I have never thought of dyeing my shoes before

I feel like I should try it although not now.

Antique your shoes from Michael Alden on Vimeo.

Happy New Year, Blog

Happy New Year, Blog. I have decided to resurrect you and give you another chance to breath my creativity. I know that I have promised the same thing 2 years ago but things should be different from now on. We should let life take its turn between us and now you see that it permits us to have this relationship once again.

It is a difficult commitment though, to constantly document my bits of creativity. This is especially difficult as I deliberately limit my time to connect to the Internet. I'd love to go out and play too, you know. Come summer, your best bet is that I'm out in the park reading.

But summer is still a long time from now. These past few days, as days and nights get colder, I find comfort spending my time writing my thoughts away. So, expect me visiting a lot more often from now on. Happy New Year again.

Sailor Shirt Jacket

I bought this fleece to make a no-sew cape for Katie as featured in Disney's blog. The cape turned out fine but Katie wouldn't wear it. Or even try it. So I reused the pieces to make this shirt. Since it's made of fleece, it serves as an outer wear now.

I accidentally tried the zigzag stitch and was happy that I did. The straight stitch was really boring and got lost in the bulkiness of the fabric making the shirt look plain.

Front view

Zigzag stitch detail

Zigzag stitch at sleeve hem

Back view

Pattern : Sailor Shirt size 100 Sewing Naturira vol. 2
Fabric : Dotted fleece

Losing Interest

Really, tell me if you don't lose interest in sewing when reading something like this:

Shoulder seams quilt, at the lateral seam lines beginen exactly and/or end. Quilt the shoulder seams to fitting. Vord. Fit to the front part, rear walls. Fit to the backs quilt. Seam additions in the foremost and back iron.

Side seams on the upper section, shoulder seams at the trimming quilt.

At the skirt courses the folds in direction of arrow insert and festheften. Rear wall. Skirt central joint quilt, the slot open leave. Side seams quilt. Skirt on upper section quilt. The seam additions iron upward.

From the outside in such a way it puts and festheften the opened zipper on the backs that the denticles with the rear walls. Edges lock. The tape ends thereby hit. Zipper volumes approx. 2mm beside the denticles and along the band edges stitch, in addition zipper füßchen begin.

Seam addition inward iron, by hand sew on.

Sleeve seams quilt. Sleeve seam additions inward iron and by hand sew on.

The sleeves kept use. Shoulder pads insert. To belts see model 111.

Well, it's an English google translation from Burda magazine German edition.

It's a kimono.

With a different take.

It's an adaptation of a kimono worn under a kappogi. This is how Ms. Hiroko wears it:

Photo via here

And this is how the model with the adapted top:

The back of the collar stays true to the traditional kimono collar

Kimono and kappogi in one layer

nooy S/S '09 collection
photos via www.nooy.jp

Is it or is it not Liberty?

So. I didn't make that dress.

Instead, I made a blouse that only took up 1 yard of my (precious) Liberty. The pattern instruction stated that the material needed is 1 m 50 cm. Well, I spent some time arranging my pattern pieces in the most frugal manner. It paid, because now I'm left with 1 meter leftover to make something else with.

(to give an idea of) the fit

The length of the blouse hits about 3 cm below my natural waist. It's a little, 1 meter top that features fluttered sleeved and twisted bias tape neckline . The neckline is all hand-sewn. I finished the top in about 3 or 4 days. I worked slowly, trying it on quite frequently to check the fit and especially the sleeves. It really winged out at first--which I don't like.

(hopefully) up-close

The original pattern actually requires for a seemingly heavier weight fabric. The sleeves and neckline are not supposed to be iron-pressed to give a bouffant look. I didn't press the neckline, however, I may have had accidentally pressed the edge of the sleeves. I don't have a ham so it was difficult to press the shoulder seams flat to prevent the sleeves from winging out without touching the edge of the sleeves.

As for the title, I showed a friend this creation who was so curious to see what I came up with my first and exhilarated Liberty. Her first reaction was: "This is not a Liberty... Liberty doesn't touch and feel like this."

Erin from A Dress A Day once posted here her uncertainty about the "printed in Japan" selvage of Liberty fabric she found in Nippori, Tokyo. I have browsed the Internet about this matter as well but remain unsure about the status of my fabric. I bought it cheap though. Hmm...

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Pattern: Happy Homemade vol. 3
Fabric: 100% light weight cotton
Notion: thread #60 and needle #11

Chocolate pudding gone wrong

I used to think that anything you make with chocolate can't go wrong, until I tried out this Best Chocolate Pudding. Originally I intended to use up leftover gelatine to make something similar to Indonesian puding that uses agar.

I knew that pudding and puding are not the same thing but when I looked at those ramekins filled up with that dark gooey chocolate substance, I could not resist the temptation. I had all the ingredients on hand--they were not many, read the instruction--quick and easy, and convinced myself for the last time reading the comments that follow the recipe. At 10.30 pm we went to bed hoping for nice chocolate pudding to gobble after brunch (it was weekend).

In the morning...

It was gooey--exactly which the author raves about--and was not anything that we had expected. It had cornstarch in it and I could still taste it. The next day the upper layer formed a skin to the rich chocolate liquid underneath. The next two days, my husband and I believed that it was chocolate ice cream. It had the kind of consistency of ice cream that you move from freezer and leave in the fridge for an hour.

I'm not sure how to rate this recipe but I'm sure not making this again.