The Sewing Queen

Final Week

Chapter 6

"Alright guys, todays the start of the last week of the competition. And today you are going to make a summer outfit to fit this brief. Everyone the same one but I want you to be original with your ideas. So what you have to do is make a summer outfit for a girl, sorry lads! It must consist of shorts and a top, for someone to take on holiday where the temperature can reach over 40c during the day but 2c at night time. There must be no dark colours. Off you go!"

I grabbed my sketch pad and raced into the fabric bank. After a couple of drawings I decide on making a pair of red scalloped shorts out of thin cotton, with a white vest top which the back was plaited for detail. I was also going to make a layered necklace out of charms and different sized chain and a dark denim jacket for the evenings, as mum did say it got cold in the evenings.

"Oh, did I say that you only have till lunchtime"

So three hours without stopping roughly. More than enough time. I cut out all the pieces for the jacket first and had that sorted within an hour I had made the jacket and cut out the cotton for the vest top. The top wouldn't take too long to make it's just the plaiting that with take a bit of time.

I finished at about 12:30 so I had enough time to make the necklace, and all my outfit was finished and looking around most people were still finishing off the last bits of their first part of their outfits.

"Ok, now guys, its lunchtime. Grab a manikin and set up your outfits!" Mum said as everyone stopped working, I grabbed a manikin and set up a manikin, tying the jacket around the waist so that it wouldn't hide the back of the top.

**

After lunch, we came back and were given another brief, to make an outfit for a man, which was to match the same description as the first and we also had three hours to do this task as well. I choose to make something simple as I had never made clothes for a man before. I made some chino shorts and a thin whit top with a print design that I made on the computer on the front.

**

"I can tell this week is going to be all work and no play!" Olivia said throwing herself onto her bed.

"Tell me about it!"

"Last week as great we only had one task and it was really creative but today was just make this, make that!"

"I know it's really hard to think of an outfit and make it in half an hour"

"But you made loads! You're really fast and everything looks great. How did you have enough time to make that necklace?"

"I kept everything simple so that nothing took too long"

"Simple? The braided back top is one of the hardest things to do and you did it in half an hour!"

"Ok, okay. But you made a beautiful top! Talk about attention to detail"

"Can everyone come to the work room!" mum's voice called through the intercom.

"Come on, let's go" I said walking out of the bedroom and down the corridor to the work room.

"Everyone take a seat please. Thank you!" Mum said when she came into the room carrying her laptop, "Right, I have decided not to judge this round of the competition. Instead I am going to get all of us to explain your outfit to everyone else and the person on the other end of Skype. They will tell you the winner after everyone has shown there outfits! The person doesn't want to be seen and I will tell you they are a very close college of mine! Okay first up, Aimee"

"Thank you, Aimee! Next is Annie-may"

"Charlotte"

"Freddie, your turn"