Behind the Seams
Meet the talented Sylvanian Families seamstress – Sue Smith
A one of a kind designer clothing boutique for the "Little Critters" in your life
THE VILLAGE DRESSMAKERS for Sylvanian Families
www.villagedressmakers.com
Who would ever guess that in a quiet suburban street of Hervey Bay, Queensland, Australia’s most unique boutique line of hand-crafted designer clothing are lovingly and painstakingly being created? However, these designer dresses, suits and wedding gowns and incredible array of clothing are all in miniature size to fit 10cm tall Sylvanian Families figures!
The creator of Australia’s tiniest line of unique boutique clothing, Sue Smith, is a grandmother with a passion for creating Sylvanian Families clothing, with an impressive array of over 600 miniature costumes available in her growing online store, her beautiful designs happily being modelled by her two granddaughter's 74 Sylvanian flocked animal figures.
Sue has raised her two granddaughters since birth, and spends each morning home schooling the girls, (who are now aged 9 and 12). In the afternoons, while the girl’s play, Sue finds time to design, create and sew hundreds of intricate little outfits, or makes her own patterns and searches online for fabrics with tiny Sylvanian-sized prints and quality trims.
Small beginnings
Sue first became interested in sewing Sylvanian Families dresses and costumes a few years ago, when she saw her granddaughters trying to make clothes for their Sylvanian figures.
“They were having so much fun that I decided to join in and that was the beginning of my Sylvanian Families Clothing business.”
“Watching my girls making clothing, I could see that the clothing seemed to bring the Sylvanian Families figures to life for them. They made pyjamas for the figures to go to bed in, day clothes, school clothes and party dresses. Each family had to have their own wardrobe”
Soon Sue wanted to try her hand at making clothing for the tiny figures too, and before she knew it she was hooked and enjoying it just as much as the girls. She would never have dreamed at the time, that this would one day lead to opening her own online miniature clothing store.
A hobby turned into a business
Sue still considers her Sylvanian sewing a hobby, from the sheer enjoyment she gets out of her Sylvanian creations. “I can spend hours on each new design. Choosing the fabrics, matching the trims."
"It’s so important to get each garment right. Not all fabrics work as miniature clothing items, due to stretch or fraying. There isn’t much room to play around with on a hem or collar that is 2mm wide!"
Having many years of experience with designing and sewing for people over the years, as a professional seamstress, has helped Sue to perfect the sewing of these miniature garments.
"My girls now have drawers full of my “mistakes”, when a garment didn’t work out exactly how I wanted it to."
The best critics
Sue’s finished product quality is extremely high, as any one of you who have purchased some of her exquisite clothing items will know. Often the comment is made, “How do you do it?” when customers see the intricate sewing that goes into 3mm wide collars, ties and jacket sleeves etc.
Sue says that her best critics are her two lovely granddaughters. “I show them a new design and if they don’t like it, then I know that other children probably won’t either. With constant dressing and undressing of their Sylvanian figures the clothing does have to stand up to quite a lot, so I get a fairly good idea of how the clothes will endure over time."
A Family Business
Sue says that she’s happiest behind her sewing machine and is content to leave the administrative side of the business to her daughter, Sarah.
Sarah, has taken over the web-design and social media side of their Village Dressmakers website, customer service and posting of items. “She is doing a wonderful job and she herself is an excellent seamstress and has sewn a few of her own creations too.”
“Sarah is a huge help, especially now that we are posting Sylvanian garments internationally as well."
"We have posted items to customers in the Philippines, United States, United Kingdom, Canada, New Zealand and countries in Europe. Sarah has just added in options to post to Italy and France now also. From my humble beginnings to how posting world-wide – to me it is just amazing!”
We have featured some of our favourite designs from Sue’s online store, but there’s so much more available. You can find your own favourite on Sue’s website and believe me, there is such a variety to choose from! The only difficulty will be… which one to choose!
Sylvanian Families Clothing Facebook page
Checkout out our fabulous range of Sylvanian Families in store
If you've enjoyed this article you may like to read some of our other Sylvanian Families related articles or visit our store which stocks the widest range of Sylvanian Families available in all of Australia
Sylvanian Specialty Store
www.sylvanianspecialtystore.com.au
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