Most of you will have heard of the TV series The Great British Sewing Bee, a new series started about three weeks ago. Most of you won’t however have heard of the Great British Sewing Bunny…

A few months ago I made a Luna Lapin, I called her Violet Speedwell. It was actually the second one I’d made, I gave the first one to my great nephew, he was called Archie. Luna Lapin is the creation of Sarah Peel of Cool Crafting in Kendal. There’s now three books of Luna Lapin, her friends and their clothes. There is also a very friendly facebook page,where people share their makes and some make up stories around them.

For the second year running Sarah is organising a sewing competion to run at the same time as the GBSB. Last Thursday she announced the challenge for the week, Blooming Bunnies. So we had a week to think of an outfit for Luna, however there was a time limit of three hours if it was machine sewn or six hours if it was hand sewn, all done by honesty.

With a name like Violet Speedwell there was only one flower I could use as inspiration. I rummaged through my stash and the scrap boxes looking for fabric I could use. I found a small piece left from a fabric box lid I made twenty years ago, it was several layers of fabrics such as silks or organzas, double stitched in a grid and then squares cut away to reveal the fabric underneath. It was the perfect colours, but very small, so Violet has quite a high waisted dress!

I used some fine purple silk for the skirt, I just cut the width of fabric, narrow hemmed it and gathered it up. A purple organza ribbon hid the fact that the gathers weren’t too even! I spotted some purple five petalled wooden buttons in my button drawer and added one to the top of the back bodice.

As the weather is somewhat inclement at the moment I decided she needed a Skye wrap to keep warm, this is a mini version of an adult pattern from Cool Crafting. It’s lined with a pretty cotton with violets on and has the same flower buttons. I also used some purple wool felt to make a bonnet…

Entries had to be posted on facebook on Thursday evening, there were some amazing entries, some people are so imaginative. If you’re on facebook do have a look! I wouldn’t like to be a judge for this, two winners are meant to be chosen each week (there’s four challenges) and they will go through to the final. This week the judges couldn’t whittle it down to two so four were chosen to take part in the final. Exciting stuff!

The new challenge is Super Heroes, I’m not sure if I’ll do this one or not, I’ll see how time goes.