creation

I can’t believe it is September in two days! The summer went by so quick. Although, it is still unbearably hot here in Japan. You sweat a moment you step outside, it is over 90 degrees and it does not really cool down at night! I love Summer, I really do, but I could use some cooler, crisp air for a bit.

I just moved last Wednesday, and on top of that I had 12 hour work days two days in a row right after the move. I’m bit exhausted and I haven’t touch my sewing machine since I moved.
I will be making curtains and small things around the house soon though.

For the Fall season, I would like to create new patterns and designs for dresses, skirts and shorts, but I just do not have enough time in a day these days! So I decided to revisit the patterns I used before, changed it up a bit to make them look like fall pieces.

Mustard yellow drapy dress
You must have seen this design a lot in my site this summer – I am really fond of cross over front (I think it works well for different bust sizes!) and the waist band. For the fall, I lengthen the sleeves and made the dress in fall color – mustard yellow.
Midnight blue cocktail dress
Guess which pattern is based on for this dress?! It’s from BurdaStyle.
The Pattern is called Malissa. This dress does not look at all like the original Malissa, right? I cut the front dress pattern in two pieces, gathered the pieces with elastic thread, and added a waist band. For the top part, I made a small key hole detail – and voila! It’s a cocktail dress for holiday season

Yukina dress in mustard yellow
This dress was based on a sketch I received from a girl, named Yukina. I made her a dress in shimmery green, two years ago! I totally forgot about the pattern after that, but found it in my pattern book and decided to give it a shot – This is a perfect work dress, I would wear this to work with tights, pumps and jacket!

It has been a while since I used a new BurdaStyle pattern, but a couple of weeks ago, I printed out Marie skirt pattern. It is free at BurdaStyle! I wanted to make a cocoon skirt, and this pattern was perfect. It is very very easy, and the front and back part of the skirt has the same pattern. It has an interesting pleats which I liked. I connected with the pattern I made for front part to make it a dress.
Some improvements I would make for the next time is:
1) Make it shorter – I feel as though BurdaStyle patterns are always too long for me. Perhaps that’s because I’m not particularly tall in American standard (I’m 5’5) but I prefer skirt to be a bit shorter than my knee.
2) Add a slit in the back. I find it a bit hard to walk, because the hem of the skirt is a bit tight. It’s not like you cannot walk around, but I prefer having more room since I like to walk fast!

Tiger secretary dress

Green stripe secretary dress