Mary Ward – sewing the final

With the successful mock-up under our belt, we started the final version of the Mary Ward ‘Hyde Park Safety Skirt’. The material chosen is Dashing Tweed’s Raver Tweed. It features reflective yarn which makes it highly-visible in low light.

The skirt was a simple to make A-line skirt, joined together at the waist, with open seams on both sides. Here, Rachel tries out the in-progress skirt to see how the material falls when it gathers up.

Rachel catches the lining on the inside seams of the skirt, so both the skirt and lining gather upwards together.

I worked on the waistcoat

Rachel tries on the entire costume to see how it works together – blouse, waistcoat, skirt – as you can see all of it is work-in-progress

Rachel sews decorative rim on the apron edges

Laying out  the research linings – Alice’s beautiful drawings digitally printed onto silk

cutting the straps from Alice’s drawings

sewing the straps

hand stitching the straps to the waistband