You remember Maud, don’t you?
Now, to give her a new lease of life, ready for a starring role in a forthcoming bestseller (my next book), she’s had a face-lift. Or rather a body-lift. A re-cover.
So what I did was make a pattern using the existing seamlines as a guide. I cut pieces of scrap fabric into rough shapes, pinned them on carefully and traced the seam lines, then added seam allowances.
I had to make a few adjustments as I went along, but really it wasn’t too tricky, although I’d suggest not trying this unless you’ve got the hang of making close-fitting clothes already. You need to understand darts and curved seams and the like.
I used really beautiful undyed natural organic linen from Greenfibres. Its a lovely fabric, I wasn’t about to use any old cheap rubbish for my gorgeous girl. She needed something simple and traditional-looking as well as non-chemical-soaked to help preserve her for another 100 years or so.
Very simply, I followed the original seams which resulted in a jacket-like bodice which was open at the front. I machine-sewed all the bodice pieces, leaving the centre front open and sewed this up by hand once I had carefully positioned the bodice on Maud, matching up the seams where I could. I then added the hip-part which was sewn up along the back seam. I hand sewed the front seam and the hip to bodice join. I simply gathered the bottom hem underneath to bring the fabric to a smooth finish without having to nail it on to the wooden based. The last stage was the shoulders – I left lots of fabric here so I could gather the loose fabric into a tight circle. I then cut out large circles of fabric and gathered the edges (like a suffolk puff / yo yo) and hand stitched them down to cover the shoulder gathers.
She’s a wee bit wrinkly and some of the seam allowances show through a bit, but on the whole I’m pretty happy with her – and she’ll definitely do well for her modelling career.
Ruth Singer 
Let me know what you think