Sheer Libby Skirt

Hello!

I really like Libby A-line skirt pattern from Tessuti, especially the long version. In April, I made this Libby and since then it has become one of my staples. It is easy to wear and something pretty. As the fabric was sheer light polyester, I lined it with an anti-transparency cupro but made the lining much shorter than usual to give some fun effect.

There is not much to tell about this skirt because it hasn't got many alterations. That is fine by me, because I don't require complications when they are already alright.





***
By the way, I had a short trip to Shikoku with my sewing girlfriends a week ago. Shikoku is the smallest island of the four main islands of Japan and is located in southern part of our country. The weather was spotlessly fine while we were there, and we had the most happy and fun short holiday by the Pacific Ocean.

There we stopped by (I'm writing as if it wasn't the main subject of this holiday, but it was of course) a fabric store at which we normally purchase fabrics on line. The owner lady of the shop is one of my favorite people in the world and I was really happy to see her again after the last couple of years.

I think there is no need to explain to you that I bought quite a few pieces of fabrics... I'm so looking forward to sewing with them before long.

Friends were having fun with a photo session on the beach.

From behind someone photographed me who was photographing those who were having a photo session on the foreshore. Very 21st century.

We visited many sightseeing places.

Udon noodles :)

lot of Ice creams

(actually this one was Chigu's, not mine)

And a mountain of my fabric, yeah

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Pattern: Libby A-line skirt (PDF free download) from Tessuti fabrics. Lined.
Fabrics
Shell: polyester light fabric, sheer, colorful.
Lining: Cupro, light gray, anti-transparency.
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I wish you're having a very lovely week, I squeak :)

XOXO
yoshimi

Eva summer dress

Hello everyone!

I hope you all are doing great. I've sewn a few easy garments since the last post in April, but I have been too lazy to blog about them here, too. I think I'm going to write some mini-notes about what I made recently spreading in some coming posts. Please be warned if you look for something special technically in sewingwise, because they all happened after simple sewing (as always).

Here we go the first one:


Eva summer dress

I finally sewed the dress pattern Eva from Tessuti Fabrics as a dress. I used it once for this skirt, and I'm really in love with the cute silhouette of its skirt part. This time I used a very light fabric with irregular stripes and made it into a dress. I followed the pattern and instructions except those alterations:

 Bodice was lengthened by about 5cm at hem.
 Shallow bust darts were added to give some room in front.
 Pockets were omitted.
 Lower skirt was shortened by 5cm.
 I chose size XS while my bust measurement corresponds to size M.

I like lower waistline, generally, so I lengthened the bodice. I wouldn't have shortened the skirt if I had enough fabric, though, I had no choice as there was a resource shortage of fabric. I have put some bust adjustment as I often do, but maybe it wasn't necessary.

Side seam pockets were omitted because the fabric seemed too sheer to have anything extra hanging inside of the dress. I now think it was a wrong idea. And I regret it. (I practically need pockets in all dresses!)

 The size I cut was much smaller size than my measurement size, and I like the way it fits me. I need a wiggle to get in the dress, but it is easier than threading a needle.

The fabric is light, slightly sheer generally, and very sheer at some particular rows of stripes. I'm wearing my handmade silk/linen short underdress in the pics.

Sewing was quicker than stripe placement, as you may suspect. I was worried about stripe placement in this dress, especially in the skirt, but I now think the oblique line effect in the skirt isn't that bad after all.

I really like the whole package of this dress. It is a comfortable summer dress, and I wore it several times already. Despite the fact that it's not summer yet.

Happy sewing to you all!

Love,
yoshimi

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Pattern: Eva from Tessuti Fabrics
Fabric: 150cm wide x 200cm long, rayon, polyester, linen and nylon stripes, sheer and light. Not so drapey.
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Matching separates

Hello!
In my kind of world, the summer is officially gone. The weather is still hot, but I feel early autumn in the air. Which is nice. At least to me. I hope you are doing super well wherever you are!

A week ago, I visited an exhibition that was for celebrating Japanese fashion designer Keita Maruyama's 20-year career in Tokyo (an article written in Japanese followed by many photos of displayed items. I have to warn you that the photographer doesn't seem to have much interest in the garments, sadly). Albeit being held at a rather small space in a fashion mall , Space-O in Omoteasando Hills, the exhibition had a well-edited series of his beautiful and cheerful fashion pieces in the last twenty years, and when I was stepping out of Space-O, I was a ball of uplifting feeling inspired by the flood of wearable beauties. Seeing pretty clothes is so effective to lift me up! (I call this "pretty clothes syndrome" and it is the most serious problem in my life.)

Expectedly, all his works were made of exquisite fabrics and I especially loved the casual prêt-à-porter in pretty silks. I've been in the mood for quality fabrics for some time, and after the visit I felt it even stronger that I so needed to wear more silks in my everyday life. I don't mean that they need to be high-end or designer fabrics, I mean, sensible quality for brighter ordinary days of a hobby sewist.

So, I made these matching separates with a lustrous silk with embroidery pronto. I know this fabric must be too colorless to say it's dramatic, but I hope that you feel some specialness in it, texture wise. I used it up for these and I have no regrets about what I did! I've already got a few kind compliments from kin and colleagues on this set too... I after all and always love all consequences of the problem, that is another problem of my life, ha.

I used Camilla camisole and Libby A-line skirt patterns from Tessuti. Thank you, Debbie, for mentioning Camilla in your comment on my last post! I really love this one too!

Camilla needed much adjustments to fit my bodice probably because of the fabric I used, but there wasn't any complicated calculation or problem for fitting. Just did what I needed (I added bust darts in the side seams and redrew the neckline, took off some excess from armscyes, and shorten the total length to match the skirt) and everything was fine. I'd suggest making muslins at least once if you would try this camisole with stiffer fabrics like mine. Chiffons or other fine fabrics may not need any alteration, I can guess. To Libby I added some extra flare-ness to the bottom hem, by 10cm or so.

There was no problem with either of those patterns, except they needed quite a lot of pattern pages to print out. I've felt that their PDF layouts were not as much resource conscious as I wish. I hope it will be getting better in the future patterns eventually, because I really like all Tessuti's patterns that I own so far and this is my only concern about making new purchases from them at this moment.


Happy sewing, everyone!

from yoshimi with love
xoxo

very everyday.

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Camisole pattern
Camilla camisole (PDF) from Tessuti fabrics
Lined with white silk chiffon, shortened quite much (by about 6cm), added bust darts for FBA, took off excess from armscyes.

Skirt pattern
Libby A-line skirt (PDF free download) from Tessuti fabrics
Lined with pale beige cupro fabric, long version, elongated the length of bottom hem circumference (by about 10cm) for adding a bit of extra flare in it.

Fabric
Silk, lustrous, soft but kinda stiff, eyelet, embroidery
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Eva skirt

I'm blending into the flowers.

I've been taking photos of my daily outfit every day for about half a month, as I'm joining Me-Made-May'14 as usual. I'm feeling very happy and also super busy!

At Me-Made-May'14 Flickr group, I try to leave comments, "like"s or anything similar on other participants projects as many as possible, but it is quite difficult to commit it as much as I'd like because the party is huge. I think I need 50 hours in a day if I try to do everything I need/want to do in my life at this moment. My other blog, photo maisonette, with Carolyn is importantly having the final month for uploading our photographs too, and it makes me feel that time flies like a shooting star. I hope I am not going to be burned out like a shooting star, by the way, it is just a silly figure of speech. I love my silliness.



*
I sewed a skirt using my newly bought Eva dress pattern from Tessuti. I was planning to make a dress at first, in this African wax print fabric, but I failed to make adjustments of the Eva's bodice in this kind of fabrics. FYI, Eva calls for softer fabrics and I am not saying that the pattern is difficult to fit using right fabrics. After making 6 unsuccessful toiles of bodice in similar firm cotton to my African print, I gave up a dress and made this skirt from Eva. I simply sewed the skirt and put casings for elastic at waist so that I can pull it on. I made a tank top blouse with remnants too. I'm very happy with the result! Eva's skirt is cocoon-shaped and I think it is very charming and worthy of special mention!

Happy sewing to you, friends!

Love,
yoshimi

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Skirt: Eva from Tessuti
Tank top: old pattern
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I finally had an extreme ironing session(fake)

Anita, woven.

I have been keeping this rather huge shapeless short pinafore-type of handmade but store-bought dress which was probably made of an old aureate kind of curtain for some time. Though the fabric is very vintage-y and also the dress does look very handmade as well as refashioned in a slightly bad way, I've been loving it all the time. It does look, well, interesting to my eyes.

very curtain

So I sewed a pair of fitted pants for the purpose of wearing this dress a bit differently. The pattern I used for them was Anita Ponti Pant from Tessuti Fabrics. While Anita pattern calls for ponti knits and alike for making the results wearable, I used a well stretching woven fabric experimentally. For them, I cut in size12 instead of using my regular size (size8) because I didn't know how much extra I needed with this fabric (or even didn't know how successful this project to be either). I tried them for fitting and then realized I could have cut in my regular size after all. Typical. I don't think all stretch woven fabrics can do the same, but my fabric worked very nicely in the end.

I am very happy with the result :))

In case you wonder how they look without the dress layer, I took some pictures of them without my dress (I think I'm going to use them only for the dress, though).

creases!

What do you say about "dresses over pants" look? I start to think it's OK and very practicable. It doesn't harm anyone, at least. Have a very happy week, everyone!


Love,
yoshimi

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Anita Not-Knit pants
pattern: Anita Ponti Pant from Tessuti Fabrics  (PDF)
shortened by 2cm, hem widened slightly, front crotch lowered by 6cm while back crotch left intact.
fabric: cotton stretch twill, pant weight, mid-body, brown, stretches well.
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season's transition

Hi!
I recently sewed a coat and a pair of knit pants for autumn. Yay for the cooler weather!

The coat.
The fabric I used for the coat is something very special, as well as somewhat peculiar, I describe. It was basically a double layered fabric which had a slightly sparkling nylon organza covered (totally and throughly glued) over a base fabric of blue-ish plaid stiff polyester that would remind you of parachutes. The fabric is meant to be soaked in the water after sewing, for the purpose of washing away the glue, and then is expected to have separate layers of organza and plaid in its end products.

Though it was very stiff like a cardboard before washing(no exaggerations), I thought it would make a pretty jacket/coat that I can use as a windbreaker. A pretty plaid coat fully covered with sheer organza for windbreaking-purpose! It sounded pretty exciting to me.

The construction of the coat was not so difficult and done quite smoothly despite of the cardboard quality. I used my usual pattern for very plain boxy half coat, and just omitted the collar and lining to make it even simpler. I think I could have those sleeves shortened by about 10cm/4inch, design-wise. Having said that, I'm wearing it with rolling up the sleeve hems as in the pictures and will be doing so whole this autumn anyway. I'd leave the sleeves as they are, since the contrasting piping in my rolled-up sleeve hems may amuse people's eyes by the whiteness.

My previous coats from the same pattern can be also seen in this post.

The pants.
I sewed Anita pant from Tessuti for the first time. These were a wearable muslin, like all my first makes are. I wanted to know how they would fit on me, and I think I know it now. Though I have a couple of small issues to remember, I'm pretty happy with this pair, which I made in a heavy denim jersey in indigo blue. (It was difficult for me to find the correct length of the elastic band for waistline. I had to try three times before finding my snug fit, and I'd write down the number for the next time so that I don't have to cry any more. And also I had a minor problem with the balance of front and back crotches.I'd take some 5cm/2in from front crotch and leave the back crotch as the pattern is, next time.)

I really like the pattern, because these pants are quite pants, but not leggings! Some are really good at pulling off leggings, but I usually prefer pants on me and I'm so loving this pattern from this point of view. I hope you can see that they are pants but not very leggings in this photo below.

It was very difficult for me to take the pictures that could show their texture and such. Failed, I think. (But I'm not so unhappy. Because you have inexhaustible imagination to see what you would like to see, don't you.)


That's all for now.
Have a great day!!

love,
yoshimi

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The coat.
pattern: 3023(boxy half coat: discontinued) from anneecotton*, size 40(down graded to 38)
collar and lining were omitted.
most hems were executed with contrasting bias piping.

fabric: polyester/nylon blend. very synthetic. stiff. mid bodied, not very flexible, light, fairly creaseless. consists of a plaid polyester plain woven fabric and a silver-white sheer nylon organza.

The pants.
pattern: Anita ponti pant from Tessuti (PDF)
shortened the crotch height by following the lines that pattern indicates, and shortened the legs by about 3cm as well.

fabric: cotton denim knit fabric. dark indigo blue. stretches moderately. thick. hard. heavy.
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