Sewing Studio Tutors

Gemma was creative and crafty from a young age, leading her to join a sewing class at 14 where she honed her skills. She was then able to craft her prom dress.

During university, Gemma delved into the fascinating crossover of Archaeology and fashion, focusing her dissertation on classical themes in regency dress. After graduating Gemma found a home at G&G, sharing her love for sewing with our wonderful customers.

Beyond work, Gemma competes with her university's ballroom and Latin dancing team across the country!

Lorna is forever grateful to her Mum for teaching her to sew as an adult. She fell in love with everything sewing! So much so that she couldn’t bear to keep these skills to herself. Being driven by her passion for inspiring other people to sew, Lorna spent 7 years sharing this love of sewing through teaching others in her own sewing workshop business.

Lorna joined the Guthrie & Ghani team in January 2024 as the Workshops and events coordinator. She is responsible for organising the programme of events and sewing workshops and will be joining the team of sewing tutors too.

Lorna loves all aspects of sewing but her particular passion is dressmaking.

When she’s not sewing she enjoys running, cycling, running around after 2 teenagers and drinking hot chocolate!

Becca has been creating with a needle and thread for as long as she can remember and discovered the world of dressmaking in her teens. She quickly became hooked, spending all her free time glued to her machine and developing her skills. Since then she's taught many others to sew too and is now a workshop tutor here at g&g along with her role as Content Creator.

Becca enjoys spending time on the details; getting patterns to match, nailing the position of a pocket or producing perfect topstitching. She loves sharing her passion with others, helping them create clothing that they love and feel proud of.

Lauren Tedstone is known for being a quarter finalist of series 9 of BBC’s Great British Sewing Bee.

Her machine, given to her many years before by her grandmother, was finally put to use in late 2019 when Lauren taught herself to sew. Starting with small projects for her children, Lauren then went on to garment sewing and is on a journey to curate and create a complete handmade wardrobe including accessories. A big lover of fashion trends, she loves creating key timeless classics that have professional finishes and longevity.

With that in mind, Lauren tends to create projects using a combination of new and well established sewing techniques and has a love of machine and hand sewing.

Lauren’s aim is to share her knowledge and passion with all creatives and those wanting to learn a new skill and is very excited to be part of the G&G team.

Emma started sewing as a young girl using scraps from her mum’s dressmaking to makes dolls clothes.

She developed that love through needlework class at school, and fashion and textiles courses at college and University, after which she spent time working in the garment making industry.

She now works as a freelance sewing tutor and loves sharing her passion with others, as well as finding time to sew most of her own clothes – she has the motto “if I can make it I can’t buy it”!

On the rare occasions she’s outside of the sewing room Emma endeavours to stay fit and healthy by running and training in a local gym.

Vivvy started her career in advertising and branding, working in a corporate environment, and developing brand campaigns, for major blue-chip companies. With the desire to move out of London and be back in Worcestershire, where she lives with her husband, Vivvy decided to train in garden design and Floristry, after 3 years with City and Guilds, and a business diploma in Floristry at Judith Blacklock School in Knightsbridge, London.

Vivvy hung up her suits and high heels and swapped them for jeans, a body warmer and trainers ready to open up Stow Roses and Redgrave and Lake and take early trips to the flower market. Now, working and living in Worcestershire, her passions are floristry, fabrics and dressmaking!

Layla has been teaching for over 15 years and sewing for 10 years. She started as a secondary school English teacher in London and later moved to Beirut, Lebanon where she set up a small school teaching sewing to ex pats and locals.

Since moving back to London Layla has taught sewing in many different studios around the country and to many different levels learners, however dressmaking is her expertise.

She sews almost all her own clothes and those of her husband but draws the line at her cats!As well as sewing (pretty much all the time) she also teaches English at a secondary school and knits.

Claire-Louise Hardie is a respected UK sewing expert who is well positioned in the home sewing community. Originally trained as a costume designer, she has had an illustrious career working in all aspects of costume for theatre, film and television. Her diverse professional experience made her an ideal candidate for the role of Sewing Producer for TV’s The Great British Sewing Bee from 2012 to 2016. She authored the award-winning tie-in book, Fashion with Fabric.

In 2009 Claire-Louise began teaching home sewing as The Thrifty Stitcher, reigniting her own love of dressmaking. She is a pattern designer and a long-standing columnist for the UK magazine, Love Sewing. Claire-Louise gained a master’s degree in digital pattern technology from London College of Fashion in 2020 and is committed to being a lifelong learner.

Claire-Louise’s focus is now on creating educational content, both written and video, around intermediate dressmaking. She is also currently a part-time styling assistant on ITV’s Good Morning Britain. Her favourite way to make clothes for herself is to clone an existing best-loved garment.

Tony is a maker and content creator from Bude, North Cornwall. But you may know him better as being a finalist on Series 9 of The Great British Sewing Bee.

Before entering the Sewing Bee, he had only made men’s clothes for himself. Everything he made on the show he had never made before.

Tony took this as an opportunity to grow as a sewist and to learn and to explore new techniques. At the time, he really didn’t know what he couldn’t make. Tony now takes this ethos through into his teaching to attempt to demystify techniques which are sometimes considered challenging.

Tony, having built upon his time on the Sewing Bee, is passionate about getting more people making and improving their own making repertoires.In addition to teaching, Tony is also very active in Pattern Testing for numerous patterns houses and he has also had a men’s shirt pattern released in his name.

Tony lives with his wife and two teenage daughters in Bude. He also has an older daughter.

When not making, as the secretary of his local mountain bike club, he can be found riding one of his many bikes.