Today I’m talking about my own process, and I’ll go into detail about how I get started on a new project.

As wartime shortages affected the supply of metals and other traditional materials for jewellery, designers turned to other materials including plastic, wood and textiles. Women made their own ‘make do and mend’ brooches using plastic thread and buttons. These colourful brooches are becoming increasingly sought-after and pricey, so I decided to make my own.

There are lots of tutorials out there on “how to create a fabric design”, but they tend to focus on the technical aspects of creating a tiling image, and don’t usually provide much detail on the actual design process, or pointers on what makes a design work well. I don’t claim to be an expert, but in this blog series I’m sharing what I’ve learned from years of studying, reproducing and creating fabric designs.

I’ve been getting lots of questions lately about how to get started in designing fabrics, so I thought I’d share some pointers for anyone looking to get into it. I don’t claim to be an artist, or an expert, but in this blog series I’ll be sharing what I’ve learned from years of studying, reproducing and creating fabric designs.

What could be sweeter than a little heart-shaped percher pillbox hat? I love all things heart-shaped, and spent many years wanting the perfect heart-shaped hat for Valentine’s Day until finally deciding to make my own!

Take a sweater from frump to fab - with no knitting skills required!

As soon as I watched the 1942 British Pathe video demonstrating how to turn a men’s trilby into a smart topper I wanted to make my own version. I started with a fedora I found in a charity shop, and followed the basic steps from the video, with a few minor amendments.

I shared this tutorial on Instagram earlier this year, but now that beret season has rolled around again I thought I would repost it here so it’s easy to save/pin for reference.

DIY novelty brooch originally featured in a Woman’s Own magazine from 1950.

This simple refashion is perfect for turning a slightly shapeless knit into a retro pinup sweater - and it literally only involves three seams! My original is a wool-blend cardigan from Primark - the design was cute, but the sweater was shapeless (basically just a straight rectangle) and too long for my preference (since I generally wear skirts I like sweaters to hit the waist), plus the buttons gaped at the bust. I’d hung onto it because I like the design and colours, but it just never got worn. Prime candidate for a restyling project!

The understated grey tone-on-tone stripe fabric of my latest project provides an opportunity to add some fun details like these bows on the kick pleat and cuffs.

The giant bow pockets I added to my "Bow-dacious" dress are such a fun touch, and they're so simple to sew, but make a big impact!

Based on the boat-neck bodice pattern from Gertie's Ultimate Dress Book, I altered the midriff to create this ‘crossover’ or faux-wrap effect. These types of pattern hacks are actually easier than you might think, so I thought I’d share the steps of how I did it.

I love the novelty 'dangler' brooch styles of the 1940s and 50s - you often see them in Bakelite, celluloid and other old plastics, and in any and all kitschy themes you can think of. I decided to go with love letters as it seemed appropriate for February, but as far as I'm concerned hearts and love letters are year-round motifs.

I had so many requests for a tutorial for the boat-neck sweater refashion I posted on Instagram a few weeks ago, and I finally got around to putting together a full tutorial - with pictures! The instructions are based on the steps I followed, but I was pretty much making it up as I went along and doing it by eye