Two Thousand Ten

In year 2010, I made a lot of dresses.

I got obsessed with weird quicky prints like tiger print, bicycle print and crab print.
Also went crazy with back details, such as twisted back, cut out back and back V details.

Shot one lookbook with model Sue.

I started to crochet.

Had a chance to interview bows from BurdaStyle and had Sunni from the cupcake goddess for a guest post.

I participated Tokyo Made Market with Novita in January, and Yokohama craft fair with Novita and Kayo in July. Also participated in BurdaStyle book making as a contributor, and met lovely people at BurdaStyle in person in November when I visited NY.

I got to travel much this year: I had a chance to visit Thailand, Bali, and NY and Philly twice, in April and November.

I got pregnant and expecting in April 2011.

I'm excited to see what the year 2011 will bring! Thank you so much for reading my blog! xoxo
Happy New Year! :)

24 weeks - how to make reusable nursing pads

Hello! I'm 24 week pregnant now. No picture of belly this week, but instead, I would like to show you how to make reusable nursing pads. The thought of breast feeding the baby kind of scares me. I never look at my boobs as a source of food for a human being, and I'm not sure what it's like. I know breast feeding is really good for the health of baby, so I want to nurse. Making cute nursing pads is my attempt to reduce the intimidating factor of breast feeding..:) Also it saves a lot of money, instead of using disposable nursing pads.

These pads are super easy to make! I used cute cotton prints that I found at a quilting section of fabric shop, Okadaya.

You will need:
- flannel (you can also reuse flannel shirts or blankets if you have them!)
- Some fun cotton print fabric
- vinyl or thick zip lock bag (or shower curtain)
- bowl or cup, 4-5 inches in diameter (mine is 4 inches in diameter)


1. Using the bowl, cut out 4-5 inch diameter circles of flannel, vinyl, and cotton. For one nursing pad, you will need 3 flannel, 1 vinyl and 1 cotton circles. Vinyl will prevent leaking.

2. Pin the circles in the following order - 3 flannel, 1 vinyl and finally 1 cotton on top.

3. Sew them together with sewing machine. I first sewed with straight stitch and then serge the edge.

4. You are done!

P.S. Please link to this post when you use this tutorial:)

Inspiration: Natalie Off Duty + Sharon Gong

images via Natalie Off Duty

I love the photoshoot Natalie did with Sharon Gong. What's amazing is that this photographer is only 16 years old. Amazing!

One sweater, three gloves

I had a great luck at a thrift shop the other day. I picked up a Jill Stuart coat for 1500 yen (about $15). I was so thrilled! The size fit me perfectly too. Along with the coat, I picked up this sweater/vest thingy for 100 yen ($1). The sweater was in a good condition, but it sat in my closet for a bit, never been worn. So I decided to remake the sweater into something fun. The sweater has an interesting texture, three different knits.
First, I cut up the sweater along the seam line to see how much fabric I have. Then I used rib parts as wrist bands for the mitts, sewed it up with sewing machine and added a bow and heart charm.

This sweater was remade into three different mitts! Such an easy and fun project:)

Left: Light gray lace hand warmers, middle: Light gray bow mitts, right: Light gray simple hand warmers

Merry Christmas!

(Belated) Merry Christmas to everyone! Hope all is having a wonderful holiday.
My husband and I went to a candle service at a church on 24th, and had some friends over at our place later that night. It was a lot of fun, but with different parties and going out last week, I'm a bit drained now:p

1. My gingerbread house - first time making the house! I used a recipe for sugar cookies instead of ginger cookies. I like sugar cookies much better. I drafted a pattern for the house, and used icing as a glue to put the cookies together. It was kinda hard, and you can see some m&ms are coming off! But it was so much fun making it!
2. My decorated Christmas tree
3. Festive nails - red & glitter
4. Some handmade gift for my little sister

Shop update & coupon code

Here are some new things that I added to my shop recently.

Left: Blue crochet fingerless mitts, center: tribal print skirt, right: brown gray turban

Enter "Holiday10" at checkout and receive 10 % off of your whole purchase! This applies to sales items and custom orders as well. Valid from 12/24-31. Enjoy<3

23 weeks - Maternity clothes remake pt.1

Yay 23 weeks! Last week, a friend of mind gave me a bag full of maternity clothes. She said they were handed down to her from other people, and although they look very comfortable, some of the clothes look a bit...un outdated. So I will be re-making them into a little more stylish maternity wear over the next few weeks.

My first project was this stripe shirt dress. The dress is lovely, but the length was so wrong. It hit the middle of my calf, and personally I think it's the most unattractive skirt/dress length for me. I would also look really "pregnant" with that length.

So I simply cut the dress in the length I wanted, and hemmed it. I like "after" version much better, and I'm sure I will be wearing a lot with leggings, or belt tied around.
I'm wearing it with leggings and chunky necklace from F21 (got this for wedding) today.

Inspiration: Te chichi

Te chichi via Sally Jane Vintage blog

Isn't this lovely? It's a Japanese line called "Te chichi". Funny that I found out this line through American fashion blogger, although I live in Japan.

I want all their coats!

Tutorial: How to make crochet fingerless mitts

Remember the crochet fingerless mitts I made before? I liked them so much I made couple more (here and here). They are so easy but really fun to make, and you can make different variations depending on buttons and charms you use. I made a tutorial for how to make crochet fingerless mitts below - hope you like it!

60's inspired dress

I forgot that I made this dress to enter into the BERNINA "Party through the decade" competition, and never blogged about it until now.

I only had two days to work on this project after coming back with NY/Philly trip, and I'm not really satisfied with the result. I mean, I like the dress, but it didn't really fit the contest's theme. It says "Party", but my dress is not party dress at all! :p Not sure what I was thinking. :)

I think BurdaStyle mentioned that the level of the projects were really high this time, and I must agree. I really enjoyed browsing through other people's projects, and I was amazed with their creativity, how they put photos together etc.
This was my inspiration board when I worked on the dress.
I had bell sleeves, A line tunic type shape, white/cream lace, and big pockets in mind. I lost all the sources of the images below..I'm sorry. I think they were all from some etsy shops.

22 weeks - vegi soup

22 weeks! a week has gone by so quick as we approach the end of the year. I can't believe we are just a week away from Christmas.
Before I got pregnant, I never really wore tunic type dresses. I preferred a style with waist cinched. But when I saw this tunic dress with cute crochet detail for mere 300 yen(3 bucks!) at a thrift store, I had to take it home with me. It's so comfortable, and great for daily wear with warm leggings(maternity leggings! oh boy these things are super comfy), socks and boots.
I barely see my own toes because the belly gets on the way:p
It's been so cold here lately - it has not snowed yet, but really cools down in the morning and night. I've been making a lot of vegetable soups to warm myself up. This one above is my favorite. I heard the recipe on radio, but ended up modifying a lot.

Here is the recipe:

Ingredients:
- half a Daikon (Japanese radish)
- some spinach
- 1 vegetable stock cube
- 1 table spoon of soy sauce
- 1-2 umeboshi (Japanese salted plum)
- 600ml water
- salt and pepper

Direction:
- grind half of Daikon, and cut up the rest to 5mm cubes
- add all the ingredients to pot, bring it to boil

That's it! So easy and spinach has a lot of folic acid you need for the baby<3 You can add carrots or tofu if you'd like.

Inspiration: TBA

Images via Nadinoo

I'm inspired by this cute TBA collection, with white collar, neutral color and pleats...

Shop update: new dresses

With the same pattern I used for my party dress for the wedding, I made four other dresses for the shop. These are more for daily wear, and I-line skirt makes it perfect for work. I love mix and match different fabrics to make two tone dresses.

Clock wise, from top right: Anchor two tone dress, Stripe and dark moss green two tone dress, Dark moss green corduroy dress, and Cream lace two tone dress.

And I bought a dress form finally! I can no longer model for the clothes, and my sister is not available often to help me out with modeling. I got this dress form from online shop in Japan. It was really reasonable, and came right away (next day)! They offer free shipping to. In case you are interested, here is the link to the shop.

Party dress for my friend's wedding

I made a dress for myself to wear to my friend's wedding the other day. I knew about the wedding wayyy ahead of time, but I did not make it until one week before the wedding, because I wasn't sure how much my belly was going to grow and how much weight I was going to gain. Although I made the dress a week before the weeding, I was a bit nervous whether I can fit in it comfortably.

I had a general idea for what I wanted in the dress - I wanted cinched waist (rather right under bust line) and I-line skirt to show off the bump:) I love how the dress came out, and I really loved wearing it! The only thing I would change, is to make the dress with a fabric with some stretch - I don't know why I didn't think of it while I was making it, but it would have been so much more comfortable to wear, and eat during the wedding had I made it with stretch fabric! I picked Satin, which has no stretch, I don't know why. I do love the deep navy blue color though.

I got the necklace from forever 21, and vintage clutch from a thrift shop in Philly (only $5!). I don't remember where the pumps came from, since I've had them for so long.


Wedding was a lot of fun. Beautiful bride, great food, sunny weather..it was almost like a high school reunion with many of my friends from the same high school:)

21 weeks

21 weeks! My husband took some photos of my growing belly when I was in my camisole, and I think these photos really show the size of my belly. It's growing a lot and I felt that the center of my balance shifted a bit when I stand or walk. It's getting harder to run now because of the extra weight, my shins hurt. I try to run daily because that's what I did before I got pregnant and the doctor said it's okay to continue what I did before, as long as I feel good about it. Although it's harder to run now, the benefit to running is too great (great stress relief and I sleep very well at night) not to continue.

Thank you so much for the encouraging comments for my last post. I was surprised to know that many of you had experienced similar things (unsolicited comments and advise) during your pregnancy as well. After reading the comments, I decided that it was really not worth worrying about it, and I should enjoy the time with my baby right now. It is too precious to be bothered by other things, and I will try my best to brush off the unwanted comments and advise:) Again, thank you all<3

I went to a doctor's visit this Wednesday, and it went well. The baby weights about 500 grams now, and healthy. Such a relief! I was really anxious to go because I was supposed to find out the baby's gender. But again, the doctor could not find out, because the baby's legs were on the way, and he/she wasn't moving much during ultrasound! The baby needs to be cooperative next time! My next visit is in early January, so I have another long month of waiting time:(

During my time in NY, my friend gave me Booda Organics' body butter. I love this product! It is a butter, but when you press the butter in your palms, it turns to body oil. It smells wonderful (chocolate!) and moisturizing. It's not only for preventing stretch marks, but can be used for basically anything, from wrinkle, cracks, dry skin, dry lips...etc. It's really great and I think I'm going to order another one when I'm done with this one.

New York photo diary & meeting BurdaStyle people!

I took a trip to NY in early November to see my husband's family and my friends from Philly. I got to spend 3 days in NY, and it was a lot of fun!

Walked around Soho, had lunch at Thai place, had a super mini cupcakes (this adorable shop is located across the street from forever21 in Union Square), went to a fabric district in NY with tons of beautiful notions, trims, fabrics..had a change to visit the famous Mood fabrics. It was like a sewer's heaven there! I bet I can find any fabric I want at Mood. It was a bit pricey and I did not have any particular garment project in mind, so I ended up coming out of the store, empty handed. But I really enjoyed walking around between the rows of beautiful fabrics.

Also had a chance to visit BurdaStyle office:) It was really nice to finally meet people behind this amazing website. The last picture is me, with Rachel and David. They are wearing the handmade headbands I brought over as a small gift<3

Using scraps and making pretty little things

Here are some small things I made using scraps and left over yarns.

This bunny ear (or bow) headband is very easy to make and actually quite comfortable to wear. I get headaches from headbands depending on what kind, but this one, you can adjust the tightness with the wire inside. You only need 33inches long fabric. I used a left over fabric from a dress I made before.

Blue Bow headband

I found this crochet lace while I was in Philly in November. I bought 10 yards of it since it was so pretty!

Cream Crochet Lace Headband

These two headbands below were made from a left over yarn I used for the fingerless gloves.
I simply did a couple rows of single crochet and decorated with scalloped hem for Beige Crochet Wide Headband.
I made 3 single crochet ropes, braided them and attached elastic bands in the back to make the Beige Crochet Braided Headband below.
My first attempt to make turban! I saw turbans all over the fashion blogs lately. It is very very simple to make. Just make sure to use stretchy fabric, and the variation is endless!

Black and white stripes turban

P.S. Thank you sooo much for all the comments, advise, and encouragement to my 20 weeks post. I'm sorry I came off so negative and whiny. I swear I'm not like that everyday!
I read all the comments and love reading them. Sorry for not responding individually. I'll write more for 21 weeks post. Thank you!! xoxo