Sunday happy Sunday ...

Sunday afternoon usually we drove around Vaud area, today we wanted to find that address for our next rendez-vous with a Kitchen (interior) company. After we knew where it situated, we usually visit our future apartment, but today we decided to get some ice creams in our fave ice cream parlor in Nyon, which is close to a boutique that I really wanted to visit.

The boutique owned (and/or taken care by) a woman, a bag designer-maker that I talked on the phone couple of months ago. I saw her creations at Globus department store here in Geneva, and I fell in love with her works. Her bags were carefully neatly made by hand, and she really have a wonderful handmade pieces. I promised to visit her one day, and that day is today!.

The shop was open on 1st Sunday of the month (not every Sunday shops are open here in Swiss), so I was very lucky that the shop was open and she was there in person! what a lovely coincidence as we wanted only to buy ice cream at first .. and turned out we bought ice creams and two of her handmade bags!! .. I don't go to Nyon everyday, I don't buy bags everyday either .. (that's my excuse) .. hehe .. and I'm not regretting following my instant temptation to buy them, as we talked about our activities, exhibitions and .. why not a collaborations! as she said "on peut faire quelque choses ensemble" .. oh, oui, madame, pourquoi pas .. in fact I'll be very happy to collaborate with such a talented, skillful, creative and kind woman like her ...

Once again, I feel God's hand guided me to meet her .. God's help that moved her heart to be so kind to me today. I'm looking forward for our next meeting .. and our future collaboration.

HERE'S MY SKIRTS AND HER BAGS TOGETHER

other possibility of fancy skirt with tulle

I keep looking for the faster and neater look of the fancy skirt, and here's what I got:

Simple rectangular, gathered, lined with cotton voile and embellished with tulle, for a fancier look.

Blue Ocean Fancy Skirt

The "Ocean" theme batik print fabric I bought summer last year, while on holiday to our home country. I already used some of it, but still enough to make one circle skirt for girl (5-6 yrs). I got the baby blue lace from a friend, and the little baby blue bow I had since I started my sewing adventure ... hehe .. I could call it my sewing "adventure", because it really feels like an adventure to me :)

I like the finish result, and people said it's lovely too .. so, I have the courage to make more of these skirts together with some other "design" I got in mind ..

Oh, I forgot to write here, that Saturday we went to France and I went to a fabric store, Mondial Tissus in Epagny, I've bought some cotton fabric, cotton voile, black tulle, etc .. I'm planning to get them into something on Monday .. yes, I love Monday! I look forward for Monday .. am I insane?? ... :D

Sewing Me!

This time it's all for ME! ..

I got these Batik fabrics from friends (as always) .. and really wanted some new outfits from it. The RED flowery skirt was made from cotton Batik Blitar, I made it into a semi circular skirt with elastic waist. The loose dress in GREEN Batik was made from more "silky" soft cotton, and the purple-red (MAROON) dress was made from cotton Batik Madura fabric.

Got some special events? uummm .. not really, but just in case ... ;-)

semi circular skirt in batik blitar

maroon dress in batik madura

loose dress in sheer batik fabric

Happy New Year 2012!

Hi, we just came back from holiday in Paris. Paris now only about 3,5 hours train ride from Geneve. We had a great time there, and I specially had a splendid moment found the Japanese bookstore JUNKUDO in Rue Pyramide (bought 2 sewing books from there) .. and then went to Marche Saint Pierre the textile shop and the area was full of fabrics, button shop and all sewing essentials .. the area is in 18th arrondisement (district) in the northern part of Paris, it's not really a tourist site, it's crowded and a bit dangerous .. you must be very vigilant when you plan to go there ..

sewing book corner in Junkudo, Rue Pyramides Paris.

in fabric heaven :)

I bought some fabrics (I wanted to buy more, but I have to strict with my budget!) .. and already made one outfit from the fabric bought in Saint Pierre. I definitely must go there again one day ...

make one project from the new book! :)

Pleated Skirt for girls

Weekend easy project. We had planned to see "Escalade" celebration in Geneva old town on Saturday afternoon, but I reeeeeeeeaally wanted to sew something, and I reeeeeeeaaally got this urge to make this pleated skirt I saw in the latest "Coudre" magazine I got last time.

This skirt didn't need pattern, simply cut two rectangular fabric (front & back of the skirt) in the desired length you wanted to make, added some length (sew allowance) for the hem. Form the pleats (here I made 3 pleats each side) and cut some fabric for the waist band (to put the elastic band) .. I finished the skirt with white lace and it's done .. just about the right time to go out to see the festival! :)

weekend simple project

Easy Pleated Skirt for girls

the making ..

done! ... ;-D

Skirt with doily

I was just using the leftover fabric from the "short project" for hubby (see previous post) .. I imagined it will be perfect with lace and doily on it .. and here's the result for my little one (and glad she likes it) .. 

tube dress/skirt

I still have leftover fabric after making the kids' dress and tunic last time, so with a very "restricted" fabric, I've chosen this model (pattern G2 with a bit of modification) from book "La couture au féminin" so I could use all the fabric.

Simple Layered Skirt

I had only 1,3m purple fabric I've got S$ 3/m from sale, it's the last batch that day. I haven't got the time to turn this fabric into something .. maybe a blouse?, tank top? or skirt? .. but I had this idea that keep appearing inside my head that I would like to make it as a layered ruffled skirts for my girls .. and I had these lovely crocheted doily I've got from Daiso for S$ 2/packet of 3 doilies.

So I went ahead with this idea from my head ... and here's how it looks like :)

Old skirt, new look.

I realized that I don't really have enough free time nowadays after I went back to work, although it's a part-time job, now I feel like my time is more restricted and I only sew very few these last couple of months. I could only turn to my sewing machine on weekends or late in the afternoon.

Today, my afternoon pastime was: turning an old batik skirt into two simple skirts, I only cut my old batik skirt to my desired length then I added lace embellishment to finish the look. The same thing I did for the leftover, lucky it's still enough for one tiny skirt ;-D

2 projects from sewing class

The sewing class part 01 has just finished. I think I will continue to part 02 next week. No pain, no gain! .. gotta force my self to go to class on Saturday night and put any doubts on the back of my mind. I need to keep reminding my self that we need some kind of goal to set for ourselves, and I wanted to continue because I wanted to know how to make a man's shirt ..

I know, some people prefer to learn in a comfort of their home, search in YouTube for almost anything about sewing. For me, I want to be able to ask directly to the teacher, to classmates for my questions, learning from them gave me valuable lessons.

I've finally finished my 2 skirts projects with a waistband.

Semi Circular Skirt

This is my second project in sewing class. I was so left behind everybody, just because I've missed 3 classes out of 8 in total. This Saturday will be the last class for beginner level - part 01. I have to finish at least 3 projects, and the next part we'll be making pants, men's shirt with collar and a culotte.

Today I decided to make the semi circular skirt. I have this fabulous Batik from a friend that I think would be awesome to make it into a skirt. Here I try it on without the waistband and zipper attached (I need to overlock the edges with a serger first, I need to use the one in the classroom) .. but more or less, this is how it looks like :-)

To make this skirt is very simple, actually .. I wonder why I didn't go and try to make it earlier :-). We just need to measure our waist and the length of the skirt we wanted to make.
The math is only: [waist measurement] /4 +3 ; so if your waist is 60 cm/4+3 = 18 cm. This is the number we use to make the small circle.

Note:
the teacher gave us this little tips: if your waist measure around [58-62] /4+3 ; if bigger, let say [63-80]/4+5 -- I don't know why, but that's the trick :-)

Stary-stary skirt

I love making this tiered skirt for the girls because they love it too! that's why I never get bored of it.

Now I have a simple method to begin with:

First, I measure the desired length of the skirt, divided by 3 (for 3 tiered skirt) then for the top tier just add 2 cm width for the seam allowance and waist band and add 1 cm width for the rest of tiers (layers). I only need 1 meter length of fabric for this one.

Peasant Skirts

I got some leftover fabrics from my previous project (the sack dresses for kids) then I bought 1 yard of a matching fabric to complete this peasant skirts.

The girls wanted to wear it right away, before I was able to add embellishment .. then we went out to buy some party stuffs, ate dinner at some fast food restaurant and got home to find one of the skirt with a spot of melted cheese on it ... ggrrrhh ..

Batik skirts

Next month we'll attend my cousin's wedding in Jogjakarta, so I'm thinking to make Batik skirts for my girls. The Batik fabric has a classic motif, Parang Rusak, I got it 2m length and 1.20m width for around S$ 10, meaning S$ 5 a meter.

I made these skirts almost the same as I've made before, only now I use waist band with white fabric and chose light brown lace. I'm thinking to make the matching Kebaya as well, I think I still got the time to do it, but if not, maybe I could use any white shirt and put some matching flowers like in the picture and finish the look with a bow around their waist with a matching chiffon or organza. I'll let you know what I'll do later ... ;-D

A very simple skirt

I bought the fabric at Arab Street near Bugis Junction for SGD 7 a meter, then I cut it two, sewed, put an elastic band around the waist and put the red lace around the bottom of the skirts.

Tiered skirt for girls

This was my first skirt project, it wasn't so neat but it became one of my little girl's favorite skirt ..

Skirts with elastic band

I bought 2 meter long fabrics and wanted to make skirts with elastic band like the one that I saw in stores, I thought it shouldn't be too complicated, just need to be careful when sewing the skirt into the elastic band .. first I made one for myself, then another two for my daughters ..

Puffball Skirt Memory ..

This skirt makes me remember my sis. She made one for me when I was a teenager in junior school. I was invited for a class party at the end of school year and had nothing trendy to wear .. out of the blue she came out with this idea of chopping off my old dress and turned it into a puffball skirt like this ... amazing! she'd never learned how to sew and she hand stitched my skirt! ... it was the loveliest skirt I've ever had ..

I proudly wore it to the class party and felt that everyone's heads were turning at me when I walked into the room .. I've never felt so confident walked into a party alone before, but that night I remembered the party was held at my girlfriend's home and the host's handsome brother asked me to dance .. it was one of the wonderful party I've ever had in my teen years and thanks to the skirt that my sis made for me, I felt so special that night ...

Sis, thank you for your generosity and creativity .. even if you said you prefer hiking on the mountain, flying and paragliding .. and your favorite clothes item is t-shirt .. you still had the time and efforts to make a skirt for your little sis :-)

Skirts

Girls wear skirts, not pants! :-)

Ha! .. actually I wore t-shirts, jeans and shorts most of the times .. but then I remember my mom-in-law said that we women, should dress up like women and men should dress up like men. She also said men shouldn't wear jeweleries and they should not choose pink, red, yellow and other 'girly' color for their clothes. That's why my husband doesn't have a wedding ring and his clothes mostly in the shades of blue, white, grey or black.

Skirt is the first thing I've learned to sew. It was really awful at first, but I keep on making more skirts to improve my sewing skills. Tiered skirt for my daughters then a simple ruffle elastic skirts. I've learned to make it by asking my friends who's already advanced in sewing and got their tips and advice of how to make it look neat.