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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

Saturday date in Machida and thrift shopping

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Hi! I hope everyone’s weekend was nice and relaxing. My husband and I went out a little date on Saturday to a city called Machida. It’s close to where we live and has two fabric shops that I like, Yuzawaya and Okadaya. Besides going to fabric shops and grabbing a bite, we stopped by at a thrift shop called “390”. Literally everything they have is 390 yen (about less than $4). I like the shop because they actually have vintage clothing imported from the U.S. and Europe, not just someone’s old clothes from GAP. Besides vintage clothes, they have new scarves, i-phone case shaped like candy bar, head phones and other cute goodies.

There I found this 70’s (maybe 80’s? tag was removed) dress. I love the dusty pale pink color, bat/dolmen sleeves and, peplum, but the dress seems to be able to use some tweaking.

So I removed the shoulder pads, shorten the length, and added lining for the skirt part.
It’s kind of hard to see the difference between before & after in the photos, but I like after version much better, and I think it’s more wearable!

Filed Under: DIY

Buying fabric online for the first time

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I bought fabric online this week, for the first time in my life. I know, I’ve been sewing and selling my clothes online for over 2 years now, but I had never purchased fabrics online before. I always went to fabric stores, touch the fabrics as much as I want before I decide to buy it. Fabric shopping is one of the most crucial parts of my creating process, since I come up with so many new ideas for new clothes while I’m staring and touching different fabrics at the shop.

This week, I finally decided to buy fabrics online, since I found a good online shop in Japan, where it offers free shipping for order above 3000 yen (30 dollars). I also felt a bit lazy to go all the way to Nippori fabric district this week, simply because it has been so cold here! It hasn’t snowed yet so I should not complain, but the air is icing cold. I truly miss Summer!

Here is what I bought online:

from left to right:

1. black cotton jersey
2. black white and red plaid wool
3. grayish white cotton jersey
4. pink jersey (?) although it doesnt have much stretch. mix of cotton and poly. percentage unknown
5. animal print for baby clothes

As a conclusion, I’m pretty satisfied with fabrics I received. The service was great, I received my order within two days, which I think is pretty good. Online fabric shopping will come really handy once the baby is born, when I will have less time to travel & carry around heavy fabrics in train.

One drawback to this experience was that I could not expect how much stretch the fabrics had. Some of my orders were jersey, but #4 pink jersey wasn’t really jersey. It has very minimal stretch, and I was a bit disappointed because I intended to use the fabric to make T-shirt type stuff.

Do you online shop fabrics much? Any tips or advice on how to get what you are really looking for without feeling the fabrics?

25 weeks – Letter to my baby

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Since this is the first pregnancy series post in 2011, I decided to write a short letter to my baby. I really cannot wait to see him or her in person! Sometimes I play “kicking game” with my baby. I tap my belly and he kicks back. When I tap twice, he kicks back twice too! I have an OB appointment this Friday, and I might finally find out the gender. Honestly, I’m happy with boy or girl. This is my first baby and I will be excited either way:)

I have been a bit emotional the past couple of days. Although my husband thanked me for not acting like Rita from Dexter when she was pregnant (constant bitching etc), there are some days that I can’t seem to control my emotions. I think I’m relatively emotionally stable, so this kind of throws me off. Once my friend commented that I’m like a robot (since I’m not overly emotional or don’t seem that way), and she was surprised that I cried at her wedding. It’s not like anything special happened in the past couple of days to make me emotional. It’s some stupid thing, like, I ate too many cookies, felt useless for not being able to control my appetite, and I cried. haha. I’m sure I will feel better soon:)