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.

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.