Fabric Review #2

Woohoo! I am back from a 5 day vacation in Lake Tahoe. It was such a snow wonderland there — we had so much fun snowshoeing, sledding, and snowboarding/skiing with some of our best friends. I tried snowboarding for the first time, and although my butt is still hurting from all the falls, I loved it!! It snowed for two days and this is very near to where we stayed:

Beautiful, isnt it? I havent lived in a snowy place since I was six, so it was rare to sit in a warm and toasty house, playing boardgames and enjoying good food and company, with all the fluffy snow drifting down from the sky. Occasionally, we would see our icicles come crashing down, and even spotted some yellow snow!

Now back at home, we spent the past two days packing up our kitchen to get ready for our remodel. I would probably be quite slow in my sewing projects for the next two month due to the remodel as we are doing part of the work ourselves. For now, I have an incomplete  skirt that I am thinking about giving up. I made the mistake of using too thick of a material for a skirt that has many darts. *gasp*, my garment attempted:garment completed: garment often worn for year 2011 is currently:

1:0:0

Gotta work on that ratio! For now I am looking through my latest fabric horde and drooling after all the possiblities.

Shetland Wool Heathered Palm Leaf :

Very good quality wool, i think it is thin enough for skirts and good for jackets and thin coats. It can be stretched a little on bias as well. sadly, the real color is a lot lighter than pictured. I was hoping for a forest green short skirt. I guess I didnt see this. now I am not so sure about what to do with it. Any suggestions?

It was on sale for 10 dollars last year, so I also bought the same material in white, which is beautiful (and unfortunately sold out). I want to try and knock off this look:

Vera Wang Silk Check pale pink 54″ Wide

Sometimes, the difference between polyester and silk is so subtle! I like this shade of pink, sort of a grey-pink with interesting patterns on it. I think it will make a interesting, and simple top.

I also bought some Wool Tricotine in camel color for a new trench coat — the old one I made has some issues with the interfacing, the buttons are pulling the fabric in a weird way, cotton twill is not the greatest material for a trenchcoat, and topstitching everything in green thread was not one of my brightest moment. The material turned out quite nice and crisp, but unfortunately it is already sold out.

Slate Blue Bamboo Knit 60″ Wide

I just love bamboo knits. they are so soft and so heavy, super comfortable against the skin. I saw this top that the beautiful and pregnant hanamik was wearing:

And I really want one! (Her looking so gorgeous while pregnant also makes me look forward to being pregnant in the future ) I was thinking about making something like that out of the bamboo knit, but make it flexible so that it looks good on just the normal old me, or a preggy me in the future. Well, actually, I just really like the idea of flexible clothing. I think all the ties makes it possible to do that, but we will see how it goes.

Also got navy charmeuse and navy cotton satin from there, which are sold out. I find that fabric mart almost never disappoint me in terms of quality of their fabric. However, their color on picture and in person occasionally doesnt match too well!

So much dreaming about sewing. I should really go sew. But knitting in bed next to hubby sounds much more warmer…

Crazy for Qipao

For whose who did not see this before, I had made two Qipao attempted in the past few years. While I was happy when them when I first made them, I soon realized that the fit is terrible (with the pointers from fellow burdastylers and me stop denying that my decently sized boobs are getting squashed into a flat mess in those dresses).

I had been wanting to make a better fitted qipao ever since. Only this time, the bodice will fit better. Instead of closure off the front shoulder like it traditionally does, I will make a zipper in the back and have a mock closure. I had a terribly hard time making the front curvy seams meet at the closure and it still gaps open when I wear them.

I also wanted some inspirations for a “50-hong kong hair style”, as suggested by some of you for a 50s hairstyle. So when I read about “In the mood for love” at living in, I decided to watch that movie and take some screen shot of the movie of every single dress she wore and get some hair ideas. At the end, I was so ready to make a qipao! She wore exactly 20 dresses in the movie, one of it didnt have a good angle to take a screen shot, but I made it up with another women’s dress. She always wear a qipao with the exactly the same cut — high collar, perfectly fitted bodice, and down to the knees hem; the sleeves and fabric are pretty much the only thing that changes.

You can click on the photos to see a bigger picture! If you hover over them, it will show the dress number too. I think my favorites are dress 4 (cute doodle always wins), dress 10 (omg, perfect stripe qipao!), dress 14 (time to get another patch of those linen I used for the 50s dress), and dress 20 (unexpected fabric choice, the happiest qipao i have ever seen!). What are your favorites?

I think the horizontal striped qipao is my absolute favorite. Its monotone, but not boring, even the gray part of the fabric has such interesting texture. The stripes are simple and not overwhelming, well placed on the shoulder and hips. Its just so, modern (for a qipao), chic, elegant, retro (for our era), and tasteful! I think I also spot two darts right around her boob area, on the side, one horizontal, one french. Do you see it?

Unfortunately, she spots only 1 single huge 60s hair throughout most of the movie. And I always disliked huge tossed up hair. There’s just something… unnatural about it. She did (spoiler alert!) change up her hair in the later part of the movie which is less big. Despite that, I think she was beautiful in the movie! But I dont think I will be using her hair here as an inspiration.

And yes! it was a pain capturing all the dresses and uploading them! But I do it for you, dear readers. So tell me! which dresses do you like the most? do you think you will attempt a qipao at some point? (teehee, is the guilt trip working?)