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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

Shimokita Date

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With the internet, the world is so small. Since I started documenting my sewing in this blog, I’ve had several opportunities to meet with people whom I’ve first had contact with online. The experience of meeting someone you know for the first time feels so surreal but fun! Last week, I met up with Sophia from Iro Iro Crafts, her friend Reina, and Zhing. (Zhing has the cutest little dog which she likes to dress up as Sushi!) Sophia was visiting Japan from the U.K. and we all went to Shimokitazawa for a coffee and desert and thrift shopping! It was so fun! Sophia is young, creative and talented..I sure wasn’t like her when I was 17…:p She wrote a guest post here on a detachable crochet lace collar.

For our little meet-up, I think Shimokitazawa was a perfect place. The place is filled with cute cafes, restaurants, zakka shops and thrift stores, and it’s not overwhelming like Shinjuku or Shibuya. We had cake and ice coffee (that day was soo hot and humid!), then headed to some thrift shops. We stopped by at one of my favorite shops, 3 biki no koneko (“three little kittens” in Japanese). I like the shop because it has a 630 yen rack. By good fortune, when we went there, they were having a sale and the rack had a reduced price of 315 Yen! I picked up a white pleated skirt for 315 yen 🙂

Vacation after Vacation

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It’s weird that Andy and I felt that we needed a “break” right after our vacation to Korea! But after that hectic trip, we needed some rest – so we asked my mom to come over to watch the baby for a couple of hours while treated ourselves to a nice aroma oil massage at a place called River-M. It is a small salon, but it was so good! The aroma oil that comes with the massage is a nice addition.  I picked Yuzu (Chinese lemon) aroma oil and Andy picked Rosemary. It was so good. I fell a sleep during the massage! After that, we went to see Transformers 3. This was the first time we have been out to movie since the baby was born. I love going to Friday night late show movies. In Japan, movie times after 8pm are called “late show”, and most movie theaters have some discount. It is usually 1800 yen ($20 USD) for a movie, but for late show, it’s only 1200 yen ($14 USD). We could not do the late show this time since we had to put Kiko to bed and my mom needed to get back home by 7, but it was so nice to be out to movie theater again,  just two of us!

I also started taking Gertie‘s Perfect Bombshell Dress course at Craftsy. I’ve read that Novita and Paunette took the course and the course was really good. I decided to take it because I think I need to gain some new skills in preparation for the wedding dress I’m making for my friend. I’ve read some stuff about boning, underlining etc for structured dresses, but the video will be so informative and beneficial for me in this new endeavor. Plus, I got 50% off discount of the course from the BurdaStyle’s news letter. So it was $29.99 instead of $59.

I’m on video 5 out of 15 now, and it’s already shown itself to be beneficial. I’m leaning a lot about making muslins. Even Gertie’s tutorial on how to use PDF pattern was good, because she does it in a slightly different way than I usually do. So it was refreshing to go over some basics!

I’m thinking of making the bombshell dress for myself for a wedding that I’m attending in September (the wedding for the girl I’m making the wedding dress for!). I’ve never gone for this type of dress with a structured upper bodice, because I have a very flat chest – but since I’m still breastfeeding, I became a bit bustier than I used to be and want to take an advantage of having a new body while I have it! hehe :p

When I make clothes for myself, I tend to go for purple, navy, or pale pink. But I want to try some new color..I’m thinking of seafoam, like this 50’s wiggle dress? Do you have any suggestions? I’m looking for a nice solid color that’s not white or cream (obviously!).

And last but not least, BurdaStyle is featuring my variation of Heidi dress this week! Alison from BurdaStyle contacted me a while ago to make a maternity variation of Burda or BurdaStyle pattern. I picked Heidi, because I like the pockets and pleats of the skirt. Also I found it more flattering to wear an I-line skirt during my pregnancy. You only have the bump for a limited amount of time, so why not show off?! My version can be worn during pregnancy since the skirt is made out of stretch knit, but even after the baby is born as a nursing wear, since I install a zipper on both sides.

Check out here for the step-by-step instruction of how to make this dress!

Sewing Studio Makeover

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I’m not the most organized person, and I really wish I were when it comes to my sewing room. I’m so ashamed to share this picture with you all, but I think revealing this mess will motivate me to make changes in my sewing room:

Ugh, what a mess! I hate that patterns are all over the place. I work on several projects simultaneously, because of that I do not want to put away the patterns, but am not sure where to store them without interrupting my progress. My chair is not stylish – I like the fact I can roll over to my sewing machine, to surger and to ironing board, but it looks like one you would see in a collage dorm. My threads are all thrown in a make-up bag that was given to me as a souvenir from China, and every time I need to find  thread, I get frustrated.

So finally I got sick of my Chinese make-up bag enough to organize my thread. I bought this rack from the 300 yen shop the other day:

Much better! But, I need two more of this rack these because I have a ton of more threads. I don’t know how I accumulated so many *things*. When I first started sewing, I had nothing. Even my sewing machine was borrowed from my friend. Now I have way too many small things..they are necessary, but it’s so hard to organize them all!

Along with the rack, I bought this jewelry hanger as well.

My sewing room is still messy, but these baby step improvements really brighten up the mood and are little spots of light in my dark messiness. I hope to make it better in the near future!! How do you keep your sewing area neat? Any tips?