Linen jacket and pants

It’s getting warmer now and Sidra doesn’t need to wear thick jacket anymore. But I think he still needs a thin jacket because sometimes it’s quite windy around here. The fabrics are bought from a nearby store, they are linen, pre-cut to 50 cm. I need two pieces for the jacket, and one for the pants, with almost no leftover (love this!). The jacket uses the same pattern as this navy jacket , but I didn’t put any lining for this one; at the end, they look entirely different. What a big difference some linings make! The pants have no […]

I’d rather sew

I feel like I haven’t sewed anything for months, then I looked at my blog and found out that my last project was only a little more than 2 weeks ago. But it is sure felt like a long time because I’ve been feeling so uncreative these last few days, and I really don’t like feeling that way. To coax myself back into making things, I tried to make this little recycle project. This T-shirt was bought for ¥100 in a secondhand shop, I rather like the seventies feeling of it. But it was a bit too tight on me […]

Lunch set etc

Sidra will start having lunch at school next week, so I finished his lunch set yesterday and made some other things as well. The hand towels are actually one piece of long towel that was bought in 100 yen store. I cut it in two and finished the raw edges, then I sewed a rectangle of fabric and linen ribbon on the corner. The lunch set is consisted of a lunch bag, pouch for cup, and lunch mat. I ran out of linen ribbon for the string, so I tea-dyed some white cotton ribbon to achieve similar result. The school […]

Collarless boy’s suit and bags for shogakko (elementary school)

Sidra is going to elementary school this month and there are tons of things to prepare. The school requires the student to have a lesson bag for their art and crafts stuffs, another bag for uwabaki (slippers to use at school), and yet another type of bag for lunch set. I’ve been planning to make all of them myself and also a suit for Sidra to wear at the opening ceremony. The fabrics had been bought since a month ago, but as usual when faced with a deadline, I usually got lazy and keep postponing things until the last minute. […]

Dinosaur bag tags

Tomorrow is Sidra’s birthday and also his first birthday in Japan. The end of March to the beginning of April is school holiday in Japan, so he will always be celebrating his birthday at home. Fortunately, the moms from his kindergarten class are arranging a picnic tomorrow, I think it’s great because Sidra can spend his birthday with his friends. I’ve been planning to make something for Sidra’s friends, but as usual I got lazy and keep postponing until the last day. This morning I woke up thinking that I should just buy some cookies and candies for the kids. […]

Little black dress

This black stretchy lace fabric had been in my stash for a while, and I didn’t really know what to do with it. Yesterday I suddenly got an idea and proceeded to make it. This dress is actually very simple. I traced the top part from a T-shirt, and that’s the only part of the dress that used some kind of patterns. The cape/sleeves is just a long rectangle, about as long as the cut I had (about 2 meters), then I gathered one long side and sew it to the neckline of the dress. The other long side is […]

Boy’s trousers

Today is totally spring! I can turn off the heater and even leave the window open! It’s a perfect time for sewing, and I really miss working in the sewing room with window open. Sitting behind my sewing machine, with a cup of macha latte on the side, and sometimes looking at the green hills that lie afar is absolutely my idea of having a good time. There’s some leftover wool fabric from Sidra’s winter cape, so I use it to make this pants for Sidra. The pattern is the same as the pants from Sidra’s sailor suit. The pants […]

Lesson bag and PET bottle case

I made this lesson bag and PET bottle case for Sidra to take to his class excursion. Actually I should’ve made them earlier when he started his school year. He won’t be using them in shogakko (elementary school) next month because I’ve prepared other fabrics to make various bags for his school needs. So I count these as a practice to make the next bags. The fabrics are leftovers from previous projects. The denim has been used for this pants , this dress and this apron set , and the striped fabric has been used for this bag and this apron […]

Flower dress

I was looking through my stash when I found this colorful batik fabric. It was bought about 3 years ago for several occasion where I had to wear Indonesian outfit in a 1 month exchange program in Netherlands. I never had the opportunity to wear it again after that, but I really like it so I brought it when I moved to Japan a year ago. The fabric has big and colorful pattern, so I decided to make a simple dress out of it. I didn’t use any pattern and just cut the fabric into 4 rectangles, sewed into a […]

Shrink plastic keychains

I found these sheets of shrink plastic in a 100 yen store for, uh, obviously, 100 yen each. These are basically flexible plastic sheets which, when heated in an oven, shrink to small hard plates without altering their color or shape. Each package contain one A5 (148 × 210 mm) size plastic sheet, two B6 (125 × 176 mm) size sheets, and two keychains holder. I ‘ve been curious about these shrinly dinks and I thought Sidra would love playing with them too. I told Sidra to draw something on white paper, then trace it on plastic and color it. So […]