verypurpleperson

life
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Featured!

Hello! I just got interviewed by Sarah Von from yes and yes for her Real Life Style Icons series. You can check out the interview here where I answered her questions about my style. I don’t know about being an icon style though, everyday I still get confused over what to wear and usually end up by wearing the same item over and over again. While you’re at her blog, you should check out her other posts too. Her blog features all these wonderful series and stories about women and their lifestyle. It’s not a craft blog, fashion blog, beauty […]

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womenswear
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Floral skirts and dresses

I’ve used the Wenlan blouse pattern from Burdastyle to make this bib dress before and really loved the result. This time I use the pattern again to make these floral bib dresses. The fabrics are so pretty with tiny floral patterns on them, they also look and feel like Liberty fabrics. I added a few pleats on the top of the sleeves and let the raw edges shown. In the technical drawing of the top, I saw that the sleeves are on top of the lower skirt part. I got a bit confused reading the instructions, so I just did it my […]

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womenswear
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Floral dresses (and second take on Tara dress)

I found these pretty floral fabric when going shopping to Asakusabashi with Chie and Kayo the other day. The fabrics are cotton with embroidered border on one side. I love how comfortable the fabrics felt on my hand. I used one of the fabric to make another try on the Tara pattern. No alteration other than making the sleeves double layered with raw edges shown.  It was finished pretty quick and I made no mistake this time! The finished dress is rather lingerie-looking, I guess it’s due to the shape and embroideries. But I think it looks pretty cute. The […]

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life
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Chie and Kayo!

These two beautiful ladies is Chie from VivatVeritas and Kayo from Crochetie, both of them are also Burdastyle members and both have etsy shops: Chie’s shop and Kayo’s shop. You should check them out because they make the cutest dresses and accessories! Anyway, I just met them today in Asakusabashi, it is another district in Tokyo with large selection of craft and bead stores. Some of the stores sell wholesale so the prices are quite cheap. We had lunch in an Indian restaurant before walking around the area. Then Kayo showed us several of her favorite shops there and at the end […]

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life
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Meeting Yoshimi

Do you recognize these bags? Yes, on the right side is my bag, and the pretty bag with rosettes is Yoshimi’s bag! They were sitting together side by side on a wooden bench inside an Indonesian restaurant in Shinjuku. Yoshimi and I spent a day together  last Saturday, it was a bit cold and cloudy day but I was very happy to see her! We’ve met several times before to go fabric shopping, this time we just had a good time walking around Shinjuku area. We planned to have lunch in a deli, but then Yoshimi mentioned about Indonesian restaurant […]

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life, review
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Searching for Meaning in a Throwaway World

Mark Frauenfelder, the founder of BoingBoing.net and the editor in chief of Make magazine has just launched a new book yesterday: ‘Made by Hand: Searching for Meaning in a Throwaway World‘. I had the chance to read an uncorrected proof before it was launched and it was quite an enjoyable experience. This is not the book if you’re looking for tutorials or DIY projects. It is rather a chronicle of Mark’s journey to find what DIY means to him. Like many people, he had this romantic idea of living in remote island, and he even had the chance to fulfill […]

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womenswear
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Green dress: Fail!

Tara is one of the most popular Burdastyle pattern and yesterday I decided to give it a try. It is a top pattern, but as usual I lengthened it to make a dress. The green fabric is another vintage fabric from my mother, it is now pretty old and has a lot of little holes. As it is a traditional cloth from one of the area in Indonesia, the width and length were a bit unusual. I apologize that I can’t remember exactly what area it was from, there are really a lot of areas in Indonesia, each with their […]

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womenswear
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Simple tops

One of the advantage of having a small body is that I only need small amount of fabric to make clothing. That way I can make use of those impulsive half-yard cut fabric shopping. These tops were whipped very quick today, the pattern is so simple, and only consisted of two pieces. The batik top is made with leftover fabric from my tie-front dress. It has side slits with the front and back hem in different lengths. The wide stripes one  is made with very comfortable double gauze cotton. The fabric is not enough to make the neck facings, so I […]

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kidswear
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Checks pants

I miss my blog! It has been too long since I post about sewing and you might (or, uhm, you might not) wonder where I’ve been. Well, it’s just that real life sometimes got in the way of blogging life, that’s a sad fact. Or maybe I just didn’t try hard enough. So the last two weeks I had been busy with my little things, and now that they are finished, I can go back making stuff! I need something fast to sew that can make me happy again. And usually that thing is Sidra’s pants. Really, it’s my instant […]

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kidswear, life
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Wardrobe inventory

There is an interesting project going on at Zoe’s blog where she would only wear her own handmade clothes for a month. Last month, Zoe challenged herself in the Me-Made-March where she posted her daily handmade outfit and how she coordinated them. And this month, she invited other people to participate. So if you want to participate, you should check it out now because Me-Made-May is about to start, like, in the next couple of days! I think it’s really a wonderful idea because then we could see how much sewing has taken part in our daily life. Is it merely […]

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