Glimpses of my weekend on Sado Island.
After a great time at Earth Celebration last year, we returned to Sado Island for more taiko and sea air. It takes all day to get there from Tokyo — shinkansen to an express train to a ferry — but for me getting there is half the fun. Each night on Sado we climbed the hill next to the harbor and watched the sunset amidst cicadas until the concert drums and night stars took over. During the day we napped in the grass and swam in calm ocean inlets. Ah, Sado.
Month: August 2013
We Are Champions
I buy many Japanese craft and sewing books. They are my guilty pleasure. Besides fabric, parfaits, wedge sandals, cappuccinos, and macarons.
I like to share the projects my craft books inspire, like my mega hair bows, felt veggies, and embroidered badges. Japanese books have excellent illustrations (as do menus and train safety signs), and with my somewhat-functional language skills I can figure things out with little problem. But this book had me stumped.
下田直子の手芸技法 Handcraft Techniques by Naoko Shimoda includes 23 techniques for embroidery and hand sewing. It is a beautiful book with stunning examples of smocking, scalloping, gathering and quilting.
Aren’t those textures incredible?! I would love to try these smocking techniques on a dress or blazer someday.
For my first project from this book I thought I’d start with a simple rosette ribbon project inspired by these pages.
These rosettes seemed like a good beginner project and I dreamed of wearing my ribbon award proudly like a Grand Champion heifer. But I was quickly proven wrong.
For Technique L [Ribbon Work] I was instructed to measure, mark, and pin the ribbon into various folds. My fingers were not nimble and the pins left holes in the ribbon, and my rosette started to resemble an award for Grand Prize Loser.
The project sat on my desk for months, deflated and sad. It wasn’t until thumbing through another craft book about ribbon rosettes that I found a tip — use a small piece of cardboard to help fold-and-hold the ribbon while you simultaneously tack the bottom edges with needle and thread. Once I got the hang of that, my rosette came together nicely.
And now I feel like the Grand Champion of Winning.
I’m going to make more of these, since now the only challenge lies in finding interesting ribbons and button centers. Perhaps I’ll present them to my friends and loved ones for tasks I deem prize worthy: 1st Place in Chopping Onions, Grand Prize in Hailing Taxis, and the coveted Mr. Hustle Award.
What awards would you present?
Shift Work
Because I’ve been eating so many macarons, I needed a dress with a little ease. I’m only half joking.
I was given a wool shift dress last year and love it. The boxy shape isn’t one I would have selected for myself, but it turns out a simple shift is flattering if done right. I decided to make a summer version using the Colette Laurel pattern. But I’m not sure I did it right.
I made a muslin and thought I was happy, and then finished the final garment in stripes and am solidly on the fence about it. I feel like a stripey marshmallow. Or like I’m wearing jail pajamas. Or, from far away, that I look sort of naked.
In hindsight, selecting fabric the same color as your skin tone is not a great idea, regardless of how much you love stripes.
There were a few wins with this project, however. It was my first time installing an invisible zipper, and my first time matching stripes. Victory is mine!
I used self-made bias and lined the dress in really soft natural cotton lawn. The lining was more expensive than the striped linen. Maybe I should wear the dress inside out?
I think some of my ambivalence about the dress comes from the extra fabric in the back. It doesn’t hang the way a shift dress ought to hang. This pattern is for a dress with sleeves, and I thought I could simply leave the sleeves off and voila — sleeveless! Perhaps I was wrong. Maybe I could take it in a bit more at the back darts? Anyone have advice? I don’t own a serger and dislike raw edges, so I finished the sides with a flat felled seam and taking the sides in is not an easy option.
I think I’ll wear the dress again, maybe with tights and heels and a cardigan and a trench coat. If anything, this project was a good exercise in fabric selection and learning to really examine the fit of a muslin before forging ahead. I think learning to sew your own clothing takes a lot of experience gained from trial-and-error. Maybe this dress is just meant to help me log those hours.
Anyone else ever feel this way?
The Macaron Craft Kit winner is …
… the 4th comment, Melanie!
Thanks to everyone for sharing! I have more Japanese craft kits to giveaway in the next few weeks, so check back again for another chance to win. (^O^)／
Macaron Craft Kit Giveaway
I am in a macaron phase.
This was a macaron zipper pouch kit, and according to the package it was only supposed to take me 40 minutes to assemble. Liars!
Admittedly, I spent most of my time with the sparse instructions and a dictionary. I’d look up kanji and then with an exasperated eye-roll think, “I know what that means. Damn you, memory!”
The kit comes with a 10 cm zipper, precut felt circles, plastic button parts, and a small cell phone strap. Here is the part that had me stumped:
This is an example with a different zipper. Once you sew the ends of the zipper together, creating a zipper-circle, you want to gather the sides with a basting (or running) stitch. This creates a nice bed for the felt-covered button part.
Back to the real deal, you can see the zipper teeth are the middle of the felt sandwich. The sweet macaron guts.
It is just the right size to hold a 500 yen coin, for those moments when you need an emergency macaron.
And lucky day, I bought an extra kit to share the macaron love!
To enter this giveaway for a strawberry-pink macaron coincase strap kit, which doesn’t make much sense so I decided to call it a mini macaron zipper pouch kit, which makes much less sense, leave a comment on this post telling me what you’d hide inside your macaron. Comment before noon (Japan standard time) on Monday August 5th. I’ll choose the winner randomly.
Good luck!
Saké Puppets 