Tag: sewing

womenswear
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High-waisted pants

The fabric may look like denim, but in fact it is quite lightweight. It’s cheap polyester, initially bought to make a muslin for my husband’s shirt when I changed my mind and used it for my pants instead. I’m sorry! I rarely wear nor make pants for myself, but I ‘d been wanting to try this 1958 McCall’s 4822 pattern. The cheap fabric is perfect for this, just to see how it would look on me. If it turned out horrible, I can pretend that it’s a muslin…. I made view A, the long pants but without the pockets because I didn’t […]

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menswear
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Men’s shirt: first muslin

I started late for the Men’s shirt sew-along because I couldn’t find any cheap fabric for the muslin. That was a lie. It’s just that I always have trouble working with deadlines or going along with the others. This sew-along is not only a sewing challenge, but also a challenge to this tendency of mine. After kicking myself off the couch, I biked for ten minutes to the nearest fabric store and bought this cheap fabric. The store was not a regular fabric store, it was small, filled tightly with bolt and cut fabrics, old buttons, and dusty knick-knacks that […]

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womenswear
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Spring dress

I’ve finished tracing the pattern pieces for the MPB Men’s Shirt sew along and washed the fashion fabric. But before moving on to the next day, I still need to find some cheap fabric for the muslin. In the meantime, I finished my dress! It’s the floral printed cotton that I bought in Nippori, made with this 1967 pattern, McCall’s 8746. Inspired by the sew-along, I also did the pattern tracing so the original pattern stay intact.  I made no significant alteration other than shortening the bodice and the hem, rather aggressively for the latter. Apparently I’m that short (-_-) I read […]

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life
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Findings

I want to open this post today by telling you that I won another prize from Burdastyle! Isn’t that incredible? It’s the ‘Clean House with Krrb Corner Contest’ and I won first prize, winning a SINGER® Fashion Mate 7256 plus $200 USD. Unfortunately sending a package as big as a sewing machine all the way to Japan is a bit difficult, so Krrb has offered to send it in cash instead, which is absolutely acceptable (of course!). I feel so lucky! Now for the findings part as indicated in the title. About a couple of weeks ago I went to Nippori for […]

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womenswear
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Flat collar blouse

I’m joining a Men’s Shirt Sew-Along at Male Pattern Boldness, starting at February 1! If you’ve never heard of Peter of Male Pattern Boldness, you really should check out his blog and read his adventure in clothes-making, written in the most entertaining way as possible. He posts everyday, which I really admire. Reading his posts often makes me chuckling in the middle of the night (got to blame those time differences!). Peter is arranging a sew-along using Negroni pattern from Colette (but you can use any men’s shirt pattern as well), and the time is just perfect because my husband […]

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womenswear
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Red cardigan

Red is such a hard color to photograph! I just finished this red cardigan yesterday. The knit fabric is indeed wonderful. It is a bit transparent but surprisingly warm with fuzzy surface and tiny heart-shaped holes all over it. Too bad the pictures don’t show the fabric well. The pattern is Pris, I bought it as PDF pattern from Tamanegi Kobo, a Japanese pattern shop. The pattern is in Japanese, but the drawings and diagrams made it really easy to construct it. The original pattern was mid-hip length, but I lengthened it about 20 cm because i don’t like anything that […]

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kidswear
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Nature walk knit pants

This is my first oliver + s pattern that I’ve been wanting to try for sometime. This pair of pants is a part of Nature Walk pullover + knit pants, I only made the knit pants. The pattern is in size 5-12 years, very well presented with easy and clear instructions.  The placement of the elastic inside the waist yoke is very clever! It allows for a hip yoke appearance but the elastic keeps the pants in place. The pants have no side seams, so it was finished very quickly. I sewed it using zigzag stitches on my Janome sewing […]

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making other stuff
8 Comments

Christmas platypuses

Since moving to Tokyo, Sidra has been exposed to Christmas things and activities from friends and school, so it’s only natural that he wants to have Christmas too at home. Last year, I bought him a (very) small Christmas tree that he can decorate at home with those blinking lights and all. He was very happy about it. This year, my husband and I are planning to give him Christmas presents too because he has been asking for them. Actually we don’ usually celebrate Christmas or any other days. The things celebrated in our home are only birthdays and anniversaries. […]

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life, making other stuff
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Little things

I joined a small cooking class in the neighborhood and they had a Christmas potluck party yesterday. I always got nervous whenever I have to meet people, and this time I had to make something edible for them! The fact that my skill in the kitchen is not something to be proud of didn’t help either. So I spent the whole week getting nervous about it. I ended up making sweet Indonesian (Javanese) dessert called ‘Jenang Grendul’, it is one of my favorite food when I was a kid. This dessert is some kind of sweet porridge with little balls made […]

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kidswear
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Recycled pants

Before cutting the pattern, I saved the zipper, zipper fly, pocket linings, back pockets, belt carriers, and waistband with its button and buttonhole from my husband’s pants. Constructing the new pants was so much fun! I’ve never made jeans before, so I used another jeans to see how I should stitch the pieces together, where to topstitch, etc. Sidra’s pants has elastic with buttonholes so it is adjustable. I saved the elastic from Sidra’s old pants. Nothing is wasted here! Love the result! The fit is perfect in my opinion, and the waistband is not too high. And since the […]

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