After bringing up two boys, keen needlewoman Vera Jordan was thrilled when her first granddaughter was born. "I thought: I've been waiting all these years so that I can make frilly dresses'. I used to hate making dungarees and shorts for my sons," she said.

At the age of 57, she quit her job as a housekeeper for a wealthy family in Hampshire and returned to Oxfordshire to be near her grandchild Maisy, who will be three in June.

But rather than settling down to a quiet life as a grandmother, she ended up setting up her own business, a girls' clothing company called Little Madams.

She said: "We had a house in Witney which we had been renting out, and our son moved around the corner. I thought now was the time to set up my own business at home."

She added: "I have been sewing since I was 12, and making my own clothes since I was 14, and I found that there was nothing around for little girls - really pretty little dresses."

Ms Jordan discovered that large manufacturers were producing mini-versions of teenage clothes, even for the youngest children.

"I couldn't believe the dreadful fabrics they were using. I made patchwork quilts as a hobby, so I knew there was a lot of lovely material out there, but you couldn't find it in fabric shops."

Her clothing range starts at 18 months and goes up to age eight or nine.

"After that, they don't want pretty things. They like funky stuff. My grandchild wears funky clothes, but she likes pretty dresses as well," she said.

"If you are going to a wedding and you take the trouble to choose an outfit, you want something special for your daughter as well. That was the inspiration for Little Madams."

She says her range is handmade in the true sense, and feels she is waving the flag for small family-run businesses.

The clothes range from simple pinafores with fun designs such as puppies to classic smocked dresses with Peter Pan collars and puff sleeves and rickrack - all made by Mrs Jordan herself.

Until now, marketing has been low-key because she wanted to be sure she could cope with the demand - particularly because, at first, she had a shop in her front room.

"I didn't want it to be too big at first - I wanted to grow slowly and I didn't want a huge number of orders in the beginning."

The shop was disrupting family life, she said, so now she sells only via the Internet, having set up a website to market her products to a larger audience.

"Now I can work from the top floor, and we have our living room back."

So is she planning to expand the range to include boys?

"No, definitely not. I like frilly and flowery things. I've had enough of shorts and dungarees."

o Contact: 01993 212154, www.littlemadamschildrensclothing.com