Amanda.Stitches on Instagram is both today's podcast guest and guest editor on SewOver50

Her standout roberts.woods drafters grid dress at Perth Frocktails this year took our breath away and we had to invite Amanda to tell us all about this dress.

As Amanda said 'the #draftersgriddress has been many months in the making, planning started early this year with the sourcing of vintage tablecloths - not just any cloths, but ones that had similar pink tones & were the same shade of white. Several were ordered online, only to find when they arrived they weren't suitable - I've got a few set aside for future projects.

From the 6 tablecloths I cut 172!! pattern pieces - ordinarily the multiple identical pieces can be cut in bulk - however I couldn't do this without compromising the placement of the embroidery - many hours of planning, pinning & checking before I started to cut. Quilters will be familiar with fussy-cutting and there was certainly lots of that. The construction & sewing of the dress isn't difficult, & I enjoyed the slow sew & watching my vision come to life.'

When Amanda went back to sewing once her children were getting older, she began to pattern test for Pattern Emporium. You may have seen Amanda on their website.

Many thanks to Kate at Pattern Emporium for allowing us to mention her patterns and use her logo and image in the video version of this episode.

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Sound with permission by Kaneef on YouTube.