Category: life

Rosita’s jacket and Tokyo Comic Con 2016

A couple of months ago, my husband asked me if I would like to come with him and a friend to Tokyo Comic Con in December. I’m not really a big fan of crowd so I just told them to go ahead. But then our friend suggested that we’d picked a character and do a cosplay. More reason to sew? Now I’m interested! I was thinking of dressing as one of the characters from Game of Thrones, but then I thought the flowy dresses would only be worn for that one day. I’m not planning to do a lot of cosplaying so I […]

Neon skirt

Since Sidra entered junior high school, he became very busy with all the school activities. Even on weekends, he often has to go to school for sports practice. I suddenly found myself with lots of free time, so I started taking a couple of jobs recently. One thing that I do is working with a designer in developing a product. The company makes bags for outdoor use like backpacks, photography bags, and such. I’m very excited with this job because I get to work with materials that I’ve never used before (do you know what a gatekeeper is? I didn’t know […]

Junior high school boy!

Sidra has started junior high school this week! Yesterday was the entrance ceremony at his school. The junior high school is actually right across his elementary school, and most of his friends go there, so there is not much difference than the elementary school days. But still, he looked so different and mature in uniform than he was before. After the ceremony, we went back to a spot near the school where we took a picture 6 years ago after the elementary school entrance ceremony. Several elementary school kids stopped by to watch us taking pictures with tripod and timer […]

Japanese junior high school uniform – with user’s manual

Sidra is entering junior high school next month, and this is the uniform that he will be wearing for the next three years. No, I didn’t make this, but it is a very interesting uniform so I want to post about it. I think every parent with a growing child understand how difficult it is to find a good fitting clothes for their child. A good fitting outfit is nice to look at, but sadly can only be worn for several months or maybe a year. Then people usually buy or make clothes that several sizes too big to prolong the wearing life, which unfortunately don’t […]

Graduation suit!

Here’s Sidra in his new suit! The trousers have thigh-length partial lining. I connected the seam allowance at the inseam using chain stitched thread. Sidra had a blast at the graduation day yesterday, laughing and taking pictures with his friends. Some of the girls from his class were crying as if they will never meet again, but actually most of them will go to the same junior high school.

Saboten the chihuahua

After Shake the dachshund left, we took a break from fostering for several months. We started again recently and this cutie pooch has been staying with us for a couple of weeks. His name is Saboten, which means ‘cactus’ in Japanese. It is not his real name though, so he doesn’t really understand when someone calls ‘Saboten!’. Nobody knows his real name or age because Saboten was found abandoned in a cage. This is Saboten’s profile page in ARK website. I can’t imagine why someone would just get rid of a dog like Saboten. He behaves very well, doesn’t make a mess […]

Weekend, September 2014

Last Saturday we went to the Doll Culture Exhibition. It was such an eye candy not only for doll lovers, but also for fashion and sewing enthusiasts. The exhibition is taking place in the Tokyo City View Observation Deck in Roppongi Hills, so you can also get great view from there. The exhibition features 5 different types of dolls: Licca, Jenny, Barbie, Blythe, and Dollfie, along with several kinds of vintage dolls from as far as the sixties. I love to see how the fashion of the era is reflected to the dolls clothes and features. Check out this 1982 Licca doll […]

One year with Fuwawa

One year ago we met Fuwawa for the first time. She has lived as a breeding dog for the first seven years of her life until the breeder had to close down. Initially, the breeder wanted to put down all of their Chinese Crested dogs but fortunately they didn’t have enough money to do so. They handed all the dogs to the ARK shelter instead, who then sent Fuwawa to us to be fostered. The first few days in our house, Fuwawa was still very nervous and spent most of her time hiding in her crate. She was debarked by the breeder so […]

Seam Allowance App

  As a metric user, one of my pet peeve when using certain sewing patterns are the seam allowance conversion. I couldn’t seem to remember what are the equivalent of 5/8″, 1/3″, 3/4″, 1/4″ and so on in centimetres. Sure I can use Google to find out that 5/8″ is 1.5875 cm, and then I would round this number to 1.5 cm. It is not so easy the other way around though. When someone asked me what 1 cm seam allowance is in imperial, Google told me that it is 0.393701 inch. And how was I supposed to know that this number is close to 3/8″? I’m not […]

Goodbye Shoronpo and Hello Shake!

A couple of weeks ago we said goodbye to Shoronpo as he has finally found a forever home! It is always a bittersweet moment when it happened. We are happy though to see him go and will always remember the time when he is in our home. Congratulations Shoronpo! After Shoronpo left, we welcomed Shake, an 11 years old female dachshund. Her name means ‘salmon fish’ in Japanese and it is pronounced like ‘shock-eh’. When her previous owner had to move out of their home, for some reason they couldn’t take Shake with them so she was brought to the shelter. She actually came to […]

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