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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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Quilting Progress

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Hello! Here is the progress on my first quilting project! I decided to use the sewing machine, instead of hand sewing, to connect the squares. I have 100 squares for this quilt, 50 white and 50 yellow. The fabric I used was from my scrap stash, so it wasn’t exactly quilting cottons, but it worked nonetheless. The yellow fabric was leftover from some bridesmaid dresses I worked on in the past, and that fabric has a bit of stretch. I’m not sure if I am supposed to use non-quilting cotton fabric for quilts, but side reason for this project is to help get rid of my scrap heap.

It was really exciting to see the pattern come together!


Connecting the squares turned out to be quicker than I expected. Now I need to sandwich quilt batting with this and another sheet of fabric. I got this quilt batting at the 100 yen shop (dollar store in Japan). I love the 100 yen shop! I find all kinds of useful stuff there. Mine is 8mm thick, and I bought two packages. It turned out 1 was not enough, so I connected the two battings together using a zig zag stitch. Again, I’m not sure if this is the right way to handle such things..but I’m trying to make do.

Now for the actual quilting part. I decided to hand stitch the whole thing. That way, I can quilt while I’m watching movies. I always get jittery while I’m watching TV, wanting to move hands to work on some kind of project. Also when I’m sitting in front of my sewing machine, I want to be sewing clothes since I have a limited time in a day to sew with other responsibilities in my life! I’m glad I have this project. It’s mobile, so I can take with me when I go back to my parents’ house or do it while I am at various locations in my house. I think this is the perfect season to start quilting, because it is getting chilly in the morning and at night. What project(s) are you working on this Fall?

And, last but not least, I want to share some good quilting websites. I asked for the recommendations last week, and some readers directed me to these great websites!

❤Websites with quilting projects❤

❤ Oh Fransson!
❤Film in the fridge
❤Sew do it already

❤Free quilting pattern❤

❤Half Log Cabin Pattern

Making Wedding Dress Pt. 10 – Hemming and Attaching Pearls and Rhinestones

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Hello everyone! Hope you had a wonderful weekend. Mine was nice – Andy, Kiko and I went to Enoshima, which is a small island near Fujisawa, Kanagawa. They have a plenty of Japanesey cute shops, souvenir shops and of course a beach. The weather was super nice, sunny and crispy (not muggy like an average Japan summer day). After our family excursion, I went to get my hair done:) I was going to cut my bangs short and straight, but I decided against it – I’ve had my bangs long for so long, I don’t have the courage to change it dramatically.

Anyway, here is my progress on my friend’s wedding dress. I finished the skirt lining and installing the zipper (successfully) last time. At this point, I hemmed the skirt. There is a very nice item called horse hair braid to hem skirt like this. This was my first time using horse hair braid, and what a clever item it is! I bought this at Okadaya in Shinjuku, and I think it was about 250 yen per meter. If you are in the States, I know Sunni from A Fashionable Stitch has horse hair braids stocked in her shop for a very reasonable price ($1.60 per yard).  This item is great for hemming both circle skirt and half circle skirt.

So, I attached the horse hair braid to the hem, and then realized that I had made a crucial mistake – I did not underline the skirt, and I really should have. I wish I underlined the skirt with silk organza, so when I hand sew the end of horse hair braid onto the dress, I will be able take the stitches from the organza itself, not the fashion fabric. It was really nerve-wrecking to try to scoop a stitch from the back of the fashion fabric without a stitch showing on the right side of the fabric. Lesson learned for next time…


Before attaching the upper body lining, I hand sewed the lace, pearls and rhinestones. It took FOREVER! This dress took so much more hand sewing than I expected. I carefully hand sewed each pearl and rhinestone individually. I did this by tying the string and cutting it for each individual piece. I did this because I did not want to have all the pearls/rhinestones attached to one string thereby opening myself up to a possible domino effect where one pearl gets detached from the dress and causes all the others to disconnect from the dress. I think I watched 4-5 episodes of project runway while doing this. I often stopped to see the balance of the pearls and rhinestones!

It took time, but I am very happy with the result:

What do you think?! I’m almost done!!

P.S. I’m guest blogging at Jo’s blog,  A Bit Of This and a Bit Of That today, sharing a tutorial on how to make a headband! Check it out here.

Read my progress on sewing wedding dress! :

Part 1 – Fabric shopping
Part 2 – Muslin
Part 3 – Another Muslin
Part 4 – Cutting Fashion Fabric
Part 5 – Sewing the Bust Part
Part 6 – Ruching
Part 7 – Skirt Part
Part 8 – Install a Zipper & Bones
Part 9 – Skirt Lining, Another Attempt to Install Zipper and More Supplies  

Shop Update: Drapy Pieces

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Top: Balloon Sleeve Stripe Cardigan, Bottom: Terracotta Drapy Skirt

More fall clothes added to my shop! Remember I wrote about irregular hem this Wednesday? I tried it already! I did not have enough fabric to make a full circle skirt, so I cut the fabric a bit differently. The waist is elastic, so it’s comfortable to wear. It’d be great to wear it with cropped loose knit and long boots in the Fall (maybe with leather jacket in the Winter!).

The cardigan is my favorite! I think these balloon sleeves are so fun. I’ll be making more of this style cardigan with different kinds of fabric in the future..more coming soon:)

Have a great weekend!