Rockstars and Royalty Blog — Sewing tutorial

Inspiration for my couture gowns can strike at any time, and in the case of Flora, it was while I was browsing online for fabric (one of my favourite pastimes!) I saw the soft tulle, embellished with chiffon flowers and curling embroidery and knew I had to have it!  I decided I wanted to create something with even more flowers, that looked like an overgrown garden that had bust into life in spring, so I added lots of extra embroidered flower appliques, embroidered leaf appliques and chiffon flowers to my cart, all in shades of blush pinks and deep reds....

This gorgeous vintage velvet dress was one of the pieces in the huge bags of vintage clothing that I acquired via my local 'buy nothing' Facebook page. You can see the video of me opening the bags and discovering the treasures inside here. This dress is made from gorgeous soft black velvet and was in really good condition, so it didn't need a huge amount of work to bring it back to life. The first issue was that the zip was broken, and that the dress was really hard to get on and off as there was only a very...

Hemming fine fabrics such as chiffon and organza can be tricky. They can be slippery and hard to pin, and it's easy to end up with an ugly, uneven hem. This technique, in which you stitch the hem with a single turn, cut away the excess fabric, then stitch again, is the simplest way to get a neat, narrow hem on fine fabrics.