Well this is proving to be more tricky than I first thought, I knew it was going to be hard but not this hard. Reading patterns is becoming a pet hate for me, they are definitely not simple. However I have found a book that explains it all (well enough to make it seem less impossible) called “The Sewing Book” by Alison Smith. She breaks everything you could think off in terms of sewing into friendly chunks.
From making the top sections of the main bodice, I realised that I understood how to make a corset quite quickly, it’s all in the layers. Once the concept is grasps you can be well away like was, until you realise you no longer fit the dress.
Here I’ve made two gnome characters that I created for a valentines gift a few years ago, each one is completely hand made and was an idea sparked by watching the film Gnomeo & Juliet, which in my view was funny to watch and a great adaptation on the Romeo and Juliet classic. Anyway back to the gnomes, I always like to come up with quirky creations for any occasion because it makes it more personal and thoughtful, gnomes just seemed like a good idea and would appear life size (they stand about 20cm tall)
I started by doing some research into what defines a gnomes from just a tiny person; and they basically have a huge head, big bellies and a hat of sorts, the rest is up to your gnome imagination.
I’m going to start by saying that I made these out of pure scraps that I had in my scraps box of fabric and to make them more romantic I wore the dress that I recreated in the gnome to further hint that they were us as gnomes. The gnomes are faceless to make them more aesthetic and cute (I also ran out of time because I was due to go out for dinner) The male gnome has a tiny jeans and a shirt with shiny shoes, where as the female gnome has a dress, necklace and shoes on. The necklace is real, where the chain broke and I kept the charm. The gnomes are completely flat so when it came to making the clothes I kept my gnome template and just made sure I cut out two of everything. For example, the shirt was two pieces with the front being cut into two, obviously you want neat edges so having a hem is advised. However because they are on a small scale means you can be more daring with you hem by using a different coloured thread to your material you can add more detail and stop the clothes falling apart.
One last tip, all the jewellery that breaks or clothes that have seen better days, take them apart if you like to create things because they add to the detail and costs you nothing.
