This battered little book turned up at my Uncle’s house when my family were clearing a few days ago. It must have belonged to my Auntie who was my fashion inspiration when I was young.

I have a small collection of illustrated books of traditional / peasant costume and love them. I’m really fascinated by traditional clothing and these old books with beautiful illustrations are wonderfully inspiring for shape, colour combinations, patterns and decoration.

A few years ago I made this apron

inspired by this illustration

in this book

which eventually became this apron in Lark Books Pretty Little Patchwork (although they missed the pattern out of the book…)

and then it became this

paper apron by Jennifer Collier based on my design (I showed her how to make the design out of fabric first).

I’m running an apron-making workshop, with fabric manipulation, at Jennifer’s studio Unit Twelve, on Sunday 4th December.