a basic set

It's getting much colder here in Japan. This year, tree leaves seem turning red and yellow particularly beautifully, probably because of the huge and sudden temperature shift during recent seasonal transition. We went out to a park in the nearby mountain for hunting red leaves yesterday. Trees were so beautiful and we thoroughly enjoyed a walk in the woods in the early morning. (Even our teenage daughter admitted it was great, from this you must be able to guess how much it was beautiful. Modern age teenagers are the last creatures that would enjoy walking in the woods without selfish reasons.)

As I have finished two warm garments recently, I took the chance to wear them yesterday for these pictures.

I sewed a pair of pants and simple V-neck pullover. They're pretty much basic and I think I have nothing particular to say about them except the fabric I used for the pants. It was a stretch cotton velveteen (something like stretch cotton corduroy without cords) that I used for garments for the first time. Ah, velveteens are warm, I didn't know that! I love this fabric for wintry pants and have placed another order for some other colors of the same fabric, already.

The only setback of this particular fabric is that it causes puckering and wrinkles where uneven stretch tensions are put, because the fabric is rather clinging but isn't enough stiff to hold its shape by itself. There are many horizontal pulling lines particularly in the back of this pants. I have noticed them quite much, but when I asked my husband and daughter about the lines, they insisted that they weren't looking bad at all in real life and that they showed up prominently only when I stand straight like a statue (oh yeah thank you).

the cotton velveteen and wrinkles

I'd guess that less lines would be seen in the pants if they had more ease in the legs or if they had more 4-way negative ease all over the pants, though, I decided to have them as they were, because I preferred not-very-skinny-but-comfortably-snug pants of this kind. Sewing own basic garments is fun. I can do whatever I prefer and get some useful garments that fulfill my needs much better than retail ones. Before sewing, I didn't know my clothes could have been more comfortable, could have fit me better, and could have made me look slightly happier if those sleeves were an inch (or two inches) longer. I thought that long sleeves primitively meant something slightly short and that was the reason why winter was cold. I'm not joking. A human could be this silly.

I really love my self sewn basics. That may sound boring for some of you, but that's rebellious and strong statement for me (probably).

Anyways. Please enjoy your season wherever you live!

For the pants I used my five-year-old skinny pant pattern. For the pullover, I used the pattern Edelweiss, which is definitely one of my staple patterns from Tamanegi-kobo. This pullover fits me like a glove (I find this expression funny), generously covering my arm without unwanted sag at shoulder seam. BTW, Tamanegi-kobo is going to have a winter sale and it will start on 27th Nov 2014. I'm a fan of this shop but unfortunately I don't think I can make any purchase this time because I already have all what I have to have from them, so I write the news here as a compensation of my sorrow.

Lastly, I have started IG finally. Some time ago Sveta suggested me to use IG in her comment on a past post in which I mentioned about my photo diary. I couldn't say "Yes" to her suggestion because I wasn't quite ready for square iphone pictures at that time. However, I have persuaded myself and am now wishing to connect with other sewists through the platform too. Thank you for suggesting IG and sorry for being this late to start, Sveta.
Please give me a shout at IG if you have an account that I can follow. My IG account is yoshimitheflyingsquirrel. Many of my pictures are sewing-related but I have a few pictures that are other than sewing too. I have some pictures of red leaves, of course. Sorry for that...

Love,
yoshimi