every day life

I always enjoy reading Emily’s (from Cupcake and Cashmere) Friday “Five Things” posts. She posts five lovely things in her life that make her happy. Although it’s not Friday, I imitated her and decided to share some lovely things in my life that made me smile this week.

1. Pumpkin square cake in the morning. I recently discovered this simple pumpkin cake recipe from the book I borrowed from a library. This morning I made it for the second time. It is more like muffin than a cake, and goes perfect with a cup of coffee (decaf) in the morning.

5. Free yarns from mom’s friend. I got bunch of colorful yarns – pink, orange, red… I feel happy thinking about what I should make with them.

Hello! I hope everyone had a wonderful weekend❤ Mine was nice, but it went all too quick. One of the things I did this weekend was to go to Nippori fabric district to get some fabrics I needed for custom orders. I went there at around 2pm, and ended up wandering around there for about 3 hours, trying to find this perfect, teal color that matches with the ribbon that my customer sent me (right). You have no idea how happy I was when I finally came across with the perfect match! 


My usual routine was to go straight to Tomato and get all my shopping done there. I’m used to Tomato, and I felt like I knew my way around – also thought they had the most reasonable prices in Nippori. However, after checking out bunch of other stores in Nippori this weeknd, I was convinced otherwise. 

Through this 3 hours of wandering around, I found a new shop called “Zak Zak“. I think you would love or hate Zak Zak, because the place is not all well organized. It’s like a warehouse type of place, and reminds me of the warehouse fabric place I used to go in Philly, called “Jomar”.  I love it because it is like a treasure hunt, and I can find good deals there at amazing prices – if you have time to kill, that’s the place to check out. Also it’s great when you don’t have any particular fabric shopping list, to enjoy what you can find in such a mess! 


Also the other shop I like is “Miki“. I go there if I am looking for dressy fabrics, like satin or silk. They have different varieties of higher end fabrics, and that’s where I found the teal fabric. Although the satin is in polyester, it is rather higher quality and drapes it well as compared to some 290yen (3 bucks) a meter poly satin you find at Tomato. 


I also enjoyed reading this article on Sew, Mama, Sew! blog about Japanese craft store.The writer of the article, Karen has a cute blog, called Seam Ripper.
If you live in Europe, this article about European sewing scene might interest you:)

Hello! How was your weekend? Mine went too quick. I have a day off today for MLK’s day, but I basically sat at a tax office to get my taxes filed all day long…sad. The weather was beautiful out, and I wanted to do something fun, but I really needed to get my taxes filed before I forget.

Here is a sneak peak of what I’ve been working on the past couple of weeks – mini Spring collection! I wanted to make a small collection and a lookbook of it before the baby comes. It’s “mini” because it will be a collection of dresses in 2-3 different designs, made in different colors and patterns.

The one below is one of them. I wanted to incorporate my favorite “cut out” detail, this time in the front, and sweet heart neckline. This black one is just a proto-type, and the actual collection will be in more Springy color, like lavender or light blue. The black one is available for sample sale in my shop, here.
I’ve worked with friend photographers to shoot for a lookbook in the past, but this time it will be my first time working with real photographer and coordinating with models and hair & make-up person. I’m excited, but it is a lot of work! The entire collection will be available sometime in mid February, so stay tuned:)