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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

Happy New Year!

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Hello 2012! Did you know that January 2nd in Japan is similar to Black Friday in the States? I didn’t until today. I went out shopping in the city today, and was caught off guard by the amount of people out shopping and the massive sales going on! I was even more surprised when I received 40% off my purchase at a craft store, Yuzawaya. 40% off! That’s almost half the retail price. I was ecstatic. I felt it would be an appropriate way to start a new year by picking up some long needed new sewing supplies. I went ahead and grabbed supplies that I’ve been wanting but reserving myself from buying (because I’m cheap).

As a starter, I bought a cutting mat. I had a rottery cutter but didn’t have a board. I would occasionally use the cutter on a table with newspaper. But I decided that it’s just silly not to spend 20 bucks to make my sewing life easier, so I got it. Also bought a tailor’s ham. I’ve had a seam roll, and using the top round part of the seam roll to press darts and curves, but I often found myself frustrated, because obviously a seam roll is not meant to be used that way. I also got french curves to replace various plates and cups I’ve been using to smooth out curves.

I bought pliers for snaps. I’ve been wanting one after seeing what Jue’s got from her father. I’m thinking of using this for cardigans or dresses with front openings. Another clever item I found was this metal plate to make round corner of pockets. I was making a pattern with thick paper to iron the round corner of pockets before, but this mini metal plate will make my life much easier. I can now make four different degrees of roundness on a pocket corner!

I also bought new tailor’s chalk and tracing paper. I’m so excited to have these new supplies around me!

After that little excursion I went to a bookstore and splurged on these two sewing books: Drape Drape 3 (ドレープドレープ３） by Hisako Sato　（佐藤ヒサコ） and Men’s Shirts Book （男のシャツの本）by Ryuichiro Shimazaki　（嶋崎隆一郎）. I’ve been wanting to lay my hands on the Drape Drape book series. I have not bought 1 or 2 but I decided to jump in on 3 since it is the newest book. I’m going to make myself some stuff from the book to take on my Guam trip this month.

That’s it for today. I’m overly excited now I don’t know if I can sleep tonight!

Seasons Greetings!

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Belated Christmas wishes and Happy New Year to you all:) Sorry for the lack of post this week, I had been seriously sick the past couple of days. Here are some photos from our Christmas (most of them are from my instagr.am page, follow me at @vivatveritas).

From top left 1) White chocolate covered oreos from the States! Oh they were heavenly. 2) Making a cookie house. 3) Playing with Kiko.. the banana thing is a tissue box case, found in my parents house. 4) Christmas tree in Ebisu, Tokyo. We went out with friends on Christmas Eve, We had a great time! 5) Christmas day, we spent with my family. This is one of the pictures taken by my uncle. 6) Homemade pizza by my mother. 7) Went to thrift shopping the day after Christmas and found these Marc by Marc Jacobs flats for 780 yen ($8 bucks)! Unfortunately they were not my size (size JP 22 ). 8) Snuggling with Kiko..look at those teeth! She has 8 now.

 

My Sewing Space – Before and After

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Cleaning my sewing space was in my to-do list before the end of the year. I use my sewing machines almost everyday, and sadly, before the clean up I really hated working at my space. I’m not a neat freak, so I have things all over the place – notions were in this ugly make-up box, threads every where and multiple projects laying all over my ironing board. Every time I looked for something, I wasted at least five minutes trying to find it. So, beginning this past  Summer (That’s when the “before” photo was taken), I slowly began to organize my space. Although it is not yet perfect, I think I took it to an acceptable level.

First I installed the racks on the wall for my thread. I bought them for 300 yen (2.5 USD) each at the aptly named “300 yen” shop. I like the look of them and am pretty happy with how they have been used. On the sewing table, I have a serger and sewing machine. I also have some ceramic coasters that I use as pattern weights, a pencil stand (recycled a jar that instant coffee was in) where I put scissors, pens, and a small ruler.

On the adjacent wall of my sewing space, I installed wall pockets bought  from the kid’s section of Ikea. These wall pockets are very useful. I use these to store often used notions. The only problem is that they don’t fit all my notions and I have not found the space to store the rest of them. Underneath the wall pockets, I have a cork board where I pin some sketches, pictures or customer measurements.

Organizing my fabric stash was the biggest challenge. If you follow me on twitter or facebook, you might have seen me complain about my fabric mess. To clean up my fabric stash, I was working on various scrap heap projects (1, 2), but never finished them and they got lost in the shuffle after going back to work from maternity leave. It got worse during the past month so, I got completely fed up with my inability to find the fabric I needed.

Last weekend, I went to a thrift shop and picked up an old book shelf. I organized my fabrics and divided them by the color. For small scraps, I trimmed them to squares and put them in a small basket placed next to the fabric. I am not done yet, but I am happy with the progress I’ve made so far. You know what I realized after organizing my fabric stash? I realized I have much less usable fabric than I thought. Small scraps were taking so much space, and it was giving me a false vision of my actual usable stash. I am planning on using the small remaining fabric sections for quilting, baby clothes and other small accessories in the future. Also my husband, Andy is going to start sewing using the BurdaStyle Sewing Book, so I am keeping them for him! We will see how it goes..

Next to the sewing table, I have an ironing board, fabric hanging as a picture background, dress form and a mirror.

I recently received my new clothing labels that I ordered from the etsy seller. This was my second purchase from this particular seller. This time I asked for a custom design label to match my banner and I’m pretty happy with the result 🙂

I’ve been also listening to some sewing related podcasts. I love to listen to radio or some online programs while I work. My favorite is Sew Forth Now by Lori. She talks about different sewing (garment sewing) topics each time, and often has interviews with interesting people. Does anyone have other good sewing podcast recommendation?