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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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every day life

Beijing Trip

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From left top: 1. Street of Beijing, 2. Hotel room, 3. Electric bicycle I saw all over the city, which goes up to 30km/hour! 4. Tricycle 5.&6. Restaurant I ate at

Quick post to show you some pictures of Beijing. Sorry I don’t have a whole lot of interesting pictures. I didn’t take my camera for fear of loosing it so I only had my iPhone. Also I was there on business so I really didn’t have much time to hang around the city.

China never ranked high on my travel dream list in the past. This is mostly because my sister did not like it there (Beijing). Hearing her talk about the city, it made me not want to go. To my surprise, I really like the city and told Andy that we have to go back there for vacation! I’m not sure what the other parts of the city are like, but at least in the central part of Beijing, it made me feel like I was in NYC. I was quite surprised. Things were cheap, and people were nice. Sadly, the only recreational activity I did during this trip was to get a massage. The massage places are open 24/7, and cost less than 10 bucks, I had a nice hour long massage:)

Three New Sewing Books

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Andy’s grandmother surprised me with these three new sewing books for my birthday. She spent more money on shipping than the cost of the books themselves, sending them all the way from the U.S.  I’m so thrilled to have finally gotten these books that had been on my wish list for a while!

The Colette Sewing Handbook by Sarai Mitnick

First off, The Colette book! Who doesn’t know about this book in the home sewing world? If you don’t you have to check out the Colette blog, which is full of tutorials and inspirations. This book is full of pretty pictures and illustrations, and I think it’s great for beginners. It comes with a couple of patterns, and I’m excited to get my hands busy working on them. These patterns seem perfect for the upcoming warm seasons.

Next up is Make Your Own Dress Patterns by Adele P. Margolis. If you are interested in drafting your own patterns, this is a great reference book. Even if you are not particularly interested in pattern making, knowing about pattern drafting basics will transform your sewing experience! This is kind of like a text book for me, where I sit down with highlighter and make notes like the good old college days. I’ve read one amazon review that said “the illustration of the book is old”, but I love the retro feel of the illustrations! There are no pictures, but plenty of vintage-ish illustrations through out the book.

The last one of the 3 is Design-It-Yourself Clothes Patternmaking Simplified by Cal Patch. This is last on my reading list just because the book seems very basic and the contents might overlap with the Colette book and BurdaStyle book. The book includes a section on sewing pants, so that’s a plus!

Besides these sewing books, I recently finished the last Steig Larsson book, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets’ Nest. I was relieved to finish it. It was long. Right now I’m reading The Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini. It is a rather sad book, but I’m really enjoying learning about the lives of women in Afganistan.

What are in your reading list? Any recommendation for both sewing and non-sewing books?

Sagami Ono Arts & Craft Fair

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Right now, Japan is in the midst of”Golden Week” Golden Week is a bunch of national holidays in a row. So some people have an entire week off from work or school. Because of Golden Week, there are some events, festivals and fairs going on in the city. Last Sunday, we stopped by at Sagami Ono Art & Craft Fair, where our friend, Taren was a vendor.

Taren and I met at the Love Handmade event hosted by Etsy Japan. I was selling Vivat Veritas clothes there and she stopped by with her friends.  She has an etsy shop, Oslo and Alfred. Check out her shop, her illustration is so cute. I bought some post cards, and now I want this pretty necklace. 

There were close to 200 vendors. I love strolling around checking out little shops. Below were my favorites…

The second from the top picture above, is an illustration by Minoru Takenaka. I bought his post card – I just thought his illustration was so cute, and the fact a man was drawing it was kind of unique. The illustration is so feminine and sweet! He is having an exhibition in Shinjuku from 5/21-27. More info here if you are interested.

The last picture, the macaroon cases were made by another etsy seller, Yecco. Aren’t they so amazing? Although I sew, I have no patience to make such a delicate thing like this!