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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

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Mommy’s Diary 33 Q&A

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Today I’m answering the question one reader asked. Here is her question:

this may be out of topic . it is actually. but i wonder how do you manage your time? with chores, work and sewing. plus with kiko’s present. i’ve been having a hard time squeezing in time for sewing. do you sew when she naps or do you sew while she plays by herself? when i have the time to do anything related to sewing i’ll be either too tired or there are just so many housework that needs to be done, btw i have a 10mo son and he’s pretty handful. any advice?

Hi! Thank you so much for your comment on my blog.

I thought about your question, and I came up with the following tips for how I manage my time. I don’t do everything perfectly, but I do
think I get a lot of things in a day. So here are some tips on how to manage time with a little one:)

1) Kiko is on a set schedule
This helped me a LOT. I don’t know how I could do anyything without Kiko being on a set schedule. She has a set sleeping and eating and
playing schedule for everyday. Both Kiko and I know what to expect during the day. The general schedule is as follows:

6:00 Everyone gets up
6:30: Kiko breakfast (solids)
6:30 – 8:00 Play time (watches daddy and mommy eat, play in her walker, tummy time)
8:00 Kiko gets a bottle
8:30-11:00 Morning nap (here, even if she get up earlier than 11am, I don’t go pick her up. I let her hang out and entertain herself)
11:30 Lunch (solids)
11:30 – 1:30 play time and she gets a bottle at the end
1:30-3:00 Afternoon nap
3:00-5:30 Play time and she gets another bottle here between 3 and 3:30
5:30 Dinner (solids)
6:00 Bath time with mommy, bedtime routine (bottle, brush her teeth, devotional time, read books, sing)
7:00 Kiko goes to bed

The schedule helps everyone. Both Kiko and I know what to expect next. It helps my mom know what to expect when she babysits. It was a pain to set the schedule at first, but over time, she learned to deal with it. She sleeps through the night from 7pm to 6am, which is really
great. My sewing time is usually at night from 8pm after I finish dinner to whenever I go to bed.

2) I have a supportive husband. I’m lucky because Andy is really good with Kiko. If I were to die tomorrow, I can die in peace (I’d rather
avoid dying tomorrow though) because he is perfectly capable of taking care of our baby on his own. Also he cooks everyone’s breakfast and
dinner on weekdays. I resisted this at first, because not cooking dinner for family made me feel like a crappy wife, but he convinced me
otherwise, and I think I got over my feelings of guilt. I couldn’t possibly do what I do without him, if I tried, I would burn out quick.
He also helps me with shipping my sold items, and I’m completely dependent upon him in terms of the shops accounting. Over time, I’ve
learned to delegate work and decided not to micro manage.

3) Practice makes everything perfect. When I first started sewing, it took me 3 days to finish one dress. Over time, as I made more and
more, the time it took to make one garment became less and less. Now I can whip up a simple sundress within two hours. I also do my sewing conveyor belt style. This way I can work on several projects at once. I cut everything at the same time, sew and iron everything at the same time. At the end of the process, I have 2-3 items sewn up and ready to put out for the shop. This system saves more time than making one piece at a time.

4) In terms of house chores, I take care of most of them in the morning. Between the time I get up in the morning at 6am to I go to
work at 8am, I sweep the floor, do laundry (I do it everyday when it is sunny out) etcetera. When the chores start to accumulate and wait
to do them all on weekends, I get discouraged and this puts a real damper on my productivity.

Every person and family are different so I guess, to sum up, I would say work out a schedule and work it for as much as you can. Don’t
underestimate what you can do in a short time and don’t overestimate what you think you can do over a longer period of time. I hope this
helps. Please let me know if you have any other questions!

Inspiration: New Sewing Books

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These are the sewing books that I recently acquired. I read them before bedtime …

First the book in the middle of the above picture is “Cool Couture” by Kenneth D. King. I bought this book recently. After taking the bombshell dress course at Craftsy, I became interested in couture techniques and how to incorporate them in ready-to-wear garments. I forgot who recommended me this book, but I think Kenneth King is pretty famous. The book has a step by step instructions on some couture techniques from piping to different pocket installation. Although the book has plenty of illustrations and pictures, I personally need to follow it while I make a sample, or else  I would forget the process. One of my dreams is to take a sewing class by Kenneth King and Susan Khalji in NY (or Baltimore maybe). I’ve read Gertie took her course, and taking her course has become one of my sewing life goals! It is quite expensive (I think it is about 900 dollars for 5 days), but would be a great way to invest money.

The book “Fitting You Figure” is a collection of articles by vintage Threads magazines. Marina from Frabjous Couture (excellent blog btw, and she guest blogs at BurdaStyle too) kindly sent it to me since I won her giveaway 🙂 I’ve just started reading the book, and it is great. As with the Kenneth King book, I will need to try the techniques with my hands to really acquire the skills, but it is really interesting to read through the articles.

The last book in Japanese is from a local library. I visit there every other week and pick up several books to read at night. This book is titled “How to be a fashion designer“. I just started reading it last night, it gives a brief history of several designers, including Junko Koshino. While reading their stories, it dawned on me that success does not come over night. These famous designers have years of sewing, pattern making, designing experience.  They all patiently wait until their break comes. They have years of waiting time, where they learned the industry, leveled up their skills and so on. Watching Project Runway, sometimes it looks like success comes to you over night, but for most successful people, it does not. I was really encouraged by it:) If I were to become a famous designer tomorrow, I would not be prepared to take the success and would blow the opportunity. I don’t have the necessary skills or knowledge yet. So much more to learn!

Lastly, I found that this etsy shop, Isabel’s Patterns is having a 50% sale on vintage patterns! I picked up 4 new patterns today. They are a boy’s shirt, men’s robe, high waisted wide legged pants and a night gown patterns. I can’t wait to receive them! Check out her store – She has more than 400 vintage patterns, and they are really cheap!

 

You Are Invited! Holiday Craft Fair in Tokyo Midtown

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Hi everyone! I am having a booth this Saturday the 10th at the Oakwood Premier Tokyo Midtown. It will feature some of my pieces. If you are around Tokyo, please stop by and say hello 🙂 Tokyo Midtown is a chic shopping mall that opened up about a year or two ago. Some of the Tokyo Fashion Weeks runway shows are held here (I went to Shida Tatsuya show this fall). I’ve heard that there is a gorgeous holiday light setup for Christmas, which I am looking forward to seeing!

As said above, it’s on Saturday 12/10, from 12pm to 4pm. The entrance fee is 1000 yen, but it includes drinks, 500 yen donation to Resilience Japan, and 500 yen coupon toward a purchase at the fair. Looking forward to seeing you!