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Custom Wedding Dress & Kimono Upcycled Clothes | オーダーメイドウェディングドレス&着物ドレス

/ Archives for Chie

Chie

Mommy’s diary 1

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Good morning all!
So week one of motherhood has been completed, only 50 more years to go 🙂  A lot has been going on in that area of my life.  Most of what goes on with newborns is interesting only for the parents so I won’t bore you all with it.  But there are a couple things which I just have to talk about. 

The first night we brought her home was both exciting and really scary.  We had her at the house and she was sleeping well but the thought kept coming to mind “What if there is a problem”?  I could not sleep at all the first night.  I was constantly listening for her every breath.  Any of you have the same experience?  Thankfully over the next few days that thought subsided so now I can relax and if it weren’t for another problem I would be sleeping quite peacefully.

That “other problem” I mentioned is breastfeeding.  I don’t know how many of you have experience in this area but I can tell you that it is much more complicated than I thought.  I thought you just put babys mouth in the right place and that was that!  But apparently there are right and wrong ways to feed.  For example the baby must have their mouth not solely on the nipple but around the whole areola or else, like what happened to me, the nipple gets injured.  Because I was “doing it wrong” the first day or 2, I beat my nipples up so bad that I couldn’t properly feed for a few days after that.  Another breastfeeding challenge I have encountered is my milk production is too high.  This is not a problem for the baby but for me.  My breasts fill up so quickly that they hurt.  It got so bad I couldn’t sleep or eat or anything. I sent Andy on a mission to figure out what was going on, because it did not seem normal for it to hurt that much.  Andy is no doctor but he is a good google monkey and was able to figure out what the problem was.  Apparently because I produce an over abundance of milk I have to breastfeed a little differently.  I have to use one breast at a time so that the baby drains one entirely, gets the proper nutrition and can get my body to respond to the needs of the baby.  When I first started I was alternating between breasts for each feeding.  From what Andy was able to find out, that “normal” way of feeding won’t work for me.  I need to have the baby on one breast for a full 15-20 minutes then on the next feeding use the the other side.  Breastfeeding is really complicated.  I had a really easy pregnancy but the delivery and week following is where I have been getting my mothering pains!

Outside of baby stuff, I have a couple photo shoots coming up.  I will start putting together my Carnival line soon and hopefully will be able to start with some new projects.  I wasn’t sure how working with the baby would go but so far, it hasn’t been too bad. How about you? How do you manage to do things while raising a newborn? Any suggestions?

All for now….time to feed, sew and feed some more!

Made more re-usable nursing pads. I need a lot of those! Tutorial is here. 

Inspiration: snidel

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All images via snidel
I found this Japanese label, snidel from my favorite Japanese magazine, “Sweet”. I barely buy magazines, and my inspirations mostly come from online sources. But my little sister was kind enough to buy me the magazine while I was bored at the hospital last week. I love the dreamy images above from their collection! It reminds me of fairy tales.

1940’s Swing Dress sew-along – progress 1

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Hello! I’m back! I hope everyone enjoyed Sophia‘s (aka iro iro) crochet color tutorial. As I’ve written before, I’m not terribly good at crocheting or knitting, but I definitely want to try her collar pattern. I’m in awe of all her petite crochet animals, such as this tiny owl and elephant… so cute!

I’m slowly getting back to normal self again. The delivery was tougher than I thought, and I’ve been experiencing massive hormonal changes, which are quite overwhelming. But I will save the thought for another time.

While I experience the change in my life, I think it is crucial for me to spend some time, even if it is five minutes, to do things for myself, something that I really enjoy. As for me, it’s sewing! So I’ve been finally working on Casey’s 1940’s Swing Dress sew-along. I know I’m way behind this sew-along, but better late than never, right?!

I print out the pattern, and instead of cutting my size from the glued pattern sheet, I decided to trace my size as the instruction recommended. By the way, it was a bit frustrating to glue these pattern pieces together, since there was no grid line:(

I traced size 10,  which was my pre-pregnancy size…I’m hoping that this dress will motivate me to go back to my pre-pregnancy size..lol.

After tracing the pattern, I made some adjustments:

One of the adjustments was to shorten the skirt length by 9″. It was pretty easy, I just needed to take 9″ at “shorten or lengthen here” line.

I also decided to go without the sleeves. Although the sleeves on this dress are lovely, I think I would wear the dress more often without sleeves, for nursing purpose, so I can slip on and off the shoulder easily. I also like to wear a cardigan with a dress, so sleeves can be bothersome with a cardigan on. Next time I make this dress, I would like to modify the sleeves to butterfly sleeves or bat sleeves..what do you think?

As recommended at Casey’s sew-along post, I used infusible interface for the midsection belt and then underline it to give more structure and stabilization. The fabric I used for the dress is very light chiffon like polyester fabric.

I was terribly confused by the instructions on how to sew shoulder part! Did anyone else have the same experience? I feel like the patterns and instructions can be much simpler somehow. I tried the shoulder part three times, sewing and de-stitching the mistakes over and over. I finally made it (pic above), but if you’d ask me to do it again, I probably won’t be able to repeat the same…This will be another adjustment to the patterns I will make for the future.

I was also confused by the instruction 1, about a dart in bodice back. I just could not get it. I wasn’t sure where the dart was supposed to start and end. So I completely ignored the instruction.
And guess what happened?! The bodice back and skirt back did not match up. The bodice back was longer than skit back where they were supposed to meet.

 So I used a short-cut, and gathered the bodice back so the line matches with skirt back. I kind of like the end result, since the front bodice has a gathered detail, I think back can use one as well:)

Here it is..almost done! I still need to instal a zipper on the side and hem the dress. I think mine looks more like a Grecian dress than a 1940’s swing dress. I really can’t wait to wear this!