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What attracted me most in these designs was the nice balance of neckline and hemline: casual and relaxed yet elegant and feminine. Let's see what happens at the first fitting!

Overcast by hand all the seams of the lining (three in total). To add some spice to the routine, I used red and black thread to overcast the edges.
Experimented with the waistband. Claire Shaeffer writes in her book that "only three techniques are used ...in couture for finishing the waist edges of skirts and pants: the self-fabric band, the faced band and the faced edge". For my waistband, I went for a self-fabric band. If you want to make the same one, here are the steps. I did not follow 100% the order and directions from the book, but couture techniques are meant to be improvised:

• I pinned Petersham ribbon around my waist to determine the length of the waistband. 
• Using the Petersham ribbon as interfacing, I basted it to the fashion fabric wrong side up. 

•  Right sides together, I basted the waistband to the skirt. Then I stitched it with my machine (this was the only seam which I machine stitched; all other seams were made by hand).
• I pressed the seam towards the band, folded the raw edge inside and, using fell stitches, sewed the folded edge to the seamline.

The choice of silk organza as underlining was obvious: this taffeta is sort of stiff, but is very thin and wrinkles easily. Organza, treated with my fashion fabric as one layer,  adds a little more weight to the lightweight fabric and results in a better-looking finished garment. How often do you see a RTW silk or any other lightweight fabric garment which ends up looking like a sausage?! Well, underlining prevents this effect.

Another great quality of underlining: it helps to conquer wrinkles! Despite being a lightweight fabric as well, silk organza is very tough. Organza strips are often used as stays: they are difficult to break but are flexible by nature. And that is why I used them to reinforce the corners of the vent in my skirt!

I cut four pieces of silk organza and sewed them on to cover the corners. Now I am not afraid to take long strides and hear the "crack" of ripped seams. The organza scraps will keep my seams in place!

Have you also noticed how I attached the pieces of organza? I sewed them into the underlining! If the skirt was not underlined, I would have had trouble attaching the pieces of organza and the stitches would probably have shown through.

After I finished this post, I sewed a hand-picked zipper and added the waistband. More to come in future posts!

No, this time I won't show you my butt! Some time ago when I was searching for some interesting knitting projects, I came across Danish Knit Design and their Charlotte lingerie kit. And I was smitten.

Charlotte lingerie kit

Danish Knit Design is a small family business run by a mother and daughter living in Denmark and the US who share a love for the tradition of Scandinavian knitting design.When I think that in the past (way before the Internet era and the beginning of mass production), most businesses were family-run and nurtured tradition, I wish I could travel back in time and see what it was like.

Luise lingerie kit

It took me several days to pick a pattern: both Charlotte and Louise were screaming from the screen "Pick me!". But since the winter's almost gone, Charlotte seemed a more appropriate choice. At the moment, I am not sure whether I'd wear it as pajamas or actual underwear, but I am pretty much excited to start knitting! And Louise can wait for later.


The yarn that came with the pattern is made of wool and silk. I picked the smoky gray yarn out of the four colors suggested by the designers. The soft thread reminded me of touching a fluffy puppy; oh, can't I just knit all day instead of going to the office tomorrow?!


I also wanted to share with you my favorite activity since the end of last year: Coursera! From the statement on their website, they are a "social entrepreneurship company that partners with the top universities in the world to offer courses online for anyone to take, for free". They offer a wide range of courses from Maths to Humanities to Philosophy to Computer Science. If you, like me, are thirsty for knowledge and curious to learn new things, Coursera is for you! Of course, not all of the courses are great (I've dropped out from two) but since it's free, everyone can explore find the right combination of topic and teacher suitable for the. The great thing is that some of the courses can be perfectly combined with crafting!
Do you have experience knitting underwear? Have you taken any interesting courses online, craft-related or otherwise?

This my first blog post in a couple of weeks, most of which I spent with my mom. Having been diagnosed with breast cancer at the end of last year, she recently successfully underwent surgery where the doctor removed her left breast and replaced it with a silicon boob. Luckily, she's doing great after the surgery but a year of chemo is still ahead. Since learning about her illness, I have felt very motivated to improve my lingerie-sewing skills hoping to sew some cute custom-made bras for her one day.

I made this lingerie set from Merckwaerdigh supplies. Both the lingerie kit and the pattern MIX30I were purchased from their eBay shop. They also sell supplies and patterns on Etsy with slightly different offers.

Speaking of lingerie, I am a big fun of cotton sporty type underwear and never wear lace. This time, the choice of fabric for the set was a bit extreme but intentional - I decided to sex up my underwear!


In the past, I already made a bra using Pin-up Gils Classic Bra #1230 and I would have continued wearing it had my breast cage not widened because of yoga. For the new bra, I cut a longer band so that if my breast cage becomes narrower in the future it'll be easy to alter. Regarding the size, my previous bra was a 34A, but the new bra was cut as a 32B.

A few other modifications were applied for this set:

• Since my left breast is smaller, I reduced the left cup - an easy modification due to the princess seam
• I added 1.5 cm to the bridge because, as you can see from the picture below, the distance between my breasts is quite significant
• The bra is wired and it feels quite comfortable
• I added less lace to the panties because I am just only converting into a lace-gal

Following the suggestions from the pattern, I cut the panties in a M, but it should clearly have been a L. Luckily, there's still some fabric for one or even two more pairs!


As the next step in my lingerie-making journey, I'll try to draft my own underwear patterns. I am currently working with Patternmaking for Underwear Design by Kristina Shin and I hope to be able to show you some results in April.

P.S. I've never posted pictures of myself in my underwear before, but wanted to show how it sits on a real person! *Embarrassed*

This time, the Danni Dolman dress from Style Arc is made from a gorgeous panel knit jersey from Tesutti Fabric.  I decided to cut the fabric so that the bodice remains less print heavy. Needless to say, the girl in the picture is pretty happy with the end result!






This fabric was sitting in my stash for several months waiting for the perfect project: the Danni dress. I would put it on for work/party/after-party! I would wear it all year long with different tights, bangles, scarves and earrings. I intentionally avoided the back seam featured in the pattern. If it were closer-fitting, I would not like it as much. But maybe with your critical eye you think otherwise?

Quick-project-therapy did its job and I am ready to go back to my UFO! *SIGH*

At the beginning of January, Sarai from coletterie.com wrote about her wardrobe inventory and inspired me to do something similar.

When looking at my wardrobe critically, I realized that what hangs in my wardrobe does not entirely fit my lifestyle and the garments do not always go together. For instance, I own too many fancy dresses which I have worn only once. My wardrobe also lacks some simple essentials, and could benefit from a couple of classic pieces.