Kaoru Marie

Sooooooooo....this happened on my current "vintage" make: I was *THIS* close to finishing a #VintagePledge  sewing project, but progress came to a screeching halt when I basted on the bow and discovered I looked like I was auditioning for the circus. Seriously, my bow looks NOTHING like the one on the envelope. The fabric is a voile and I was so hesitant to interface the bow, as is instructed in the pattern. But I found an "ultra lightweight interfacing" made by Pellon that I had in my stash. It felt very lightweight with a good amount of drape so I went ahead and fused that bitch onto my beautiful voile, knowing full well that I didn't have enough leftover fabric to redo it if it turned out shitty. Well, it turned out shitty and now I'm stuck doing this: yep, I'm scraping the interfacing off the bow ever so delicately. I've gone through a fantastic episode of Parenthood and a gawd-awful episode of Grey's A...

I bought the Simplicity 1650 pattern during a $5/5 patterns sale at Jo-Ann because I was too lazy to draft my own peplum pattern despite coming across a few free tutorials. However, after looking at the pattern, I decided that I actually liked both tops and wouldn't mind making a sleeveless peplum blouse. Even though this pattern has the peplum attached to the skirt, I didn't see why it couldn't just as easily be attached to the bottom of the blouse so I decided to try making it. I had quite a bit of yardage leftover from the Simplicity 2698 polka dot skirt so I quickly cut out the pattern pieces on Friday evening (oh yeah, I was livin' it up on Friday night!). I cut a size 4, but used 3/8" seams on the front and back pieces. The more I worked on this pattern, the more I liked it. The back and front each have 3 pieces, but the best is they are super simple to assemble. No darts. No pleats. YES! Just some curved portions that are pretty forgiving. Since thi...

I've been dying to stop by the FIDM Scholarship Store for months ever since I read somewhere that they sell fabric for cheaps. I tried going a month or two ago after work, but got there maybe 10 minutes after they closed. This failed adventure could have been avoided if I wasn't too lazy to PICK UP THE PHONE earlier in the day to confirm the store hours (FYI, it closes at 5pm on weekdays). Even though I work in Downtown LA, the store is located just far enough from my office that the thought of walking there and back during lunch always seemed so tiring. But the stars aligned last Friday! My coworkers and I walked to three different lunch spots in a quest to find someplace (any place) that wasn't incredibly crowded. When we got to the third location I realized we were only one block from the FIDM scholarship store. I bid adieu to the guys and decided to forgo a tasty lunch and instead went searching for some scrumptious cheap fabric. I wasn't sure what to expect...

Simplicity 2698 skirt pattern is gradually becoming a favorite of mine and I don't even normally like wearing skirts. That front center seam just kills me..... I have the fit down and this time I barely even looked at the construction instructions. Actually, I didn't look at the Simplicity instructions at all and only peeked at the Sewaholic Cresent Skirt instructions when it got time to attach the zipper to the waistband facing. I wrote down some notes on the instructions sheet the last time I made a skirt and it was such a time saver since I knew exactly what I was talking about (don't you love it when you can read your own notes months later??). This was my first time making version E. I think I never made it before because the skirt front consists of two pieces with a seam down the center and I never wanted a center front seam. But since I dislike version J so much (too much of a tulip shape, not enough drape) and I was too lazy to make version I (ugh, those ...

Before the long weekend, which was a week ago, I had one and a half goals in mind to accomplish. The first was to buy fabric at a nearby fabric store. I walked in and walked out after perusing TONS of fabric for about 10 minutes. I think at least 3 different workers asked if I needed help (and apparently I could get swatches as well although I don't even know what I would do with a swatch...), but every time I said " no, thanks, just looking! " when really I wanted to say " I have no idea what I'm doing here! what fabric should I choose for a dress? what about for a skirt? what about for a blouse? why are most of your fabrics unlabeled? " I seriously need to do more research on fabric so I know what I'm talking about when I go fabric shopping. There was one fabric that I really liked and it was a taupe color, which I'm not usually drawn to, but it was $49.95/yard! I'm definitely not experienced enough to be messing around with fabric that expensi...