Week 8 of motherhood is here! Last week was hard, because I had to be out for work all week long. I missed hanging out with Kiko during the day. My mother and husband watched Kiko while I was out, so at least I felt safe, knowing that she was in the hands of people who love and care for her.
The first day of work, I did not have sufficient time to pump, so by the end of the day, my breasts were so full. Although I told my boss that I would need 10-15 minutes to pump here and there during the day, it was hard to find time to do so. We were going from meeting to meeting, and eating with clients in between leaving me with only 4-5 minutes to pump. By the end of the week, I felt that my milk production went down significantly. My body decided it wasn’t really necessary for it to produce milk I guess. On top of that, I was exhausted and stressed. I’ve read that exhaustion affects the milk production. I read this post about breastfeeding dilemma for working mothers, and I could relate to the writer of the post. Working moms out there, what do you think of this issue? Any advice?
Thankfully over the weekend, I had time to relax a bit and start on some new sewing projects that I had postponed because of work. I was asked by a friend of mine to make a Minnie mouse dress for her one year old daughter. She wanted it for an outing to Tokyo Disney Land. I gladly agreed to make it:) My friend said her daughter wore size 90, which means it is a size for a child who is 90 cm in height. I did not have any pattern for a size 90 girl, but I have a dress for Kiko which is size 100. So I took the dress, and cut out the red and white polkadot fabric based on the dress. I did not add seam allowance because I wanted to make the dress a bit smaller than the one I have.
There are 4 separate parts to this dress: front top, front skirt, back tops and back skirts.
I decided to add a little twist to this simple dress. I did this by inserting a white piping detail – you might already know how much I’m into piping now by my After the Carnival clothes! So I cut out some white bias strips..
And used some cords I bought from 100 yen shop.
Gathered the front and back skirt pieces…
Tada! Piping inserted!
The dress has a back button closure. I just imitated the size 100 dress I had.
I finished the arm hole with bias strips. And done!
I hope the dress fits her daughter well. I’m sending it with a little thank you note because she gave me a very nice shower gift:)
Another friend of mine came over on Saturday for a wedding dress fitting (Yes! I’m making a wedding dress for her!) so I showed her the Minnie mouse dress. Later she sent me this picture of a catalog, for a little girl’s Minnie mouse dress that costs 3700 yen (about 40 USD). Guess how much I spent for my version of the Minnie mouse dress?! A whopping 600 yen for 1 meter of fabric! 🙂
