I’m back!

Hi there!  I know I’ve been missing in action for half a year. It all started when my helper who was with us for two years returned to her hometown in Indonesia for good. That essentially meant I had to add cooking, doing the laundry, cleaning and ironing to my schedule. There was no time for sewing, and blogging was definitely not on my radar. Two months later, my new helper arrived and the very exhausted me took a short break from doing anything. It was tough getting started but two events brought me and my sewing machine together again. My son’s graduation from kindergarten and our South Korea family vacation. I had two months to complete all the projects below, a sweater and a pair of wool bella pants. Unfortunately, I do not have any good photos of the latter two since they were hiding under my coat in cold cold Korea.

K2 Graduation

During a briefing session, the school principal told us to buy an all white outfit of shirt and pants while they would provide a bow and cumber-band for the boys for the event. This was afterall my son’s graduation, a milestone in his life!  I told myself, I MUST sew his outfit! And I am glad I did:) The pattern used was Advance 2936, one of the vintage patterns which dear Veronica Darling sent me two years ago (how time flies!).

The difficult part was in finding shirt and pants fabric in the same shade of white. Believe me when I say that white comes in countless shades. Eventually I decided to use one fabric for both instead of trying to color match. I found one of suitable weight from fabric.com and it was a poly cotton blend twill. Here’s a photo of my boy (second from right) at his graduation.

I also made a 40s Black & Gold Chiffon dress for the event and did not line it intentionally. I love the sheer nature of chiffon and  chose to wear a slip underneath instead. The fabric requirement was 3 yards of fabric but thank goodness I managed to cut all the pieces using 2 yards of chiffon I had. The vintage pattern used was McCall 6854.

South Korea Vacation

I have always wanted to make winter coats for my family (and off course myself but didn’t have enough time).

I needed a fabric that will keep the family warm and yet didn’t cost a bomb since we will not be wearing them in Singapore. After a thorough search, I bought some reasonably price black melton wool which was going at around US$10 per yard from fabric.com so I made hubby and the kids matching black melton wool coats and lined them with a light weight plaid wool fabric.

Hubby’s coat was adapted from Simplicity 6887, a pattern from the 70s.

The original pattern is for an unlined coat and I had to think through how I could line the coat which came with cuff  sleeves and back vent. In the end, I decided to go with normal sleeves instead. The pleats on the pockets were excluded as the melton wool was heavy weight and with pleats, my machine was not going to stitch through the fabric. Besides the light weight wool lining, I used the black melton wool for the inside back yoke and front facings. I totally enjoyed all the top stitching on this one! Hubby’s coat took the longest to complete but it’s so worth the time and effort especially when hubby said it looked “so professional!”:) Here’s my model in his new wool coat. He survived minus 10 degrees Celsius in it. So glad I lined it with wool!

Since I sewed the kids’ winter coats from the same pattern (both pdf patterns from Dear My Kids) as the spring versions,  I’ll take the opportunity to show you the spring coats I made them for our Paris trip in May last year. I know, I’m SO behind time! Here’s my boy in his spring coat made from Michael Miller’s dinosaur dudes flannel fabric arriving at Charles de Gaulle airport. It is reversible and the other fabric is an orange corduroy.

And my lil princess in her black and white polka dotted minky Spring coat running at the park adjacent to the Cite des Sciences et de I’Industrie. It is also reversible as you can see the hot pink corduroy peeking out.  One thing I learnt from making the spring coat was that I needed to make the winter version in bigger sizes to make allowance for the layers/sweater within.

Here’s the coat’s winter cousins sheltering my darlings from the cold in South Korea. In the fourth photo below, you can see the plaid wool lining used. It’s peeking out from the bottom of my girl’s coat. The armholes and hems were finished with hand-stitching.

Now that my son has started primary 1, I find myself busier than ever. However,  I hope to sew at least an item a month this year and blog about them. Right now I am working on shirts for my dad and hubby, something I do for them at the beginning of every year. I would love to share with you my fabric shopping experience in Seoul’s Dongdaemun fabric market and the upcoming projects I want to work on for Spring/Summer 2013 in my next post. My struggle is in finding time to have my finished projects photographed so it is likely that you will see photos of me/ others wearing the outfits in our daily lives rather than posed photos.

Have a blessed 2013, may it be the best year yet!