Double Gauze Tunic Dress

I found this lovely flower pattern double gauze fabric this Summer when I was in Japan. I thought this would be great for sewing any kind of tops for myself. It is light and soft and feels so comfortable to my skin. The fabric was resting in my inventory shelf for awhile and eventually I pulled that out and sewed a tunic dress.

Unfortunately there wasn't enough yardage to make a whole dress with the double gauze. So I added a fine European linen to the bottom of the dress. And fortunately the colors of the linen and the gauze were getting along very well with each other :D

The pattern I used didn't have a facing around the neck. It was instructed to use a bias tape. I wanted a well tailored look rather than something like a "home made" look, so I modified the pattern a bit by myself.

You can find this free pattern here. This pattern is provided by a craft supply chain store in Japan. So it is written in Japanese. But it has intelligible illustrations so if you are experienced sewer, you probably would be able to understand the pattern.

I placed little pearl buttons to the neck opening.

The finished dress looks very pretty in the picture. But actually I think the volume of the skirt is just a bit too much. I am thinking if I should redo the skirt, or go on to modify the pattern and make another one. Otherwise, I am very happy about the result. Now, I got to want buying more beautiful double gauze fabric. To make more clothes for myself and for my daughter as well.

Thank you for reading. Hope you have a good Wednesday. Happy sewing!

Wool Challenge @ Patchwork Posse

One day, I got email from Becky of Patchwork Posse and I was invited to her "Wool Challenge" on her blog as a guest designer. Becky offers a couple of free patterns and tutorials using wool and you can participate the wool challenge photo contest. And also there will be a giveaway. And a lot more interesting tips and ideas. What a fun and exciting event it is!

Becky will introduce six designers who are very talented wool enthusiasts. Her interviews with designers are scheduled for every Monday. And to my honor, I was interviewed and will be a featured designer tomorrow! There will be pictures of my work with wool and a bit of story of myself. I will share some ideas of projects using wool and my favorite blogs and websites which will give you inspirations about using wool in your projects. Please jump over to Patchwork Posse and check the infos of Wool Challenge. If you are wool enthusiasts, enter the contest! And don't forget to check my interview tomorrow, too!

I bet you will enjoy all the things going on there at Wool Challenge. Thank you Becky, for giving me a chance to share my works and tips with everyone! Hope you all have a good start of week!

Halloween 2012

I am really hoping all of you didn't get injured or damaged by Sandy. And also hope that the people in the devastated area will be able to get back to their ordinary life soon. It was scary that even here in Northern Indiana was affected by Sandy. We had a bad stormy day and night. I could tell how big and strong the hurricane was. I can easily imagine that must have been a nightmare for those people live in the area.

Our Halloween was still raining and drizzling here. But we could never stop kids who have been burning to go out for trick or treating. Fortunately the time we were loitering around wasn't very wet. We went to the area where many beautiful old houses are standing in rows. It is also a very popular place for trick or treating. This year, finally Nina took a pretty big part of preparing her costume. She was a good wizard. Only things I needed to do were altering the night gown (It was a Christmas gift from someone and has been hanged in the closet for a couple years) and put an elastic tape and ribbons on her hat and wand. Otherwise, Nina made the hat and wand by herself. Well, this was a pretty simple costume, though. I kinda loved this No-hassle costume Halloween.

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Probably its hard to tell in the photo, but I was amazed how she constructed the 3D star shape from a piece of paper. Never sell seven -year-olds short. They are such great inventors.

Scaring citizens and collecting treats with good friends. We enjoyed the view of nicely decorated pretty houses.

A giant kitten watching little monsters' behavior.

Those monsters were polite enough to wait in the line for their turn.

Stopped at a good friend's house to say "Trick or treat" to Cooper the doggie.

This is the Halloween box lunch I fixed for Nina. The ghost is made of white rice and a seaweed seat.

When Nina got home from school I asked her if she could tell what shape this apple was meant. She said "an Apple?" OF COURSE, I meant it to be a PUMPKIN, my sweetheart!

I cannot believe she's gotten so big! I remember clearly when she was one year old, her back in a little ladybug costume giving some treats away to the visitors at our front door. It is one very sweet memory of mine.

Laminated Lunch Bag

I've been making Nina's box lunch every weekday since I wrote this post in August. Nina was using her "Dora" lunch bag which she got when she was in preschool. One day, she said she doesn't wanna take "Dora" to school anymore. Oh, yeah. I should have realized that she never watches Dora anymore for years. She even isn't interested in most of Princesses anymore as well. She is a big girl now. So I whipped up this little lunch tote bag for her with cute laminated prints.

I had small pieces of 4-5 different laminated prints in my stash. The local fabric store sells the laminates fat quarters. That's very convenient for sewers who likes to make small pouches and coin purses.

I sewed in a thermal batting which I got from Clover Japan (You can find similar batting here in the US) so it keeps cold things cold, and hot things hot in the tote.

The bag is just a basic box shape with a zipper on the top. I made handles with the same fabrics with the exterior.

Close up of the end of zipper. I always use YKK zippers for my stuff. I have tried other makers but it didn't work well for me. YKK surely makes good products. I wish we could buy their products nationwide in the US. (I get them online. There is not many choices in real stores at least in this area.) (;_;)

Wide gussets are necessary for Lunch bags.

An advantage of making a lunch bag is that you can make the size and shape perfect for your lunch boxes. This tote sits in the bottom of Nina's book bag stable.

Thank you for stopping by! I hope you had a wonderful weekend as we did. Happy sewing!

I think, we are crazy. / School corp auction

Saturday, there was a huge auction in the town which is for selling public schools' old furniture and equipments. My husband and I were pretty much excited when we got to the warehouse where the auction took place. It was HUGE. There are so many cool stuff that would be called "Vintage" on the market. If you are not interested in admiring old and used things, it would look like tons of refuses to you. To some people, including us, it looks like a mountain of treasures. There were so many junk lovers at the auction as you can see in the photo below.

Many things are nostalgic to us since we spent school days in early 70's through 80's. Some of items in the auction are not familiar to me (I graduated all schools in Japan) but my husband knows almost everything. Those goods reminded us lots of good and bad memories in our schooldays.

Colorful steel lockers. I love to have some. If I had a space to place them!

We wanted a piano for Nina. But we were too slow to bid it off. You need some skills to get what you want at auctions. My goodness, pianos were bid off at $20 each!

Since it was a school auction, there were lots of sewing machines. I guess I saw at least 40 machines in the section. My eyes got caught by these JANOME machines. They looked relatively new. Pretty sure they are newer than my old Singer machine. I hoped there were some dress forms but there were none of them. A dress form is on top of my wish list for many years. Well, I'll wait for a dress makers' auction being held in the town someday ;-p)

A couple hundreds of class room chairs. Some of them look so mid-century. Love the colors and style.

Look at this incredible printers table! Quality!

I really wanted some old stools. But I had to give it up because they were sold in bulk. I wanted a couple. So I didn't get any.

Doors. Heavy solid doors.

The poster on a steel locker. This one must have been in a workshop.

You must been wondering about the title of this post "I think, we are crazy." Why do I think we are crazy? The answer is in this photo. I mentioned it before that I didn't get any stools because of they were sold in bulk. And later.......maybe about one hour later......

We purchased 22 wooden (with vinyl back) old school chairs! Yes TWENTY TWO of them! We just couldn't resist getting them. I love the colors of the vinyl backs. The vinyl covers are stuck in the back with metal studs. They are all in pretty good condition. If we give some good maintenance to them, they would shine as stylish vintage accessories.

We both have lived in Tokyo for many years. There were cool vintage furniture stores along the avenue close to our apartment. These chairs would attract customers of those stores' so much. I can't wait to have some of them in my house. (We already have so many chairs in the house, though....) We carried all of them to our truck in drizzling rain. We don't have room to store them in our garage right now. So we took the chairs to the garage of a house we are renting.

Do you agree that we are a crazy couple? No? OK, there is a continuance.

We got these EIGHT SEWING MACHINES (and one steel cart), too! This time, I can see many of your jaws are dropped in my mind. OK, I have been wanting a spare machine which I can attach a low shank darning foot (and some other presser feet). Then we found these quality Janome machines in bulk. And they were SO INEXPENSIVE! It comes with the cart which I think it will be nice to have for storing my products in my workroom (I just finished re-organizing my studio). Is that a good reason for my purchase? Well, after we bad off the machines, there came a lady who wanted three of them so we sold three to her. And a while later she was still wavering if she wants a couple more so I gave her two for free. Because they looked imperfect and the maker was not what I wanted. (Of course in assent. ) Finally I got three machines and a cart, (watch your jaw, Ladies!) It was $25 TOTAL.

This is one of the machines I got. Unfortunately One of them has a problem feeding fabric correctly. But it seems simple to repair if you had a good repair shop. I am glad we got three. We hope another one to be a gift to someone after some maintenance.

My husband just came home from work five minutes ago. And he went to the garage where we store the 22 old chairs to get some of them. He said he is going to start refinishing them from today! He seemed happy when he said that to me. I think refinishing furniture is one of  his few hobbies. I will update about refinishing chairs and my "new" old sewing machines.

Thank you so much for reading such a long post! I am glad that you made it to the end. I hope you enjoyed the story. If not, look forward to the next post. I promise I will write about sewing :-D

Harujion Design Etsy shop is now open again!

Thank you for waiting so long for me to open my Etsy shop again! It is now finally open! There are many fresh items in new designs. Also there are sale item sections and some items are on sale up to 30% OFF! I am going to list more day by day, so please come and check the shop often!

I would like to share some of my new products in my shop. They are wristlets made with adorable fabrics. You will see many pouches made with this pattern in my shop from now on. Well..... if they go as quick as I expect ;) There are more info and photos of those wristlet in the shop listings. Please check them out if you are interested.

I occasionally will show and tell about new listings here when I have it in the shop.

Thank you for visiting my blog. I hope you all have a peaceful night and a good dream!

Autumn

Fall comes to us quickly after a new school year starts here in South Bend. I see Autumn color patches here and there when I take a walk in the morning. The sky gets high and clear. I just love to see the clouds moving in the Autumn sky. It is a pleasant moment of the year. But it passes by so quickly as well. That is why I feel this season is so precious. And a bit sad. I always try to print on my mind every view which the nature shows us in this short moment. Before it packs us in a box of gloomy gray sky and freezing silver snow. (I am getting to like Winter and Snow these years. This is going to be the seventh Winter since I moved in this area from Tokyo!)

I bake this Irish apple cake so often in Fall. We love the taste of caramelized apples on top. I am looking forward to going to apple picking at an orchard soon. I need to learn to bake the best apple pie this fall. Any good recipes? It would be great if it is easy to make ;p !

Nina had an apple day in her class room last week. They cooked apple sauce and made this little apple piggy. She has an awesome teacher this year again! What a lucky kid and parents we are.

And.....a new embroidery project is going on. The embroidery part is almost done. It will be a tote bag and on my Etsy shop soon as well. The shop is almost ready to re-open. I just need to organize information of the products and list them up in my shop.

Thank you for reading. Please have a wonderful week!