Yuki Clothing

plain and simple

Monthly Archives: August 2013


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Wedding Dress – Almost Finished!

Almost finished!

Almost finished!

Again, quite a lot has happened since my last wedding dress update. Researching and buying my new sewing machine took a considerable amount of time but I’ve still managed to do quite a bit of work on the dress.

  • Hand sewed the rest of the neckline
  • Fixed some seams in the draping in the front that I wasn’t satisfied with
  • Attaching the last two layers of the skirt
  • Hand sewed the two upper skirt layers to the zipper
  • Closed each skirt with a french seam below the zipper
  • Made the waistband and attached it to the dress with a few stitches here and there.
  • Cut off some excess fabric at the bottom
Detailed view of the inside of the neckline. Notice the two seams needed to keep it in check.

Detailed view of the inside of the neckline. Notice the two seams needed to keep it in check.

To finish the neckline, I basically had to hand sew it twice. The first seam was needed to force the silk chiffon to simply stay in place. Since I wanted the “zig-zag” pattern to be prominent, I had to stretch the fabric around the edge before securing it. The tension then caused the neckline to tilt out from the body. The tilting was fixed by stretching the fabric even further and then securing it with the second seam.

Attaching the last to layers and sewing them to the zipper wasn’t very hard, only time-consuming :) One interesting detail worth mentioning was the french seam below the zipper. It was a bit tricky and required a bit of hand sewing closest to the zipper but the result was pretty nice. Think I’m gonna post a guide on that when I can prepare some clear how-to pictures.

Now all that’s left to do is hand sewing the bottom hem. Just 9m to go, then it’s completely finished :D

Last but not least, the back of the dress!

Last but not least, the back of the dress!


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Hen night

Last weekend, my friends dressed me up and dragged me out for an amazing hen night :) For those of you who couldn’t make it, here’s a picture of me as a… ninja princess!

I was given a quest worthy of a real hero! The local park was infested with evil balloons that threatened the peaceful life of the citizens.  Equipped with my epic wooden sword of righteousness, I was to head out and take out the evildoers. It was a tough quest but in the end I stood victorious and the city lived to see another morning.

Damn I’m so inconspicuous with my tiara :D


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Singer 20U53 – My new sewing machine

I’ve been cross with my Janome 920 for quite some time now. It’s been causing me trouble since the day I got it. The thread tension’s been way off (I even had to adjust the bobbin thread tension the first thing I did). The needle refuses to go to the right, left to centre are my only options. It’s noisy and the fabric feeding feels jerky and wonky.

Long story short, because of these issues I’ve been thinking about getting a new machine. After contemplating my needs, I’ve realized that I don’t really all of them fancy stitches you get with new machines. All I need is straight-stitch and maybe zigzag to make button holes. Other reasons why I don’t want a new machines are:

  1. Good ones are crazy expensive
  2. They’re so plastic -> shorter life-span.
  3. It’s hard(er) to fix a broken electronic machine

Thinking about what the ideal sewing machine would look like takes me back to my mother’s old Husqvarna ZigZag. At first we didn’t really see eye to eye, the machine and I but after some fiddling I’ve come to treasure it. There are seldom any problems and it just keeps on sewing year after year. I would love to own a machine like that!

Then one day I stumbled upon an ad for an 8 year old Singer 20U53! After arguing a bit with myself  (and convincing my fiancé), I knew that I needed (wanted) the machine. Still a bit afraid that an industrial sewing machine wouldn’t be my cup of tea, I contacted the seller and went to try it out.

Isn't it pretty?

Isn’t it pretty?

Sit down and hold on tight to your desk. This baby is one bad-ass machine. It manages 2000 stitches per minute with a stitch width up to 9mm, and an astonishing 2500 s.p.m with a stitch width of 0-5mm. That’s over 40 stitches per second! Another epic feature of this machine is the knee control pedal. Simply pushing the lever with my knee raises the presser foot. How cool is that? Now that I have both hands free, it’s easier to control the fabric.

Buying this machine could be one of the better ideas I’ve had, or possibly one of the worst. At the moment, it’s hard to tell which one it is, but so far I’m happy :)

The beautiful singer20U53! Check out the knee control right in front of the engine.

The beautiful singer20U53! Check out the knee control right in front of the engine.

singer20U53


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A visit from the Fabric Godmother

I’ve spent a lot of time trying to find cheap muslin fabric but that task is almost impossible when you live in Sweden. I say almost because I’ve found a solution. Just order it from abroad! :D I bumped into this awesome online fabric shop via one of my followers (thanks for the tip!). The shop’s called Fabric Godmother and it’s based in the UK.
Their muslin is pretty darn cheap (£1.99/m) and the delivery charges within EU are, at least in my book, ridiculously low (£10). The customer service is also very good. There was some mix-up with my order which resulted in me getting the wrong pattern. However, they quickly resolved the issue by sending me the right one. They were even kind enough to let me keep the extra pattern. Overall, I couldn’t be happier :)

Here’s what I ordered; 15m muslin, the Minoru jacket pattern (the one I wanted), the Cordova jacket pattern (the extra) and some free fabric samples. I’m saving the Minoru pattern for later. That’ll be my autumn project :) I’m thinking about using the Cordova pattern to make a small jacket to wear over my wedding dress. The weather in September can be.. let’s just say “not very good” so I reckon I might need some kind of jacket.

fabric_godmother_muslin_sewaholic


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Wedding Dress – Draping part1

Dota => great sewing success :)

Yesterday I was up late, sewing and watching the International (Dota 2 championship). Lucky for me, the first game was the semifinal between Alliance and DK (cheering for Alliance). Sadly, I was too tired to stay up and watch the other games. I haven’t played dota myself but watching the games was really exciting! Apparently it’s free to play on Steam so I’m thinking about downloading it and team up with my fiancé :)

Up until yesterday, Alliance were completely undefeated (pretty awesome) but DK managed to win the second game. Too bad, but maybe it was for the best. I reckon the pressure would be doubled when you can’t lose a single game and win the championship all at once.

Enough about Dota, and on to another matter – the dress! This week I’ve been working on yet another skirt. So far, I’ve made three layers for the wedding dress and one as a mock-up and I’m growing sick and tired of it. Especially working with the silk chiffon proved to be a true test of patience. No matter what I did, the darned thing kept sliding around. Finally, I used my own weight to keep the fabric in place while cutting, and it worked! I won’t show you any pictures of the skirt(s) because it’s kind of boring. There are just French seams everywhere. Nothing more fancy than that.

However, something that is worth showing is the draping of the upper bodice. I’ve been working on it for a couple of evenings and yesterday I pretty much finished the first part of the draping. Tonight I’ll finish the neckline and start working on the rest of the draping (while watching dota ;) ).

Draping on the front

Draping on the front

...and the back

…and the back

This is sort of what's in the pipe.

This is sort of what’s in the pipe.