Yuki Clothing

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Monthly Archives: May 2013


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Wedding dress – Round 1 (making the pattern)

It’s reached the point where I’m fed up with feeling stressed out about the wedding and in particular, the wedding dress. High time I actually started doing something about it!

Ever since I got my mannequin, my sewing have grown more and more ad hoc. Nowadays, I usually just have a basic idea somewhere in my mind and then make the pattern directly on Jenny herself. I actually find it much easier and a more interesting way of working. And this project is no exception. I made a hand-sewn muslin a while back that’s fitted to the upper bodice (I’ve just been looking at it for weeks).

Tip of the day: If you’re having problems with darts or the fitting over the boobs, try hand-sewing the tricky part. It really is much easier to get a nice looking result that way.

Now back to the muslin. The idea is to divide the upper part into almost equal sized stripes. Using a piece of cheap yarn, I made a quick draft of where to cut. I’m pretty happy with the result but I’d better sleep on it just in case. Next step is to cut it into pieces and make a new muslin :)

Good night!

Front
Side
Back


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Liebster Award

A while back I got nominated for this Liebster Award by All-round Girl, and when I say “a while back”, I actually mean ~2 weeks ago. So sorry RO that it took me ages to reply! Been super busy with all sorts of stuff; funeral, looking at houses, a newborn baby (not squeezing one out, but looking at one), wedding planning etc. The list just goes on and I’m actually happy that I managed to catch the mother of all colds this week. Finally I get to relax for a day :)

But enough whitewashing! I was really happy that you find my blog worth reading. It’s too bad that I don’t really follow that many smaller blogs so I’m afraid that this chain-letter looking thingamajig won’t continue from me. However, I will of course answer your 11 questions!

Let’s see, first list 11 random facts about yourself:

  1. I’m insanely afraid of dogs…
  2. … and cats, but only when they yawn.
  3. I really enjoy gardening and my balcony is pretty much covered in different plants. Perhaps I shouldn’t have planted 4 pumpkins, they’ve a tendency to grow big.
  4. Whenever I see that my savings account’s got an uneven balance, I feel a strong urge to correct it. OCD much? yeah I know…
  5. Oh, speaking of money. I always feel bad whenever I spend more than 1500 SEK in one day. It’s pretty handy when I go shopping but it’s a bloody pain when buying furniture, let alone an apartment!
  6. Favourite colour(s)? Purple! and blue, and grey (shouldn’t be much of a surprise there)
  7. I can’t go to bed unless I bring a glass of water with me and when I say glass, I mean a gigantic one (3-4dl).
  8. I love high heals but I can’t wear pumps. I don’t know what’s wrong with my feet but the damn shoes are either to small or they fall off!
  9. I enjoy cooking, and a couple of years ago I adopted the Japanese cuisine.
  10. I drink tea, a lot of tea. Oh sweet lord Buddha, I’ve never really thought about it before, but I think I drink about 2l tea/day :S
  11. The only thing I’m allergic to is bananas.

Now to the 11 questions All-round Girl asked me:

1. If you could be an animal, what kind of animal would you be and why?
Obviously not a dog :) Looking at survival rate, I wouldn’t wanna be a chinchilla (I honestly don’t see how they survived this long). I think being one of those huge turtles that grow ancient would be pretty sweet considering the life span.

2. What is the most important thing you gain out of writing your blog?
Hm… my blog is basically a sewing diary for me. And I also get to practice my writing (not that I aim to win the Nobel price in literature but a little practice is always nice) :)

3. Name one wish you have for your future.
To have a nice house with a nice garden and a family to share it with.

4. What do you do when nobody is looking?
Hehe, this is a tricky question :) Blow my nose. I never do that in public unless it’s a real emergency.

5. What is one of your favorite movies?
My neighbour Totoro!

6. What is your favorite dish?
Eh, another hard question. It kind of varies. 6 months ago it would’ve been home-made ramen, but at the moment I have to say nabe or gyoza.

7. Could you tell us about one very embarrassing experience?
Oh crap, another one of those. The only thing that pops up in my head now is when I was like 10 years or so and my mum asked me to just give my grandma a quick call to tell her something. So I picked up my phone and made the call but I had dialed the wrong number and some random dude picked up the phone! Sure, when you’re 10 that’s pretty embarrassing in itself but it gets worse. Somehow I was so sure that I had called my grandma that I completely ignored the man’s voice and said “Hi grandma, it’s me! I was just gonna tell you about this and that”. And the dude went “ehm.. you’ve probably got the wrong number”. Just thinking back reminds me of how truly embarrassed I felt.

8. What kind of music is currently playing in your cd-player/Ipod/car ?
Lots of random stuff: SID, Melody Club, Akeboshi, The GazettE, Slagsmålsklubben, Lordi, Enya

9. Who do you look up to?
Noone really. I dunno if that sounds a bit narcissistic or something. It might be a Swedish thing? “Everyone’s equal and shame on you if you think you’re better!”

10. If you could choose to meet one person that has already died, who would it be and why?
I would be nice to say hello to mr. Neil Armstrong. I would probably ask him if he really set his foot on the moon and then we would have a nice long chat about his trip to space.

11. Name one thing about yourself that most people don’t know.
I need to write stuff down whenever I’m learning something new or else it won’t stick


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Origami Crane Trivet

trivet1If you’re following the sewing topic on WordPress, I don’t think you could’ve missed A Thousand Quilted Cranes. I must admit that my first thought on that project was “OCD much?” But once I read more about it, I kinda like the idea. I myself don’t have the stamina to make 1k cranes so I’ll just settle for one :) So here it is, my one Origami Crane Trivet!

Not sure I would put a pot straight from the oven on it but it’s very nice for the tea-pot!

It’s made from some old discarded jeans, with one fabric lighter than the other. I used about 2 legs, cut roughly below the knee. The trivet consists of 3 layers of jeans, front, middle and back. I added some extra filling to the middle to fill the gap between the seam allowances. I’m really fond of this design so I’m sharing the pattern I reproduced. It might not be exactly as the original but I reckon it’s good enough :)

And yes, I was obviously sleepwalking when putting my socks on today ;)


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Kid’s skirt with snails

The finished skirt!

The finished skirt!

It’s my niece’s birthday and she’s getting a cute skirt with snails on it. Been thinking about doing something with the leftover fabric from the onesie and I reckon a birthday present is a good enough excuse for spending a couple of hours at the sewing machine. I always try to learn something new or refine an old method with each garment I make. This time I tried making a French seam to hide the overlock seam and I’m pretty happy with the end result (just can’t believe I didn’t think of it sooner!?). I also tried a new way of making a “waistband” from the same piece of fabric as the skirt, without cutting.

For once I thought I’d include a how-to.

Material: Fabric of your choice, elastic band and thread.

  1. Measure and cut the fabric. Fabric width = width*2, Length = length + ~4cm (hemline) + ~8cm (for the waistband). Adjust waistband size according to the size of the elastic band (the band I’m using is 2cm wide). The length of my elastic band is 50cm and the length of the finished skirt is 30cm. In theory this should fit a 1-1½ year old. Fingers crossed I’m right :)
  2. Pin the fabric with the wrong sides facing each other and sew. If you’re working with a patterned fabric, don’t forget to match it when pinning together. I’m using the overlocker for this seam.
  3. Iron, fold inside out and pin it face together. Give it a good press before sewing together.
  4. Fold inside out again, press and admire your work! Apparently this is called a “French seam” (learnt that from Great British Sewing Bee).
  5. Time for the waistline! I start by overlocking just to make the fabric a bit more manageable (it just keeps folding round and round…). I’m using another, more manageable fabric to show how I went about doing this.
  6. Fold down ~1cm and press.
    1. Fold over once more. Measure how big you want your waistband to be (mine’s 3cm).
    2. Fold again and press.
    3. Open up the folds. Fold up ~1cm from the skirt towards, and up onto the waistband.
    4. Press and fold it all together again. See picture for how it should look like.
    5. Sew the fold you made in step 6.3. Press the fold up like in the picture.
    6. Now sew it all together but don’t forget to leave an opening for the elastic band. Sew from the face side in order to make a neat and even seam. This is what the end result looks like.
    7. …and this is what it should look like from the wrong side. Neat and nice there as well.
  7. Put in the elastic band, sew it together and close the opening.
  8. Press and sew the hemline. Give it a final press, admire the skirt and feel good about yourself :D
Step 2. Pin the fabric with the wrong sides facing each other and sew.
Step 3. Iron, fold inside out and pin it face together.
Step 4. Press and admire!
Step 6. Fold down ~1cm and press.
Step 6.1. Fold over once more. Measure how big you want your waistband to be (mine’s 3cm).
Step 6.2. Fold again and press.
Step 6.3. Open up the folds. Fold up ~1cm from the skirt towards and up onto the waistband.
Step 6.4. Press and fold it all together again. This is how it should look like.
Step 6.5. Sew the fold you made in step 6.3. Press the fold up like in the picture.
Step 6.6. Now sew it all together but don’t forget to leave an opening for the elastic band. Sew from the face side in order to make a neat and even seam. This is what the end result looks like.
Step 6.7. …and this is what it should look like from the wrong side. Neat and nice there as well.