deondergangvanmijnouders

Last week the girls at Craft’d Shanghai asked me to host a “Next Step” type sewing a class… they’ve been organising the 'learning to sew' classes for a while, making aprons, pillowcases and totebags… they’ve added zippers to bags and made infinity scarves like absolute legends. But they hadn’t made any other clothing… So, hence the “Next Step”… I was more than happy to host the class, but haven't really taught sewing before, so I emphasized the DIY heavily to all my sewing skills and we talked about lazyseamstressing a bit too! The day was 4 hours of 3 students, and definitely using the blogs of the sewing community world, I came up with the few steps below: - Measure your waist - Measure the length from your waist to where you like the hem to be - Really puffy & full: at least THREE times your waist measurement - Only a little puffy: at least TWO times your waist measurement - The skirt has 2 rectangles: one piece is your waist measurement plus 2.5 cm for ease ...

As a David Lynch fan, I had to with the title of this post! And though I’m wearing green and not blue like the film, there’s a bit of the Blue Velvet theme running in this skirt! On the surface, it appears all beautiful and happy green (although very wintery!)… but below, beneath the surface, things are a bit different! The velvet-ish fabric is from Dongmen Lu Fabric Market in Shanghai, in the Basement. I hardly go to the basement, mostly because I forget it’s there… but it does have some different textures like vinyl, stretch velours and other stranger tulles and satins and a little cheaper in price and quality than upstairs at the regular ‘tailor’ part of the market… so it’s fun to have a poke around there. I once saw a shopkeeper burning a wood sign… like carving with hot tools to get a burnt shop sign… so it can be a fun eye-opener DIY explore too! The shopkeeper with the velvet said it was ‘silk’ and the rolls were in bold colours and wider and taller than me… I’d say about 10...

Hey! It's my David Lynch print & I in matching blue! So happy to show you this skirt I started & finished at Sewing School this last month! Yes, my sewing classes with Couture Nomad Shanghai have started again for the year and I’m again surprised at how talking ideas over with my teacher and her hands on approach helps me so much… the work I do there has been SO neat, and I feel like punching the air at the end of every step. At home however, I whizz through and muck up the hem a little (luckily just the lining) as I wrapped the whole thing up… but well-rounded is a good way to consider my sewing approach… fast & slow, neat & messy… I balance myself out. So, the pattern is part of the Couture Nomad sewing school collection, called Taipei and shows you a simple A shape, with a wide waistband and pockets. I traced it in a size M, using my lower waist just above the hips instead of that high waist part… I do like highwaist on my hourglass, but this would hang a litt...

Hey, wow, it's Tuesday already! Yesterday was a work holiday for Husbie, and so we actually had a long weekend together... but we're trying to save some money so we hung with friends and didn't get out of Shanghai like a lot of people do. It was lovely and quiet (as far as a massive city goes) and it's always the best when there's no work! Today I thought it's time to quickly write up about my neon fern skirt... a really straight forward stretch knit fabric DIY pencil skirt that I made during May. Same fabric as my latest Manado Dress and same shape (and construction) as my Golden Jubilee Wiggle Skirt . It's two pieces, a skirt piece and a waistband piece sewn into tubes, and then attached. Very straightforward. And there are quite a few DIY tutorials online for this kinda thing, no waistband elastic needed if your fabric has enough thickness and reboundness. Is it called recovery? Not sure. Again, fabric description is not my strongest point... but this on...

Hello from Fuxing Xi Lu! It's springtime in Shanghai! And today here's a 'no pattern' outfit... a gathered gingham skirt with a linen hem... with a floppy blousie thing. A knit tshirt tucked in... sounds more posh as a blouse. I'm in the Former French Concession in these photographs, so it's totally a blouse. A few weeks ago, I made some gingham trousers for my little boy, as part of my Sewing School... and since I'm buying 2 metres (liang mi in Chinese) of fabric these days (is that how much you buy? A bit different from op shopping - I would usually just buy everything at the op shop/thrift store)... I had some left over. Childrenswear doesn't take up much fabric, of course, so there was enough for a gathered skirt of some kind, so I fiddled around for a while finding the right kind of shaped rectangle (the skirt) and making sure I had a waistband as well... and then during all my fiddling and folding and checking I found the green linen remna...

  Happy Monday! Hope you had a great weekend! We have my parents visiting us in Shanghai so it's been busy but it's just a dream sharing the city with them. Husbie even had a day off! YAY! I'm really happy to show you my Pin Pegs Mini Skirt this week... it's a new pattern from a brand spanking new independent pattern designer.... Annie Mollison who's 'Sew This Pattern' stems from a lifetime of fashion design, sewing and modern living & blogging. I can't remember when I first saw Annie's blog, Nine Stitches ... but I just remember her moxie sewn garments & sunshiney photos and her fabric choices being really strong. So when I saw she was looking for pattern testers, I was very curious about her pattern design... and I wasn't disappointed ... this skirt has as much spunk and edge as Annie! So first up, I'm very happy with the skirt... delighted it fits so well, but mostly really happy with my sewing on this one... it was a challenge...