In a house in Burley-in-Wharfedale a woman beavers away on her sewing machine in the early hours, surrounded by mountains of cloth.

Her task? To design, measure, and create no less than 87 dazzling outfits for an Ilkley pantomime, Sleeping Beauty, in less than four months.

Ilkley Upstagers' costume maker Jane Norris has been putting herself through this Herculean challenge for three years now, working flat out from the end of September to mid-January.

A full-time telecommunications saleswoman, Mrs Norris rises at 5am and works into the night to make sure she can fulfil both commitments.

Her involvement with costume making and with the amateur dramatics group, she explains while taking a quick break, owes a lot to her daughter's early love of dancing.

She said: "Emma has been dancing since she was three and she's 19 now, so I have made a lot of rabbit and chicken costumes, that sort of thing, over the last 16 years!

"She's now the senior dance captain with Upstagers, who I start working closely with at the end of each September when the director, Gill Jackson, gives me an outline of the show and the general style and colour scheme for the clothes.

"Then we start buying the fabrics which, with it being an amateur group, we have to get at the cheapest price possible.

"With it being Sleeping Beauty this year the style is vaguely medieval, but as it's a panto we don't have to stick too strictly to that and there'll be costumes to suit most tastes.

"I have someone helping me this time who has done 12 of the adult costumes, while I have about 87 to do, and we have another lady with a team of three or four people working on the children's clothes.

"There'll be going on 300 costumes for the whole show, not including the ones we hire, and it's not just a case of measuring up - we have to make sure the dancers can move about fully too and do what they need to in each outfit."

Reflecting on the work still lying before her and the other costume makers before the pantomime's opening night on January 24, she admits things can sometimes get a little bit hairy.

"It can be as tight as finishing the last ones off by the dress rehearsals," she says. "The cast are all excellent, though. I prod and poke and measure them and they all put up with it with good humour, even when we tell them they have to put on a costume that's virtually see-through with not a lot on under it!"

Using her husband, Graham, as a reluctant male model while measuring up, Mrs Norris still found time to embroider each of the Christmas cards the couple sent out last year - to her own amazement as much as anyone else's.

She said: "I go out to work and am out of the house for 11 hours and then I do this, and even I'm not sure how! I think I must have been given a special allocation of time and actually have 30 hours in each of my days.

"My husband doesn't have a dining room for three months of the year but he doesn't mind. I think the most rewarding costume I've made this year would have to be one I've done for the Dame at the end of Act 1.

"We got the idea for it while watching the latest Harry Potter film and I had to try and replicate it from nothing, really, but it has turned out really well. I'm looking forward to seeing how the audience react to it!"

Pantomime fans will be able to see the result of all of Mrs Norris' and her colleagues' work for themselves when Sleeping Beauty begins its run later this month.

For full details of show times and to book a ticket call (01943) 607944. Alternatively, from January 17, visit the Upstagers box office, behind the Midland Hotel, between 11am and 1pm daily (except Sundays).