verypurpleperson

bags and purses, Free patterns, tutorials
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Wallet tutorial

Here’s the tutorial for these wallets! The tutorial includes two variation of the closure, one with tab and velcro and the other with fabric loop and button. For the tutorial, I made a pair of wallets from pink Japanese cotton fabrics, one in polkadot and the other one in floral pattern. The beige linings are Indian cotton fabrics. I hope the colours of the fabrics are not too muted in the pictures. The tutorial can be downloaded below, it’s a 7 pages of PDF file. Please contact me if you have any difficulty downloading it, or if anything is not […]

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bags and purses
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Boxy pouch – Fuchsia and yellow

After teaching my friends how to make some boxy pouches, I got inspired and made one myself. This is such a nice little project, the fabric is IKEA scraps I had in my stash with yellow lining inside, yellow zipper, and yellow cotton webbing for the handle. I still have like tons of fabric scraps that I accumulated in one and a half year in Japan and whatever I do with them, they still keep growing (and I still keep buying *sigh*). I don’t know how people can have such a nice and neat sewing room, mine is a mess!

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life
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Boxy pouches for sewing session

Aren’t these pouches so pretty? But these are not made by me. Today we had another sewing session at my friend’s house as they wanted to learn making these boxy pouches. I’m always a bit nervous about teaching something to people, I’m afraid my explanations wouldn’t be clear enough or they wouldn’t understand. These friends of mine don’t even speak English (only one of the three can), but then I guess we didn’t really need to talk much. Let’s just cut and sew those fabrics. Anyway, I really love their fabric choices, the pink one with ice creams have very […]

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bags and purses, Free patterns, tutorials
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Mini wallet tutorial

Yay I finished it! This is the tutorial for the mini wallet in this post. For the tutorial, I made a pair of mini wallets in Japanese cotton with colorful houses pattern on it. I really enjoyed making them and the tutorial. The tutorial for the bigger wallets is still in progress, and it will be posted soon when it’s ready! As it would be too long as a blog post, the tutorial is made it into a pdf file that can be downloaded here. Please contact me if you have any difficulty downloading it. This is also my first […]

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bags and purses
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Wallets!

Several friends of mine wanted to learn to make these linen wallets, but since I’ve never taken notes while making things, I had forgotten how to make them. Duh! So I made another wallet to remind myself back, taking proper notes this time. This one is pretty much the same as my previous wallet, the same fabric with velcro closure on the tab. Once I had a decent note, I made two more wallets with more variations. I sewed a piece of cotton lace on the green one and change the closure to thin fabric tubes with elastic inside and […]

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womenswear
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Two batik dresses

I had a bit of irritation in my eyes from contact lenses and doctor told me to give my eyes some rest and not wearing contacts for at least two week. Yaiks! I’m so used to wearing contact lenses that I wear them all day, so I don’t have a proper eyeglasses for my minus 3 eyes. The only eyeglasses I have is not very comfortable and I can’t get a new prescription until my eyes are okay. Oh, well. Anyway, I still managed to finish these two dresses for the shop. Although I worked slower than usual because my […]

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womenswear
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Stylish Dress Book 2: Dress F

When we went to Indonesia last summer, I came back with quite a heap of fabrics. Several of them are from my mother’s collection which are too beautiful that I’m still afraid to cut them, and several are store-bought. This cotton batik is bought from Danar Hadi, a batik store in the city of Solo, Central Java; the brown and indigo pattern is called ‘Parang rusak‘. I browsed through my Japanese pattern book and find dress F in ‘Stylish Dress Book 2’. The pattern is very simple, a loose dress with raglan sleeves, several rows of shirrings on neckline, and […]

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bags and purses, womenswear
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An apron, another bag, and a pinch pouch

A few days ago, I joined a cooking class in the neighbourhood. And just a day before the class, my friend told me that I had to bring an apron. I guess it wasn’t too unusual since almost every housewife in Japan has an apron that they wear everyday. Well, I do some cooking at home and had thought about using an apron, but somehow always postponed making it. I immediately turned to my scrap bag and found that I still had some leftover from my IKEA bags. This one was just enough for a small apron without pockets. Maybe […]

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womenswear
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Stylish Dress Book 2: Top A

This ‘Stylish Dress Book 2’ is one of the most popular pattern book among crafters, and I’ve been eyeing it for sometime. I’ve already had ‘Stylish Dress Book 1’ and made several dresses from it. The dresses in both books are relatively simple, yet so pretty. The pictures are also very simple, both books featuring the same model standing against white wall with serene look. I finally bought the book and decided to make the first pattern in the book: A. The top has flowy sleeves and several pleats on the front part. The fabric is thin cotton with stripes […]

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life
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Go no poo

 The last time I used shampoo for washing my hair was about 2,5 months ago, or to be exact, in June 18, 2009. My hair was not the best hair in the world. I’ve abused it in many ways, colouring it, spraying it with curling spray to keep the shape, and rubbing it with shine serum to make it shine. Actually they looked kinda alright, but then I noticed that without all those styling stuffs, my hair would look dull and lifeless. Then I read this article about ‘no poo’. Here’s a woman who has stopped shampooing at all and […]

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