JAGShiki Designs

Much of the fund raising for Just Act Gambia is through my production of JAGShiki designs where I create garments from dashiki material I bring back. In the past Simplicity New Look patterns have donated patterns for the charity. Celebrating their 90th year they are running a competition using specific patterns. I have entered the 'Best Dressmaker' and eventually after many many hours produced this outfit just in time for the closing date

The closing date has been extended so I now have time to enter a second category 'Best childwear'.

I am going to log the stages here!

Thoughts

I would like to make the girl’s dress reversible so will adapt to do up on the

shoulders, getting rid of the zip. Possibly trousers as well mainly of the striped border?

I think I will make plain trousers for the boys perhaps with a stripe down the side? Jackets /jerkins will be reversible and possibly quilted again like mine? Just have to work out how much I need to buy of each. Now to buy the material.

Evening of 21st

I had the choice of three main fabrics, yellow, turquoise or the same blue as mine above and a small section of navy. The decision for the blue was made after visiting my local shop Gordon Smith Ltd selling a huge range of curtain fabric but also a selection of crafting cotton and polar fleece. The best matching colours were crimson. I bought the remains of two short lengths: 1.8m of the cotton and 1.6 m fleece. They both cost £6.50 per m but I had them for the price of 3 metres!

After much deliberation I have now cut out in dashiki, the girl's dress, trousers and jacket. That has taken over three hours making decisions about pattern placement. My plans

for the jacket changed considerably!