Sewing and fashion with a Japanese twist
At the Great Wall I made a new Autumn coat for my trip to China. In fact I only just finished it in time – I was sewing the hem while packing in the hours before leaving for the airport! But it’s a perfect travel coat – soft and fluffy… Warm but not too bulky.
Thinking of buying fabric in Beijing? Here’s my review of the Silk Market
Beijing and The Great Wall Beijing is a huge city! I thought after living in a large Asian city for 8 years I’d be used to it, but as still quite overwhelming. We stayed in a lovely hotel near the Forbidden City and had a good wonder around the streets there. And it was
Long Time No see So…. I’ve not written anything in ages. But I have a good reason for that – I’ve been stuck behind the Great Firewall of China for the last two weeks. No google, no gmail, no wordpress, no youtube, no instagram, no tumbler – it felt like a trip back in time!
I usually dress quite conservatively; neutral tones, knee-length dresses, not so many bright colours… but sometimes when you have a loud fabric, you’ve just got to choose a design to match… A few years ago while taking my sister to Okinawa I picked up some traditional Okinawan Bingata fabric. https://www.oki-islandguide.com/arts-and-crafts/textiles Not of course the beautifully
My Sprout Patterns Bikini from last week came with quite a lot of extra fabric. It turned out to be very useful when I messed up one of the cup pieces and had to recut it… but there was still a load left. …What to do with it? I then remembered this pattern from Burda
Obon is the Japanese Buddhist Summer festival that usually takes place in the second week of August. Most companies have a couple of days off, some like mine take the whole week off! I love it! Not only is it a great to have a week off in the middle of summer, your friends probably
Who hates tracing patterns? Who finds marking fabric time-consuming? Who thinks preparation is the dullest part of sewing? Me, for one! It is however super important. Mistakes made in the initial stages cannot be corrected later. You can waste a lot of time and nice fabric by laziness at the start of a
This is a fabulous pattern – I knew the moment I saw it I’d be making it. I completed it a couple of months ago, but had to wait for the right occasion to wear it out. -A classical concert and dinner in Kobe – and I wish I’d taken more photos cos it was
A simple sleeveless shirt with a v-neck and a gathered front from the June 2018 issue. Perfect project to show-case a the sort of big, bold patterns I love but that always get lost in a more complex project. Super simple, easy-as-pie, cant-possibly-take-more-than-a-day.
