More About Ellie... Well, I was 27 in February '06, and in the past I have studied drama, though I had to give this up due to ever-increasing health problems which continue to this day, and which are the reason that I cannot easily currently work. (I have two separate but equally rare conditions, 'Marfan's Syndrome' and 'Diaphyseal Aclasis'. Feel free to go and look them up somewhere and wince!) I've also more recently been diagnosed with 'Chronic Fatigue Syndrome', which is taking a lot of getting used to. So this all leaves me with a lot of time to spend on my sewing, and with my husband Mike too, who cares for me and is generally my 'house husband'. We have been married for six years now, and have been together much longer than that. We met when he was visiting someone in hospital and I happened to be in the next bed! Following the loss of our beloved Scully, we now share our home with Buffy, a seven month old kamikazi kitten! Me & my sewing room... I have my own room in the house solely for sewing, my second dedicated sewing room actually as I outgrew the first! It's lovely to sew in a room that's all my own, where I'm surrounded by pretty things like my collection of 'My Fair Lady' Barbies. Sometimes my poor hubby doesn't see me for hours on end! (I always leave a few pins on the floor though so he doesn't forget me!) I'm lucky enough to have my own sewing and embroidery machines, an overlocker, and also now a flat-bed industrial sewing machine, too. My Hubby! Here I am with hubby Mike on our wedding day. He's 34 and is responsible for all the important stuff like maintaining this site for me, taking all my pictures, assuring me that those two colours do NOT go together, and most important of all, lacing up my corsets! About My Dressmaking I am almost entirely self-taught, though I am now doing a City & Guilds Fashion course for a couple of hours per week to broaden my skills, and I also hold two OCN certificates in dressmaking. I make a variety of styles of cothing, for almost as many reasons - my favoured periods for clothing are the Victorian/Edwardian eras, so I make a lot in that style, but then I may just see a pattern that I just have to make. Or perhaps I'll make something because the perfect fabric for it was in a sale that week! I have a big interest in both historic and modern corsetry, too. Then there is my own taste in 'Goth' styled cothing, which I am increasingly making more items in. I'm also influenced by films, of which I am a big fan- things like the simply gorgeous 'Moulin Rouge' for example. So you never know what I will be producing next. I enjoy scouring charity shops, which can be a good source of costume accessories to go with the outfits I make. Once finished, my outfits are photographed by my husband for my albums of work, usually modelled by myself. Mike also comes up with the occasional crazy idea for a photograph background for me!