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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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Making Wedding Dress Pt.9 – Skirt Lining, Another Attempt to Install Zipper and More Supplies

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Hello! I hope everyone had a nice and relaxing weekend! I went back to my parents house for the weekend. My mom, Kiko and I visited my grandmother, who lives an hour away from my parents. It was my grandma’s first time to meet her first great grand child, so I was happy that they were able to meet. While I was staying with my parents, I started on my first quilting project! Yes, I am making a quilt! Call me grandma. I used to make fun of my dear friend, who is super fashionable but also loves quilting for being “grandma”. But now I’m obsessed with my new quilting project. I’ve collected several images as inspiration. Anyhow, I will write more about my first quilting project soon.

So back to the wedding dress! Last time, I attempted (and failed) to install an invisible zipper. So I skipped the zipper part for now until I get a new zipper, and install the bones. At the same time, I worked on the skirt lining.

For skirt lining, I used the same skirt patterns (half circle skirt, separated in four different panels). The fabric I used was cupra. My bride friend and I were recommended to use that fabric for wedding dress lining. I was pretty satisfied with the selection. It is light weight but does not cling to your legs in bad way like polyester linings do.

To cut the skirt lining fabrics, I shortened the length of the skirt patterns for 2″. The sewing part was really easy. I just sewed straight lines, and I was done!

I went to Okadaya in Shinjyuku to get some additional supplies for the wedding dress: flat knit zipper, horse hair braid, grosgrain ribbon for waist band, pearls in two sizes, rhinestones, and new zipper foot for installing flat knit zipper. I think these cost about 7000 yen (80 dollars) in total. 

Before attaching skirt lining, I installed the zipper in the center back. This time, it went much smoother, and the zipper didn’t break! Thank God.

After the zipper, I pinned and sewed the skirt lining to the seam allowances of the wedding dress fashion fabric.

I also hand sewed the bra cups. I was deciding whether to use bra cups or quilt batting to custom make the bra cups, but I went for already-made bra cups. I felt like those would give more structures than quilt batting. The quilt batting worked well for my bombshell dress bust part, but for wedding dress, I was glad to have chosen the bra cups. 🙂

 

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

 

 

 

Shop Update – More Fall Pieces

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Left: Drop Waist Mustard Yellow Dress, Right: Brown Tweed Jumper

The shop is updated with two new fall pieces! I know I’ve complained about making clothes for cooler weather in the past, but I had fun making these! I especially love the mustard yellow dress. I made a bunch of high waisted dresses in the past, so it was refreshing to make a drop waist (low waist) dress. I saw some drop waist dresses in NYFW, and I would love to make them in lighter fabrics for the Spring as well. I think the white piping adds nice detail 🙂 The tweed jumper is long (about 40 inches). I usually don’t make dresses so long, but again, I wanted to try something new and incorporate the midi length trend. Check them out here 🙂

Have a great weekend!

Mommy’s Diary 21 – DIY Flag Ornament for Nursery

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I’ve been wanting to decorate Kiko’s nursery better. Although I did not make a drastic change, I added some small decorating pieces to her room last weekend, and this flag ornament is one of them. It is very easy to make, and a great way to use left-over fabrics!

Materials needed:
– Cord
– 2-5 different fabrics of your choice
– Thread
– Quilt batting


1. Cut the cord in the length of your choice. Cut fabrics in a triangle shape. Mine is 4″ each side, and I cut out 10 of them since I wanted to hang 5 flags. Place two triangles of the same fabric with right side facing together, and sew one side of the triangle. Turn inside out and iron. Then sandwich the cord with the triangle pieces you just made. Sew the edge to secure the triangles on the cord. I used pipping foot to make it easier to sew this.

2. Cut the quilt batting in triangles that are slightly smaller than your fabric triangles. I stuffed this quilt batting between two fabrics to make the flags look puffier, but you can skip this process if you want a cleaner look.

3. Insert the quilt batting triangle piece between the fabric triangles. Then zigzag stitch around the two sides of the triangles.

4. You are done! Enjoy different combinations of scrap fabrics 🙂


Here are some photos of Kiko’s nursery – I bought the number baskets from Ikea and put them up on the wall. I organize the items I use very often there, like bibs, wash clothes and diapers. I decorated the wall with my favorite pinafore that was gifted from my co-worker.

On the left, I love this grandma rocking chair. Andy found this awesome chair at a local recycle shop for 1000 yen (8 bucks). We used to have this chair in our living room, but now it was moved to the nursery. I rock Kiko in this chair at night to put her to sleep.

My sister made the camisole Kiko is wearing 🙂 I think the fabric is so cute, with little ladies in Kimono all over the cream background. Kiko is doing well and continue to be chubby. She started to roll over, but once she is on her belly, she is stuck and can’t roll back on her own.. This is week 4 of her eating real food, this weeks menu is pumpkin soup. It’s more like a water down cooked squash since I don’t add any spices. Still nursing twice a day, but the rest of the day she is taking formula:)