deondergangvanmijnouders

Ha! I have a great summer frock for you today! AND some fun nighttime photos! Sewing in Shanghai in Summer is getting *very* hot! Wearing clothes, sewing clothes, all exhausting! I have lots of projects on my wishlist, but I also have lots of water, swimming plans and cocktails on there too. Fingers crossed the humidity here in Shanghai doesn't melt us all away! OK, so firstly, the photos are very rough, but cute... Husbie and I took them very quickly after Pizza Friday (just made that up) and we did try to get some daytime photos on another day, but our darling boy wasn't interested, and then we bumped into friends and we drank and laughed the day away while the children ran around in the afternoon shade. A lovely afternoon, but yes, that's why we have some fun and spontaneous photos for you... but it's kinda funny to show you a totally random Shanghai street! That white shop bag! Felix showing off his many facial expressions! Onto the dress. Yes, this is my THIRD By ...

I never really thought I’d be sitting in a cafe in Shanghai, having soup noodles for breakfast and a very delicious latte, while Mariah Carey sings ‘I can’t live (if living is without you)’ on the stereo…. and a song I sang at the Eisteddfod (the performance contest/festival in our area, growing up) …. we just don’t know the funny places we’ll be in life, and what memories will pop up with particular songs or music. When I started singing with my teacher Faye, I was probably 14 or 15 years old and sometimes I didn’t really think I could sing well, but after a lot of performances (Barbara Streisand’s The Way We Were was the first song I ever sang alone in public) and theatre shows… I finally felt very good about my voice. I didn’t think I would be just a ‘singer’ or a performer… I loved doing it, and I loved being in plays, but my theatre group was a special group that you only find once in a while and you know I started my radio career and somewhere in your twenties you sort of focus o...

Oh yay! I started writing this post (I like using Evernote for my writing) feeling a bit lost but then I found this draft I’d started last week, while I was sewing this, how organised! Oh hooray, so now I can fill in the gush and happiness now I have such lovely photos of this Anna Dress! For the last week I’ve been thinking about what makes By Hand London’s Anna Dress pattern so popular… for a group of sewing friends (all online and friends through instagram - love it! Here's Pip's post that covers the girls party idea) threw each other a birthday party of the virtual kind and as a celebration lots of sewing people made new Anna dresses and swished around a lot over the weekend! Well, that’s how I’d like to imagine it, a lot of swishing of frocks around the world and online! It’s kind of funny to think of it all, and certainly a lovely thing that passions like sewing can make a large group of people feel so happy by wearing all different versions of the same dress! So I m...

For my Scenes from Shanghai, I like to collect up similar photos from my time here and group them together to show you a different take on China. The city is full of contrasts, full to the brim but quiet as all hell... glamourous and charming on one corner and then really gross and stinky down the next street. I take my good camera everywhere (the GX7 Lumix one) and just snap away at whatever really, sometimes bikes loaded up with chairs, sometimes buildings that could be straight outta France, or sometimes food drying on the street. We don't know how long or short our time here will be... so I'm just soaking it up. I have noticed a few times in the last month things have kind of felt normal... and I'm keeping busy with my life and my son's life all while our darling one works long hours for us to save for a holiday and pay the bills. My last street patterns blog post featured some more gates and motifs and lovely things like this one if you're into patterns! It...

Totally excited! I’ve been thinking of this dress for a while, having bought the fabric a few months back at a fabric market trip! And THEN we’ve been held up with the weather here in Shanghai because this is NOT a dress that could just be photographed indoors. It rained for about 2 weeks nonstop and then we had a typhoon! ARGH. So! I’ve named the dress Cheeky Stewardess Sophia because I have a friend called Cheeky who I was thinking of a lot during the making of this dress, I can’t remember why but I like to think about people, particularly awesome women in my life, while I sew… maybe Cheeky came to mind as I miss her, but also because when I lived in Sydney I would take photos of planes a lot and I love planes and being inner west to have the low flying planes overhead. And she and other friends would quite like to talk about my fascination with planes and all the plane photos I collected up on Facebook. Yes it was amazing! So, red retro looking fabric AND planes are a total win for ...

Being in Shanghai, on one income, our family has a modest budget. So I’m welcoming the time to sew & be a pattern tester on the odd occasion for the independent pattern designers around the world. Plus, I’ve always been thrifty! This week, the Daisy Chain Top 06 was launched by Debbie for her Lily Sage & Co pattern collection and last week I finished it up for a play date in the park! It is just WONDERFUL and completely quick to sew up. When sewing kids things, I want a pattern than is super quick but is really good looking and this Daisy Chain top is that kind of style for me. I love the shape and if you’ve been reading my blog for a while, you might remember I tried this kind of hemline (with great wearability as I wear it ALL the time) a few years ago. Love it! Debbie describes it as "a loose fitting, swingy, baby doll top that is perfect for Summer days. It has a fully covered, button up back, little sleeve ruffles, a flattering hi-lo bodice, and a gathered midri...

Be prepared for a whole lotta indigo in your face today, for my ‘Made in China’ blog series is about the wonderful women behind ‘Make in China’ and we all made Shibori! My MIC series aims to show you that things made in China are not just plasticy or low quality things… and I am seeking out the high skills of crafts people in Shanghai! This time getting to experience it myself. Véronique & Amandine together are Make in China, and brought us all together on a sunny Sunday morning in a lane house in Xuhui (AKA the Former French Concession district of Shanghai) for their second workshop. They all learnt macrame for their first official workshop and have lots of other techniques planned for the next term… as with summer holidays starting, everyone has travelled homewards. My friend Liv told me about Make in China & their shibori class… and I wanted to try it out, knowing it would be a messy process and it’s just something to do at home quickly. I loved it, and as usually with l...