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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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stripes

Stripes Peplum Knit

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During the Summer, all I wore was summer dresses. Now the winter has come, I wear pants five days out of week. It’s been too cold to wear dresses even with tights. I kind of miss being pregnant, feeling warm all the time. Since I’ve been wearing pants, I was in a desparate need for new tops. I got sick of rotating my two favorite cashmere sweaters all the time the past few weeks. I had this navy and white stripes knit in my stash that I bought at Nippori tomato a while ago. I whipped this up in one night. I had fun matching the stripes. The trick to match the stripes is not to cut the fabrics on fold. I layed the fabric without folding in half, and cut each piece one by one, making sure that the stripes match on the side. My little assistant had too much fun snapping pictures using a remote. She is a much better assistant than grumpy Andy when it comes to taking photos. I wore this to go see Ballet on Christmas story last weekend.

Colette Pattern Madeleine Mini Bloomers Pattern Review

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I had a day off last week and whenever I have all day to myself, I am the least productive. The other day was no exception. I got nothing done and the day just went by, and I got really  frustrated with myself. So I decided to make the bloomer using the free Colette Pattern. It had been in my to-make list forever, so I thought I would give it a try. The bloomer looks really cute, and it looks like a perfect alternative of PJ on hot summer days. I was thinking that this will be done in an hour, just in time for Andy to come home from his grapplng session.

Printing out the patterns and cutting out the pieces went well. It took less than 15 minutes. But  after that it went down hill. First of all, the crotch length did not line up. The front crotch length was about 1.5 inches longer than the back, and I started to think I cut out the wrong patterns. I checked but it seemed like everything I did was according to the pattern instructions. So when hemming, I had to adjust the length so that front and back length to make them even. After I finished making the bloomer, I was really curious whether I’ve done something wrong or the pattern was made this way. It turned out this reviewer said the same thing about the length, so if you are planning on making the bloomer, I’d recommend adjusting the length before cutting the fabric.

Then the next difficulty was the rows of elastic castings. It took forever, and it was frustrating because the seam allowances inside the castings kept getting stuck to budkin. It literally took me about an hour to finish that part.

The easier alternative to the rows of elastic castings would be a folded over band at waist. These bloomers sit really low on hip, so the folded over band will add the extra couple of inches to the waist line. You can use a wide elastic band as an alternative, perhaps 1/5″ width elastic band.

So these bloomers should have been my instant gratification, but it turned out to be a three hour project. Sigh. But I do love the look of the bloomers, and I made a second one as well in house print, left over from this dress.

Stripes, Stripes, Stripes.

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I made this stripe top for a boutique in Chicago (more details coming soon!). While I was working on these tops, I kind of got obsessed with matching stripes. It gave me a great satisfaction to see perfectly matched stripes! So after finishing these I decided to challenge myself and use the same stripes fabric as chevron stripes. The whole top is cut on bias. I had to cut one piece at a time, and made sure everything matched up. I’m happy that all the stripes matched up, even on the sides.. 🙂

Here is a great post by Sherry on tips to match plaids and checks (but can be applied to stripes too). Also I wrote about tips on matching stripes here.