MOONSTITCHES

Voilà, c' est le carnaval!

Well, it was, actually, because it's over already. And of course I totally missed posting about it that day, but here it is, just to document my heroic sewing activity :)
Heroic because I finally made my girl that princess dress I had been promising her quite some time ago. Now that I made it I really ask myself why it took me so long. Nothing is sweeter and more rewarding than a happy child thinking of its mother as some kind of magician or super hero, being able to produce a dreamy dress by throwing together some pastel coloured fabrics and beads and silvery stuff... :)

The dress is based on a sleeveless summer dress from OTTOBRE, but as usual, the bodice was way too wide and I had to take off a lot of the width to make it fit. The closure I changed from zipper to kooks, the neck line was altered completely and I also partly lined it. The sleeves I drew roughly on paper and the shape modified while cutting them out with my scissors (I find scissors are a great tool to give pieces the right curves). To my surprise the sleeves turned out nicely, could have been longer a bit but well, it's just a carnival costume...

The skirt had to be pieced and couldn't be properly hemmed because of the very limited amount of blue velvet I had on hand.
Scarlett O'Hara would have been so proud of me as this dress is the very happy transformation of a sample curtain I grabbed for just 100 Yen from a rummage table at Yuzawaya a few years ago :)

Oh, and speaking of Scarlett... another movie was the inspiration for our dress. Drei Haselnusee fuer Aschenbroedel, of course, you knew it, right.

Adressing especially my German readers here, so I will write a few words in German: Ihr habt's gleich erkannt am Schleier und der gedrehten Dekoration am Halsausschnitt, oder?! Aschenbroedel laeuft hier den ganzen Winter... bei Euch vielleicht auch, nicht wahr, ja, ganz bestimmt :)

Ich habe nocheinmal ganz genau hingeschaut beim Gucken des Films, diese Seite durchstoebert und auch Christianes zauberhafte Kleider bewundert (Hallo Chrissie!) und bin am Ende zum Schluss gekommen, dass ich mit dem, was ich an Stoffen und Zubehoer und vor allem auch in den verbleibenden drei Tagen bis zur Karnevalsparty nichts wirklich Aehnliches machen konnte.
So ist am Ende ein Kleid entstanden, dass vielleicht nicht so aussieht wie Aschenbroedels Ballkleid, aber eines, das Aschenbroedel vielleicht auch getragen haette, wenn es aus der zweiten Nuss gefallen waere ;)

Schoenen Gruss an alle Aschenbroedel Fans im verschneiten Deutschland!

The dress I made didn't turn out very similar to Aschenbroedel's ball gown because I tried to use what I had at home and there wasn't enough time for drawing the belt, but maybe Aschenbrodel would have worn it anyway if it had been fallen out of the second of the three magic hazelnuts.

Well, one of those things a sewing mother has to do once in a while...

Just a few more views of it...

I want to thank you all for your kind messages last week.
You are really the sweetest. I feel totally assured to keep my irrelevant, slow blog and hope that by sharing those little things around me I will contribute to your joy from time to time.

Thank you very much.

I have started to get back to you (rather late because I had a stiff neck last week, getting old!) via email, but I wanted to tell you that I recently enabled threaded comments here on MOONSTITCHES which I found extremely inspiring and attractive while reading MAKE & MEANING , which I also added to my link list... because it is such a great, inspiring site.

Now I must run, get ready for my first knitting lesson at school... I'll be a knitting teacher from today on :)
If you have any fun ideas for first projects, please let me know.

I wish you a happy day!

Looking Back

A posting I wanted to write just after my latest back in... but, funny thing, we were surprised by Autumn Break. A week off from school. I really need to get a big calendar to put on the kitchen wall to mark all the holidays over the course of a year. It's so easy to miss or mix them all up because Dagny is partly on German schedule in her German school and the husband strictly on Japanese.
Anyway, after that week I had to get back on track and simply fell off the wagon again instead. No surprise, you know me by now. It's so easy to just knit and be happy.

In my last posting I had been speaking about what this blog was meant for (other than creating a huge community of followers or getting turned into a book or something equally aspiring...), just for the record, a few of the things I have been making during summer.
Like a new kinchaku (traditional pouch) for Dagny to take to the fireworks. A little yukata for her doll Ulala-chan, crocheted hair elastics, gauze face masks... Dagny's yukata I made a couple of years ago, and this year might have been the last time she could wear it. I let out all hems and extra seams that were sewn to make it smaller when it turned out too big for my four-year-old back in 2007.

The crocheted flower elastics were asked. Earlier this year a dear friend gave us similar ones she had been making. Sadly one of those were lost or misplaced during our move, so I had the pleasure to get reacquainted with my hooks...

And then there was the request for some face masks in early summer when many people wore them because of pollen allergy.

I followed the instruction from an early (the first?) Ito Naomi book やわらか　ガゼでつくる　- making (things) with gauze. The masks turned out too thick but were worn despite this. Not really meant for protecting against something, more in the manner of dressing up.

Thank you all for your friendly response to my latest posting.
Thanks for the compliments on the second Neighborly and thanks for sharing your thoughts about the whole commenting matter. Made me feel more at ease. Also I found a way to use my mailer to directly respond to comments without sending my answers right to my blog... all is working out in the end. Nothing to really worry about.
What I actually do find worry-worthy is that in the meantime I got so inspired by the many, many beautiful things that are uploaded on ravelry every minute that I needed to cast on for a lot of new knitting projects. And I am planning on even more!
My stash is still fed well, yet I ordered new yarn I came across on ravelry...
I will upload a few yarn and knitting photos on Flickr and explain in my next posting. Basically it is all mostly grey-ish brown and often knit in the round. Working on conquering the Seamless Yoke Sweater again :)

Back hopefully soon with knitting news...
Until then!

rainy season - つゆ (tsuyu)

Lots of rain, slowly drying laundry, ajisai (hydrangea), Calpis and first kakigori (shaved ice). And new rubber boots.
Time for expeditions and twirling around.

A no-pattern skirt with a little saddle yoke (thanks Sooz!)and elastic, finished in no time, and a new cardigan that took forever. Started some time earlier this year and was almost done before the move.
When I picked it up again only one front part had to be knit but I had a hard time remembering what I did exactly with the first front... the pattern is to be found here and sized for up to 24 months. I modified it a bit to make up for a larger size and different gauge. I haven't taken notes though and can't say anything about it now. Only that Dagny fell into a muddy puddle that day two weeks ago and the cardigan had to be washed, ending up even larger after drying.

I used yarn I had on stash, but I didn't have enough of the off-white for the band and had to distract from its different colour there by using two additional contrasting yarns (red and blue). That worked well and I even like it better this way.
The yarn is Munsell King from Yuzawaya, nothing fancy but really soft. I don't expect it to be looking well for too long though, too bad because this cardigan will be fitting for quite some years.

To see the skirt better, two pictures from yesterday:

Thank you so much for the craft room love and have a good day everyone!

A Room With A View

Not necessarily a craft room, my room, just a small room (a little bit over 10 m²), with some storage space, two desks, two sewing machines and a view.
Pretty fabulous view if you have an idea of how not-so-fabulous views can be here in Japan.
So what is outside the window makes me most happy.
Amazing sound when it's stormy, by the way.

The room, suitable for crafting.

With exception of a lamp I got nothing new for the room, just put in what I already had. Actually, I took my things and tried to move into that space without causing too much of a stir. Keeping it simple, trying not to overdo things. Maybe it will change over time, perhaps there will be curtains, pictures on the walls or other kind of things that will be added to enhance the cosiness of the room (or those that simply are accumulated and lead to clutter sooner or later)... we'll see.

Hopefully not the beginning of clutter, my inspiration pile. Containing future projects. And sleeping projects, like my hexagon blanket. So it's a pile to not only inspire but also remind me.

A stool I had got some foam and wool. I like it better this way and it is more comfortable.

A drawer I found on the street a year ago. Keeping my scissors, rotary cutters, threads and items like that.

The desk is quite small, so this is how it looks with my sewing machine on it.

It's possible to place the serger next to it when needed, it does work.
And there also is space left for those little things we all need to surround ourselves to make us smile because they remind us of something or someone.

The same goes for the wall behind the desk... little pieces with a history.

On the other wall (the room has two walls I could do something to, the remaining ones are occupied by the window, door and a huge built-in closet), there is that old kitchen you already might have seen on Flickr.

With the pullout desk.

And space for the machines.

I like to put away the machines while not working on something with them.
My knitting needles and crochet hooks aren't on display either all the time - gives me room to think in all directions, or daydream better.
Who if not me would not have enough time to get all those things out when actually staring to sew, knit or crochet?! I am so slow in all I am doing, I really have that extra minute to open the cabinet doors and get the needed items out.
Like the thread for my serger... would be getting too dusty in the outside anyway.

And there is that little drawer on the floor which I keep the buttons in... a found item again, like most things that surround me.
I hope to find and old wooden desk and stool some day, to replace those two pieces I have now, but I will patiently wait until I stumble upon them.

Something absolutely new and completely boring yet highly pleasing are those built-in closets I use for storing my books, fabrics and yarn.
2.20 m high, very deep and altogether 2.50 m wide... Part of my closet is outside my room, in the hallway just opposite to my door, unburdening my little space of a great deal of matter - so good!
Here a look into my closet in the hallway.

I apologize for the load of pictures but I am just too happy about my room to not go into detail here. Even more photos, larger, too, and some additional explanations over on Flickr.

Take good care of yourself!
Good night.

Catching up

So much to blog about but then again, what should I actually blog about?!
What I am making these days seems so boring, my craft room doesn't look exciting, my new neighbourhood lacks of the charm my former one seemed to burst with... I'll do it anyway and start at the beginning, where I picked up crafting after the big move.
I did feel a little overwhelmed by the whole relocation because we had to go through and pack so much stuff. Our old place was filled to the brim and things seemed to become more and more when we pulled them out of closets and shelves... horrible. Having to deal with a small space should make you be more selective and less attached to things instead of letting you become a champion in squeezing stuff into every little corner of your home.

So after I finally had get rid of a lot and moved what I wanted to keep, I felt tired of everything that seemed detailed, embellished or complex. Simple was what I was longing for. So when I first started crafting again, I stitched together some very plain coasters and mats for different purposes. Mostly by hand, because it seemed obvious to make something with the fewest efforts in order to slow down and regain some serenity.

Pretty unspectacular, the whole process and the result.
Just what I needed.
Oh, and all went into use directly, not lingering around somewhere before being photographed... I am trying to not waste time or material by waiting for the right moment anymore. Life's too short.
Take care!