The Age of Dressing Responsibly

I did not feel like a real grown up until I started looking for kindergarten for my 3 year-old. I had to survey several schools, finding out which best suits our needs and financial allowance. I started to really think about decent outfit for school tours. I have lived most of my life in jeans. Shirt and skinny jeans combo seems to be the most apt uniform for mother role.

Different from where I come from, the school year of a kindergarten in Japan starts with a ceremony, in which all parents and children gather to listen to the school orientation speech and then take a picture of the class. This is a formal event that requires formal dressing as well. It is easy for my husband. Men can not go wrong wearing formal suits to almost anywhere here in Tokyo. As for me, it is quite a problem. My wardrobe is not equipped for such occasion.

So I plan to sew myself a nice jacket or blazer from cheap black cotton boucle from my stash. I just purchased a meter of mysterious black fusible interfacing, which I have already successfully tested out on the boucle. I usually play it safe by using only Vilene brand and have only recently tried to experiment using different weights of interfacing. I love this interfacing I bought in a small shop located at the end of the Nippori Fabric Town street. It is a shop specializing in interfacing in various colors and weights, and colorful lining fabrics. I was a little hesitate to buy as they were sold by the cheap. Even the lining fabric was sold cheaper than the famous cheapo Tomato. I thought prices could not get any lower than in Tomato Nippori but it could. I am definitely coming back to this shop. I have never found fusible interfacing in wine elsewhere.

While I am at it, I also have to mention another shop nearby, Iwase Grow Up. I went in because it has this nice rustic blue door that has Provencal feel. Inside I found a large selection of knits, larger than Tomato, but cheaper than Pakira Knits. By large selection I mean there are more interesting pattern knits here compared to the boring Tomato. I was tempted to buy but managed to stick to my initial intention: gabardine for formal jacket. However, I did buy something from the remnant bin, a meter of stretchy black polyester, out of guilt. I just did not feel comfortable to walk out empty handed after ooh-aah-ing for almost 40 minutes there.

On my way to Tomato (I don't know why visiting this shop felt compulsory when I am in Nippori), I stopped by at IDN, a shop I discovered from Carolyn S' blog. By the way, Carolyn lives in Australia. I am kinda embarrassed that I should know about it from someone who lives in different continent while I live a few stations away from it. Again this shop has nice selection of fashion fabrics with cheaper prices. I feel like the end is near for me and Yuzawaya. However, I did not find the gabardine that I was looking for here either so I decided to buy some muslin for the jacket instead at Tomato.

At home, I immediately washed and air-dried my purchase, curious about its fiber content. It seems that the twill for my muslin is cotton. Good thing, for 100 yen a meter. The stretchy black polyester was not bad either, being quite thick. I plan to use it for dressy pants.

Now that I have decided to use the boucle from my stash for my jacket, I can use the rather nice twill for something else. I am thinking a muslin for Burda pants that I plan to make twice in gabardine and wool.

I am thinking to use a jacket with peplum pattern out of Burdastyle March 2011 issue.




I am not sure if I can leave out the petite alteration with this pattern as I don't have experience in shortening vertical darts. Well, I guess I will see about that. Wish me luck.

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