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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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Me Made May’12 Week3

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5/14 Dress: made by me (blogged here, and similar style here), Cardigan: Yoyogi park flea market (They have a flea market every Satruday), Sandals: thrifted for 50 cents two years ago

I made this dress relatively recently and just figured that I have not made much use of it yet. I love white clothes, but it’s hard because I always end up spilling tomato sauce or orange juice, or Kiko touches it with hands covered in dirt! Anyway, participating in Me Made May ’12 has been good. By consciously trying to wear what I’ve made in the past, it has inspired me to think about what I want to make for myself next and how I can improve in terms of sewing and finishing technique, choice of fabric etc. I make clothes for other people, but what good is it if I can’t confidently say that I’d wear it myself?

5/15 Shorts: made by me (last summer, never blogged), Sweater: Uniqulo, Christmas gift from mom, Pumps: vintage Savador Ferragamo from etsy

I made these shorts last Summer but never blogged about them. I’ve gotten a fair use of them though, since they are plain and goes well with pretty much everything. Before wearing the shorts this day, I added the lace in hem. Now I like these shorts even more:)

5/16 Top: made by me, Cardigan: thrifted, Shorts: Gap (old, since when I was 17)

This is the top that got me into sewing back in 2008! First piece of clothing that I made for myself when I became an adult and I still reach for it every Summer. I think I have a bit of an emotional attachment to this top.

It was refashioned from old maternity wear that I bought for a buck at a flea market in West Philly. It was ugly, but I liked the print and thought I could make something out of it. I worked on it for 3 hours one night and at the end of the day, I wasn’t able to fit in it because I didn’t think of inserting a zipper or anything to open/close! I was so disappointed to know that making clothes was not as simple as I thought would be 🙁 After that, I worked on it for another couple of hours and figured out the way to shirr the fabric to make a simple camisole!

Related post:

Lace and Neon

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I clearly remember my first encounter with the neon trend. I kept seeing these bright neon satchels from the Cambridge Satchel Company all over on fashion blogs and sites. I first thought they looked terrible. It hurt my eyes they were so bright. I complained to Andy about this trend being so ugly. He responded, “babe, give it a time”. I said, “Why?” Andy: “Because you like anything that’s trendy”. “…”.

After a few months, I started liking the neon! It’s crazy. Although, I’d like to incorporate in in a more subtle way. So here is my attempt to incorporate neon into my garment:)

I added the neon piping to the seamlines. I initially had a different plan for this lace fabric. I was planning on making an I line dress with cut out back, but I saw a cute skater inspired dress in Japanese magazine, so I decided to go for that style.

The bodice is simple and fitted with princess seams. The skirt part is based on my Scallop Waist Skirt (free pattern download here). I added side in-seam pockets. The dress is fully lined. Since the lace had some stretch, I ironed on the fusible interface strips on curved seam lines to prevent it from stretching out.

I’ve already worn this dress five times – I love it! The bodice fits me like gloves. What makes this dress even more special is that it matches with Kiko’s dress.

Do you like the neon trend? How would you wear it?

Liebemarlene Dress

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Photos from Liebemarine

Sketch by Rhiannon

If you follow me on Facebook, you might have already seen me posting about this, but I recently finished the design collaboration project that I worked with the lovely Rhiannon of Liebemarlene. Like the Strawberry Koi Dress I made last year, I asked Rhiannon to design her “dream dress”  and I made it into an actual dress.

I was thrilled to hear that Rhiannon was up for this project. I’ve been a fan of hers for a while and don’t even remember when I first started following her blog…I do remember she was still on blogspot. I just loved looking at the flickr photos of her outfit. I love her feminine style with a vintage flare to it. I’ve also borrowed some of the pictures she posted on her blog as my own inspiration for use in my inspiration post series.

She came up with this adorable mini dress with flatter sleeves, pleated skirt and cinched waist with detachable sash. The reason why I love working on a project like this is that it challenges me and forces me to try different styles and techniques that I would not do on my own. In this instance, the sleeves. As you can see in my shop, a lot of my dress designs are sleeveless. I naturally tend to go for sleeveless and so can get stuck in a repetition. The addition of flatter sleeves made for a nice change of pace.  I drafted the pattern for regular short sleeves, and slashed and spread the pattern (photo above) to expand the hem. This was the most difficult part of this dress making as I had to figure out how flattery I wanted them to be. I think it took me about 4 prototype dresses to get it right.

I found the small plaid fabric in a gray, black and white color scheme in Nippori. It is  light weight 100% cotton, perfect for the upcoming change of season. The dresses are fully lined. It is available in limited numbers at my shop. Also check out Rhiannon‘s post about the dress here 🙂