Look at those pretty buttons! If you’re looking for new ideas and inspiration for Spring sewing, you can check out these exciting projects and sew-alongs: Free Pattern Month at Grosgrain Fabulous, April 25-May 27. It starts today and will continue for a whole month with free pattern from the guest bloggers, one free pattern each day! That is indeed so fabulous! I’m also honored to be invited as one of the guest (^_^) the Spring Top Flickr group for inspiration. Jeans Sew-Along at Male Pattern Boldness, starting May 2nd. I’m going to make a pair of jeans for my husband […]
Tag: sewing
Sew Weekly Challenge: Kidding Around
My first Sew Weekly challenge! If you haven’t heard about Sew Weekly (who haven’t?), you should check out the site now! This week’s theme is ‘kidding around’ where people make creations inspired by outfit worn in their childhood photo. I was quite excited with this theme as most of my clothes are basically shaped like a bigger version of little girls’ dresses. Hello baby dolls, gathered skirt, and ruffles! Now for finding the childhood photo. This turned out to be not quite an easy task. My late father loved to take pictures of his kids when we were still very […]
Skull and cross pants
The fabric is black medium weight linen/cotton with white and silver skull and cross pattern and I’m not too crazy about it. The idea of silver and gold as fabric is too flashy for my taste. We were browsing around in Yuzawaya, a fabric store, when Sidra saw it and announced on the spot: “I want to wear this fabric.” I’ve tried to change his mind, what about a bag, an apron? “No, I don’t want it as a bag. No, not an apron. I want a pair of pants with this fabric. Yes, I am sure.” Uhhh, okay. I was planning […]
Loose drape dress
I’ve had this pattern book, ドレープ ドレープ (Drape Drape), for about a year now but had never made anything out of it. Most of the pattern in the book use knit fabrics, I guess I was a bit intimidated by it. But after making several clothes with knit fabrics (without serger), I found myself browsing the book again and decided to make one of the pattern. This is pattern no.1, the loose drape top that I lengthened into a dress. The pattern is pretty straightforward, consisted of only two pieces with binding for finishing the armholes. The fabric is double-gauze knit in […]
Cockroach plush tutorial
A cockroach plushie? Who needs cute bear or cat plushies? I’m sure every boy would love a huggable cockroach! This is Sidra’s favorite toy at the moment, he calls it Gokiburi-kun (gokiburi means… well, cockroach). The cockroach is basically just an oval shape pillow with legs. The wings and head are made with leftover dupioni silk that I dyed brown. The original color of the silk was silver, and the shimmers would make a perfect cockroach. The body is made with cotton/linen fabric with interesting texture, leftover from my husband’s shirt. Fancy your own giant cockroach? Carry on! Disclaimer: For […]
Pointed hood tutorial
These hoodies were inspired by a children book, みんなのこびと (cub label) (Minna no Kobito) by Toshitaka Nabata, or loosely translated as ‘Everyone’s Kobito’. I made them for the Once Upon a Thread event at No Big Dill. Check out my story and pictures over there! The fabric is cotton knit, very soft and comfortable. The hoodies will be good addition for Sidra’s wardrobe in spring. The body of the T-shirt and pants are made with commercial pattern. Disclaimer: For personal use only. Please do not pass off the pattern and tutorial as your own. Thank you! Click to download POINTED […]
Purple Tank
So many things happened in just two weeks. We didn’t have any blackout again since the last time, although the schedule for next blackout will still be planned to roll until summer. Summer without aircon? I might need to take a vacation then! This week is also the last week of school year, and Sidra missed the entire week because he is down with bad cold. It’s too bad that he didn’t have the chance to enjoy the last days in second grade, next month he will start third grade with new classmates. I hope he will get better soon. […]
Men’s shirt: Finally!
Earlier this year, I made a resolution to learn not to rush when working on my projects. Apparently I took the resolution too far because it took me more than a month to finish my husband’s shirt! I guess the reason why I always rush my projects was because I need to finish them before laziness kick in. Anyway, finally here’s the shirt! My husband loves fabric with interesting texture, so I use this Japanese cotton/linen with embroidered indigo and rust threads for the shirt. I must say that I’m very satisfied with it. All those fitting adjustment has paid off […]
Men’s shirt: second (and wearable) muslin!
This is the second muslin with pattern adjustment as described in the previous post. My husband doesn’t like to wear plaid fabric, so there are no plaid patterns in his wardrobe, all solid colors with occasional stripes. I always think that he would look good in plaids though. So I used this opportunity to make him wear them by making a muslin shirt from madras fabric. I’m very sneaky. The madras fabric was only 2 meters, just enough for a short sleeves shirt with no pocket. Making shirt in plaids is also an exercise for me in matching lines. I […]
Men’s shirt: adjusting the muslin
Maybe you still remember the muslin shirt for my husband, it has been sitting beside my sewing machine the whole time begging me to do something about it. After Peter published his last post for the Men’s shirt sew-along several days ago, I finally picked up the muslin shirt and continue from that point. In the first fitting, I thought the crease and folds problem were caused by the neckline being too high. However, Peter suggested here that the problem was that the shoulders need to be lowered. He was right! There are two pattern drafting books in my bookshelves, they are for […]