I was making a dinosaur plush toy yesterday and just one step away from finishing it, all I need was just some stuffing and a pair of black beads for the eyes. As I didn’t want to go too far to buy supplies, I headed to a thrift store nearby. I was planning to find some broken plush toys that I can cut open to use the stuffing and eyes. Apparently the plan just didn’t work out. It was not that there weren’t any ugly toys in the store, there were plenty of them. But as I looked at those […]
Sidra has been growing up so fast this year, all his pants are now too short, even the ones that I made four months ago! Knee-length pants are good (temporary) solution for this, but I should be making some full length pants for cooler weather soon. He also has two jackets that he’s been wearing a lot, and they’re both too short now. It’s time for a new jacket! The pattern is the same as his old jackets, but in one size larger with added lining and all topstitching details omitted. The pattern is from R&D.M.Co-boys & girls, this is one […]
A couple of days ago was a national holiday in Japan, but it was raining the whole day so we stayed at home and got kinda bored. I went to my sewing room, trying to find things to do, and found this piece of grey tweed fabric that I bought a long time ago. It was only 50 cm and I had forgotten why I bought it in the first place. I decided to turn it into a pair of pants for Sidra. It was a really simple pants, I use a pattern from R&D.M.Co-boys & girls that I have […]
A reader commented on my post ‘Three meters of black linen’ , asking about how I made the side slant pockets for my son’s pants. So this is a tutorial on how I made them. You can also use this method for adult’s clothing by simply changing the dimensions. Making the pockets pattern Trace the front part of the pattern. Draw the slanted opening line of the pocket. Make sure that it is big enough for the hand of the wearer. My example here is for kid’s pants with separate waistband. If the pants has no separate waistband (i.e: pyjama […]
Since about three months ago, I’ve been seeing a chiropractor for my back pain, caused by scoliosis. In Japan, teacher, doctor, therapist are called ‘sensei‘, so that is what we called her. Her office is on the second floor of her house, not very far from our house. My husband, Sidra, and I usually come every Saturday, and Sensei would let Sidra play with her children while my husband stay with me to translate and converse with her. Sensei suggested to change my mattress and pillow with special ones for people with back problem. They were a bit harder than […]
This is the first time I made a pair of men’s pants! The fabric is delicious black linen that I bought in Swany, Kamakura. The width of the fabric is 145 cm, but there was only 1.1 m left, not enough for a full length pants. Fortunately, my husband is all into cropped pants now, he started to roll up his other pants, so here’s some real cropped pants for him! I use Jochen pattern from Burdastyle, a basic men’s slacks pattern which leaves a lot of room for altering. Since I’m always nervous when making clothes for other people, […]
I finished the dress! The dress pattern is called Leia, and it is another pattern from Tamanegi Kobo, a Japanese pattern shop. The dress is pretty simple, but sewing the curved lines was quite challenging, so I guess this is not really a project for a beginner. Although the instruction is in Japanese, the diagrams are very clear and I learned some new things about sewing the curved yoke. My ultimate tool was fabric glue, as Yoshimi had used for her Leia dress. It was really fun sewing the curves. Instead of elastic on waist, I sewed several rows of […]