exact same ivory calico as her sister Ms Winter but has light coffee-coloured skin thanks to a long hot soaking in a cup of strong coffee. Not Ms Spring herself, of course, but her fabric prior to her making! She has green/blue eyes, and tawny golden blonde hair. I’m super pleased with her hair! It started out life pale grey in colour; Morris & Sons Empire 4ply, 100% Australian merino “French Grey”, and I dyed it in a yellow/orange dye solution, the same dye-bath that I used for this jacket. I wanted the colour to be a bit blotchy and two-tone, because natural hair IS is a bit variegated in colour so that’s a more realistic look…. so dunked the completely dry wool straight into the bath and just minimally swirled it about, just a little bit. I’m so so happy with the pretty range of warm golden yellows I got! I also really adore her side-swept fringe ‘do…
Up top, she is wearing her cocktail dress; a blush pink sequinned number which is in my humble opinion, the most divine shade of pink ever invented!! How much would I like a dress for myself in this colour?? SOOOOOOOOO much! I know, I know, I should just make one. Sadly though my actual life involves zero need for a pretty pink sequinned dress, so I’m just going to settle for making one for this young lady instead 😉
Her matching necklace is all pink; pink jewellery wire, with a pink-y apricot pearl bead.
on Wednesdays we wear pink….
Her summer dress is a checked yellow rayon, beautifully drape-y… this fabric is a little fray-y, so I went to the effort of a narrow rolled hem. So fancy!
Really though – really – my personal piece de resistance for this dolly has been her winter outfit… this turned out rather chic, if I say so myself!! I’d made the denim blue leggings, and knitted her little blue beanie… and then just couldn’t settle on a good colour/look for her turtleneck sweater dress. I actually made three other rejected candidates, prior to this one! None of them were just right, too dull, or too bright – it’s really important to me that all the pieces in my dolly’s wardrobes tone together really beautifully and have a lovely and harmonious overall colour scheme. I love this dolly’s colour scheme; it’s soft and sorta cheerfully pretty in a muted way, a bit stronger than pastel but definitely not bright. I just couldn’t settle upon a fabric/colour that fitted my vision. Then I made this ivory sweater dress, which is nice, but still not quiiiiite right, and finally I hit upon the idea of adding embroidery to the yoke, to make it look a bit like a fair isle sweater. Well, that’s what I think, anyway! And it all clicked into place! It has blue -the same blue as her beanie -, the orange is the same wool as her hair, except I soaked it in the dye bath for a lot longer to just get a stronger colour – and grassy yellow/green. Now, it’s perfect, I think!
And of course she has a duffle bag! to carry all her stuff! It is made of wide-wale corduroy, that I dyed also to get this shade of caramel brown, and it has a pocket both front and back too. Goodness knows what she is going to put in those pockets, but as we all know, a girl can never have too many pockets, no?!
Oh! of course she has underwear too… a pair of lacey boy-leg briefs, with an embroidered yellow rose on the front, so you can tell the front from the back.
you can see her light, coffee-coloured skin shade better in this picture, I think 🙂
Here she is, with everything!
But wait, not quite everything! There’s more! Lastly, just one more thing… when I sent Ms Winter off, I made at the very last minute a drawstring carry bag, with an inset tulle window, so she can see out… this can store her and all her clothes and possessions in one place, for when she’s not being played with, or out on display or whatever. So, of course I had to make one for Ms Spring too, in a shade of spring-y turquoise that fits nicely in with her particular colour scheme.
I apologise for the delay; we’ve had to contend with a computer issue that has been pretty devastating, some extremely costly software that we desperately needed in order to function has been practically obliterated, it’s been so difficult… All I can say is thank God for Craig who eventually managed to work it out.
Anyway. No one wants to hear about computer blurb, yeah? On to the pattern!
ye all-important size info….
Sam’s girlfriend L is in our new size range so I asked her if she would kindly model for us. I’m so happy she agreed because she is super cute! plus now I had a good reason to make something for her, hehe… The dress I made for her is in a rather beautiful cloudy-sky print, cotton drill from Spotlight, with a white contrasting collar. I absolutely adore this on her!
My favourite part though is the crisp white collar; just love this look! the button is a little wooden one from my stash
Thanks so much L; for being such a totally gorgeous model!!
I also made two blouse versions for my sister in law, Sandi. This first version was initially a bit big on her, which totally did my head in – what did I do?!!! – but eventually I worked out it was all due to a very stupid mistake which I am too darn annoyed and exhausted to even talk about how this happened, suffice to say that one should ALWAYS check the test square BEFORE leaving the copy shop. I know I personally will never ever neglect this ever again!! #superannoying
I took it apart and re-made it to fit properly, just because I’m a glutton for punishment well really, I cannot bear to waste perfectly good fabric! And also, Sandi really likes it 🙂 #allswellthatendswell which is why I went to the effort of re-fitting properly. I cannot say how much I LOVE an appreciative recipient! makes it all worthwhile in the end, yeah? The fabric is a really very nice charcoal and white striped linen, that I ?think? I bought in either Tessuti’s or the Fabric Store in Melbourne, during one of our visits there. The only giveaway that it was initially made to a larger scale is the the overly long collar points, which I just left as they were.
The blue and white striped version, which was correct all the way from go to whoa, yay!! is a rather lovely shirting cotton from Homecraft Textiles.
Yes! Homecraft Textiles actually stocks a really nice little range of crisp shirting cottons… who knew?! certainly not me, since they were hidden way back at the very back of the store behind the vast wasteland of lurid polyester satins and “chiffons” and fleeces that takes up like 90% of that store. One day I was hanging around in there and discovered it. EUREKA!!!
Oh! Something else I made for Sandi recently, which is completely unrelated to our Perth dress pattern so if this seems a little random and out-of-the-blue, sorry! but this seems like a good a time as any to lob it into Le Blog… I promised to make a custom-fit top pattern for Sandi, for her birthday, she put in a request after I had done the same for Mum, a few birthdays back. So I made this one… The shorter, open front T-shirt over a longer one underneath in a contrasting colour is a design modelled to a favourite top she has already. We chose and bought the fabric together from Fabulous Fabrics. I’m kicking myself I forgot to take a picture of her wearing it, because she looks so lovely in these moody pinks and blues. AND she professes herself to really LOVE this one too. This just makes me so happy! See what I mean about a grateful recipient?
Her first name? well, what is in a name? Is a name, “just a name”, or does it mean something? We all know someone who makes us think, “well she certainly doesn’t look like a “Carolyn”, I’ve always thought she looks just like a ____ “(fill in the blank) When I was making this young lady, I did not intend to give her a name myself, in fact I purposely tried to avoid thinking of one. Howeeeeeever, the same as when I made my Sally doll, I couldn’t help it but a name did pop into my head in those quiet zen moments as I was working on her. So, in that respect, she actually does have a name; a quiet maker-born name… but first things first, let me start at the beginning.
I really enjoyed making my first doll Sally, which is why I decided to make this other… she is quite similar but actually quite different too in many little but significant ways. I used the patterns in “the Making of a Rag Doll” by Jess Brown for Sally; whereas I drew up my own new patterns for this girl and for all her clothes. The new girl is taller, has a smaller head and is quite the lanky skinny-minnie compared to the pear-shaped Sally.
She has pale skin, blue eyes and a thick long mane of charcoal-black merino hair… technically “beluga” hair, actually the wool leftover from these hand-knitted gloves, as well as from the heels and toes for nearly all my hand-knitted socks. Just like Sally, her hair fully covers her scalp and can be styled a little.
I started out thinking of her as a Winter girl, thus her colouring; and was just going to make the above winter outfit for her… black merino tights, a black and white striped sweater dress (leftover from this little top) and a knitted beanie (leftovers from these arm warmers) The pattern for the beanie is adapted from that free one from the tiny sparks website, designed for preemie babies. I’ve previously used it when I made a bunch of little preemie outfits. And I added a pompom.
But of course, the minute I’d finished her winter outfit I couldn’t resist making a summer outfit for her too; an elegant and ladylike wrap dress – le dernier-cris!! – in a swishy, prettily floral rayon.
Having two outfits made me realise, of course she was going to be getting undressed every now and then…. which can only mean one thing; underwear. Even dolls deserve pretty underthings! so I made a little pair of lace boy-leg knickers for her too. I embroidered a tiny rosebud with flanking leaves on the front, just because.
And then I thought… all these very casual clothes: what if this glamorous young lady wants to sashay out after dark? Every girl needs a chic little sparkly number for a special occasion, yes? So I whipped up a hot-pink, sequinned, raglan sleeved sheath; in a mini-length in order to show off her enviably long slim legs; and for a finishing touch, added a matching jewelled necklace to nestle at that alabaster throat. Oo lala!
But, all these clothes? How is a girl to get from A to B with all this lot? Not to worry! she has a lovely cherry red duffle bag with a black strap to sling over her shoulder, as she dashes through traffic twixt office and taxi, taxi and theatre. Just like all the cool girls.
Just a note to be real here; the duffle is actually empty in the below picture… she has a tendency to topple over when it’s packed full with her wardrobe!
Oh, her name? Well, that’s for me to know and for you to find out! Anyone who likes to “pin” will be able to find her name easily enough… ! There now, that’s a clue!
This is the first girl in a small seasonal set that I am planning to make, and sell in our shop.
Later edit; I made little raspberry coloured drawstring carry bag, with an inset tulle window so that she can see out… this can store her and all her stuff for when she’s not out and about 🙂
One of the most exciting things for me lately is seeing pictures popping up of everyone’s Perth dresses, it’s been absolutely wonderful seeing it work and how everyone makes it look even more amazing than I could have dreamed! … I personally think it looks fab on everyone but then maybe I’m a wee bit biased? 😉 By the way; by far the most oft-repeated feedback I have received has been requests for a greater size range… I promise this is being worked on right now, as we speak! type? read? well, right now, anyway. And will be on offer pretty soon.
But in the meantime… behold, my lovely testers! all totally rocking their Perth creations… and I should just mention that the sleeves have been shortened by 5cm in the final version of the pattern.
Now for a little story… I have to confess that I made Mum’s dress here! Mum did print out the pattern and made a dress, but it was a little small and oddly shaped, which was very confusing. It took me quite a while to work out WHAT the heck was going on … she’d sent me photos of her pattern which had some weird anomalies. It was during the lead up to our release, and it was all quite stressful actually, totally doing our heads in. Finally she had the opportunity to bring her pattern itself up to my place, I made a few measurements and worked out that their printer must have been set to “fit to scale” for parts of it, meaning the pattern was partially printed out of whack. It was miraculous that she’d managed to make the dress at all, really.
A timely reminder… when printing the pattern at home, check that the printer is set to ACTUAL SIZE!!!!
I didn’t want to make poor Mum make another dress, and I can practically make them in my sleep now, so I resolved to make one for her myself, a little surprise, to make up for all the stress the mis-printed pattern put her through. I whizzed up to Fabulous Fabrics, bought some of this lovely charcoal grey linen and a purple-y/grey pearly button that I think looks absolutely beautiful with it! and quickly whipped one up. I think it looks absolutely beautiful on her, she loves it! and it fits perfectly too, yay! so all is well that ends well.
At Mum’s request, I made the sleeves longer, and she decided she likes them rolled up to make a faux cuff.
I’m showing it twice… but really, that button?!! I LOVE it!!
I’m beyond thrilled to announce the publication of our very first pattern! The Perth dress/blouse is an unlined, loose-fitting little summer frock with a bit of a buttoned-up menswear vibe to it. It’s kinda like a shirtdress, but kinda not. A faux shirtdress. The shirtdress to make when you’re not making a shirtdress. Hehe, I joked in my own head while making it that it’s the shirtdress to make if you loathe buttonholes, since there are barely any at all in this one! Also, I say “our”pattern, not because I’m using the royal “we”; but because I’ve gone into partnership with my daughter! #whatdotheysayaboutfamilyandbusiness but it’s OK, Cassie and I get along very well. Plus she has mad magic Illustrator skills, which perfectly complements my complete lack thereof. So we are the Carolyn & Cassie Pattern Co – this warms the cockles of my heart SO much I can’t even tell you! I never dreamed we’d have some kind of venture together like this but now we do I think I can tick it off some sort of subconscious bucket list that I never knew I had.
So we have a brand new Etsy shop, CarolynandCassie; situated here… Right now there’s only one thing in it, well TWO, since the pdf pattern and paper patterns are listed separately, but we harbour big dreams of having lots and LOTS of designs there in the future. Or maybe that’s just the happy glow that comes with having it finally finished… I’ve been basically living and breathing this thing for such a while, well …. it’s out there now!
So this is what I’ve been working on for the past few months, not just pattern making but lots and lots of sewing too. Apart from well over a dozen muslins, I’ve made four Perths in my quest for the perfect Perth. I shall now proceed to bombard you with Perths, ahem…
1. My chocolate/tobacco version above; this is not strictly a Perth but a “sort of” Perth dress, really. This is my prototype Perth, a Perth in spirit since the final pattern is actually quite different everywhere in small ways … you can see in my little movie below that it’s super bouffy, for one thing, and I tamed the boufff in that back with a big ol’ stern box pleat. Down, boufff, down!
I made this one back in April of last year! and because I’d already had the idea of making it into a pattern somehow it never got blogged here, even though I wore it a few times.
2. My white one… a true Perth and currently my favourite mostly because of the perfect fabric. It’s a white shirting cotton from Fabulous Fabrics, almost like a sateen, but a super fine one, crisp, lightweight and with the perfect amount of drape. LOVE IT SO MUCH and actually I’m slightly regretting that I didn’t buy the whole roll #addicted In fact, this might be a good time to state what I think is the ideal fabric for this design… lightweight, thin fabrics that have some drape, yet still have just enough body for the tailored collar to work. Basically, if you can imagine a mens’ business shirt made in it, then it’s probably just about perfect. Sad sad times… I went back to the fabric store yesterday on another quest (long story and a pretty “big” one too in lifetime terms, I’ll relate it another time…) and had a quick but hopeful look out for this perfect white fabric.. they’d sold it all!! *sob* #gottagrabitwhileitsthere
This one has slightly longer sleeves, that I eventually decided to shorten for the final version of the pattern. I shortened them back to the length of my original brown design because I thought the shorter sleeves looked a little more feminine and “perkier”; a nice offset to the overt masculinity of the buttoned-up, very formal looking collar.
3. Further playing upon the menswear influence, I ran up a third version with a smart white collar, a lot like the shirts that I’ve made for my menfolk over the years.. these ones here are prime examples. I used a lovely lemon-y yellow, lightweight pinstriped linen that I bought in Fratelli Bassetti Tessuti in Rome when we visited six years ago. It was my Roman souvenir, and I’m fiiiiinally making something with it. Well, it’s nothing if not well marinated! I used a single black button at the throat as a small but definitive focal point on the dress.
Going back to my point about the perfect fabric, this linen has a little bit of body, maybe if I’m being super picky then I would say it has slightly too much body for the design to drape perfectly? But it’s still pretty nice to wear, and cool!
4. And finally; along the way I realised the design would make quite a nice blouse too, so we went about making this happen. I like this length for a blouse slightly cropped and a little boxy. For the blouse, I used a dark indigo chambray, leftovers from this dress actually! and a wooden button.
The chambray is a touch on the spongy side with some body to it so Im a teeny bit meh about it for this design really, but well… I’m completely ok with it for testing out, and I think it turned out a pretty cute wearable muslin.
Some of the technical deets…
So, want to hear the story behind the pattern?…. it’s ok if you don’t just stop reading now. If you want to know to whole boring saga, carry on! SO: nearly a year ago I made my brown dress, my prototype as it turned out. I’d bought this lovely, slightly blotchy chocolate/tobacco linen from Tessuti’s in Melbourne during my trip there with Mum, Cassie and Tiffany, and drafted my own pattern, using my own block that I made years ago from my own measurements using the diagrams from Pattern Magic (originally blogged about here), though I tacked on the collar and collar stand from my favourite Burda mens’ shirt pattern… but before you cry “plagiarist!” I did NOT use that Burda collar and stand for my own Perth pattern! I drafted the Perth ones myself from scratch, as I did all parts of the pattern. I promise you, I’m very ethical and would never try to claim something as mine that is not…but more about the drafting process-ario later, I’m getting ahead of myself.
So, I made my brown dress. I put quite a bit of thought into the closure, and worked out a solution to get the look I wanted. I liked it, but overall thought the silhouette was a little “booffy” and was definitely planning to streamline it a bit down the track. In the meantime though I’d posted a progress picture on instagram, and there was a small number of polite comments suggesting an interest should I make a pattern for it. The seed was planted…
I thought more and more about it.. I wasn’t daunted by drafting a pattern to fit “me”, but I was wondering how I could grade it. At first I thought I’d get a qualified person to grade it for me. I approached several people I know who have completed fashion design school at tech, none of whom had time. But my friend J, fashion school graduate, and all-round awesomely inspiring lady, was extremely encouraging and assured me I could “easily do it” and it was “super easy”. I secretly had doubts about this… but she piled my arms high with her pattern drafting books and sent me off. I definitely felt challenged, and like I couldn’t possibly not do it now! I was honour bound! J would think I was an idiot! Well… I am obviously, but no need for the world to know that, hehehe…. I spent the next few months studying the books J had given me, taking notes… the best by far was Winifred Aldrich’s Metric Pattern Cutting for Women’s Wear, I pretty much got everything from that. There was also a vintage Burda book, I can’t remember its title at the moment but that one gave some very helpful grading tips too.
So I eventually graded my pattern! I’d drawn it out by hand on large sheets of paper from a flip chart pad, with no seam allowances, graded it all by hand, and proceeded to trace and test each individual size myself before getting it scanned as a full sized pdf. Yes, this is definitely NOT the most efficient way to go about it… I had early, highly romantic ideas about a hand-drawn pattern… aaah, so naive! I quickly abandoned that fantasy!! though hand-grading was an essential step in the process in the end, and I happily had complete confidence that my pattern “worked” in all the sizes… Then I started thinking about learning Illustrator. I made a few low-grade investigations… and then Cassie got wind of what I was doing and reminded me that she basically spent her whole degree using Illustrator. I was like, wow, would you teach me? and she replied, oh Mum, I could make that pattern into a pdf for you in half a day… I was, like OH My GOD! My saviour!!! At first, I was just going to pay her for her time… but as time went on, and we were working side by side on our computers, her on the pattern (it took a lot longer than half a day, btw!) me on the illustrations and instructions (also way longer than half a day!) and the idea of a partnership came up and it felt totally natural. She was keen. And I’m so very happy about it! This means that if either of us come up with an idea then we have this outlet for it, and we have complementary skills.
Of course, it’s our first pattern, and the learning curve has been steep. I reckon I did some things three or four times over, simply because the right way wasn’t immediately obvious. Almost like, you have to kiss a lot of frogs before you get a prince. Or maybe you can’t see the trees for the forest? Making a pattern turned out to be something like that!
The next step was the all-important “real” testing phase, and it’s SUPER important! I’m completely indebted to my delightful and awesomely helpful testers… who went through my amateurish instructions with a fine-tooth comb, thank goodness since I could barely see anything anymore for having re-written them a hundred times over. Those that sent me pictures have made the most beautiful dresses which has been SUPER exciting. I will do a separate post highlighting my lovely testers, soon, once everyone has got “final” pictures in to me.
Making the pattern a tangible thing: well at first I was just like, A4 is enough, yeah? Then one of my lovely testers SaSa of paisley pirouette mentioned a firm preference for A0, and I had a lightbulb moment that I should offer that too. Sounds so obvious in retrospect but truthfully I was kinda overwhelmed with it all at this point, so I really appreciated the reminder! SaSa also kindly recommended to me a massive comment thread about people’s pattern preferences, over on sewbusylizzy, which I sat down and read in a night. I got from this that sewing peeps were pretty evenly divided three-ways in their allegiance to and/or total avoidance of A4, A0 and/or paper patterns. Meaning in fact, a pattern designer pretty much has to offer everything if she/he wants to a. please everyone, and b. be taken even half-way seriously! So Cassie got to work on the A0 file and I went about making paper patterns happen. I got my patterns printed at Officeworks, folded ’em all myself, and printed out and compiled my own instruction booklets, put together the pattern envelopes myself. Goodness, that took an entire day all by itself, phew! And then I set up our etsy shop… aaaand sat on the edge of my seat waiting for my first sale! The excitement when the first one popped in, wheeee! What a rush!
So that’s it! Want to try out my pattern?! We are the Carolyn & Cassie Pattern Co. our shop is CarolynandCassie on Etsy, and we have the Perth dress/blouse pdf pattern and the Perth dress/blouse paper pattern on offer. I’ve also put a link to the shop up in my sidebar. And I would love to see your Perths! If you make one, then please either let me know in the comments, or tag us @handmadebycarolyn and @shyshycassie on instagram, and use the hashtag #perthdress
Perth, and Perth! hehe
Am I thinking about my next pattern…? well, of course!!
Ms Autumn is available for purchase here in our shop right now…
Well, hello there gorgeous! I’m thrilled to introduce Ms Summer to the world! the latest in my small set of seasonal girlies…
Of course she has cute little lace knickers too, with an embroidered rosebud on the front…
This much-requested new pattern has felt like a long time coming… I had a lot of requests from ladies wanting our Perth dress/blouse pattern to be made for a larger size range… so ta da! this new version is for sizes 46-54. 
I’m beyond thrilled to announce the publication of our very first pattern! The Perth dress/blouse is an unlined, loose-fitting little summer frock with a bit of a buttoned-up menswear vibe to it. It’s kinda like a shirtdress, but kinda not. A faux shirtdress. The shirtdress to make when you’re not making a shirtdress. Hehe, I joked in my own head while making it that it’s the shirtdress to make if you loathe buttonholes, since there are barely any at all in this one! Also, I say “our”pattern, not because I’m using the royal “we”; but because I’ve gone into partnership with my daughter! #whatdotheysayaboutfamilyandbusiness but it’s OK, Cassie and I get along very well. Plus she has mad magic Illustrator skills, which perfectly complements my complete lack thereof. So we are the Carolyn & Cassie Pattern Co – this warms the cockles of my heart SO much I can’t even tell you! I never dreamed we’d have some kind of venture together like this but now we do I think I can tick it off some sort of subconscious bucket list that I never knew I had.
So we have a brand new 
