Something handmade

There are things in my life that I never imagined myself doing as a little girl. I was never much of a girly girl when I was younger. I always liked to hang out with boys and do boy things. No dresses, not even skirts.

But I realized that I got older I got more and more in touch with my feminine side. I soon realize that I could cook pretty well.

And then I tried my hand at sewing. The first full dress I made wasn't a total disaster but it wasn't as perfect as I imagined it to be.







Then I tried again and it looked a lot better.






Maybe it was because the cloth is slightly pricier than the previous one that I don't want to actually muck it up. And I guess you can call me addicted to making my own clothes, it's something I wanna continue doing. Which is why I got another book



The patterns in this book is a little bit more advanced than the first one but it's easily understandable enough. Thank god for pictures lol. And because of these books I never thought I'd get back to learning Japanese.

In the next coming months, I'll be making more dresses and hopefully share it with the world (for a small fee of course. Someone's gotta pay for the cloth and my work hours :p)

Why am I going away from post production? I'm not leaving it. This is just to help me out with my outstanding student loan so I don't have that monkey on my back anymore. That and of course, because I genuinely enjoy sewing :)

#Kitteh366 Days 22 - 28

PS Move. Working out. Dressmaking. Food. Cooking. Kitty. Work work work.

Next project

Planning to make this apron dress next. Gotta figure out what prints I should use.

My first dress.

A few months back, I found myself struggling to find the perfect dress to wear to my best friend's wedding. I'm not exactly super slim that I can just get anything off a blogshop (since their "free size" is usually for rather skinny people), nor am I rich enough to get a dress for my size from Dorothy Perkins or plus size shops. So I was stuck, thinking I might have to just wear a baju kurung to the wedding.

But then, a random trip to Kinokuniya make me stumble upon a whole row of Japanese dressmaking books with the patterns. I googled people who make dresses from these books and decided, okay, I'm gonna make my own clothes.

Though I didn't make a dress to wear to my best friend's wedding, I went out and bought this book:

I'm not exactly fluent in Japanese but because it's a "for beginners" book, it was easy to understand. So I decided to make the dress that's on the cover.

But of course, I have to trace the patterns. For people who want to sew from Japanese dress making books, the patterns don't come with seam allowances, so you have to make your own.

The patterns of choice. Bought these Japanese Cotton fabric at Kamdar. 3 meters of the cloth on the right which is the main fabric, 1 meter of the one on the left which is the bottom of the dress.

Truthfully, I didn't really need a total of 4 meters of cloth. I have so much cloth leftover! Patchwork galore!

These were taken before I put on the sleeves and sew the sides close.

The dress is done!

After 6 years of not touching a sewing machine, I created my first dress. I messed up the collar so I covered it up the messy stitches with large buttons. The sleeves are a bit off. But despite the imperfections, I'm wearing it today. 

It ain't perfect, but it's mine! :D