Graduation Outfit

When we returned to Australia, Sophie immediately asked if she could cut her hair. It, like everything else about Sophie, had grown in Japan and she was getting sick of it. I'm all for kids having autonomy, but I did veto this for the moment because, being in grade 6, graduation was coming up. Having been away from school for six months, Sophie was unaware of what graduation even was, but on returning to school found it was indeed all the kids were talking about. 

Sophie was quickly inducted into "all you need to know for graduation" which mostly consisted of the girls discussing what they would be wearing. Not wanting to go shopping (a girl after my own heart, I'm so proud!), but realising that she'd literally grown out of everything possible, we spent a week brainstorming what she might want to wear. In the end, she asked me to make something and we did a bit of inspo finding on Pintrest as we looked for the style she was after. 

Initially she was after a jumpsuit, with a halter style top. I did a bit of checking to see which features were important to her, and then offered to make it but separates, rather than the jumpsuit, so it would be easier to use the "facilities". The good news on that front was that I had a pattern for the halter top in the style she wanted and the pants seemed easy enough to draft, since she wanted wide leg. 

I dug out my pattern for Liz Hayworth's Zero Waste halter top from the September instalment of the Year of Zero Waste Sewing. I also dug out the one I made and had Sophie wear it around for a day or two at home. Halters can sometimes look like they are going to work and then in reality, can annoy the heck out of you when you actually wear them. Sophie did find it comfy though, so I got to work. 

Wearable draft fit check: looks good!

I was pretty confident with the style, but still wanted to check the size on her, so I measured her up and made a wearable-draft out of some lovely light cotton I'd gotten at a second hand fabric market. It came together beautifully and the fit was great. For the pants, I did a couple of trials with an old green bedsheet until I was happy with how it came together. I used the pattern I had for her PJ shorts as a base and did some tweaking. I don't seem to have any photos of that drafting process. 

Time for the real deal! 

We bought fabric from Spotlight: a gorgeous linen in a coral pink colour. Everything about sewing this was beautiful. I was making it at around the same time as my Experimental Dress, which was much more hacked together and "making it up as I go" vibes. By contrast, sewing Sophie's outfit was smooth and professional. Thanks to the drafting, everything lined up. I'd already gone through most of the construction sequence at least once, if not twice, so I knew what order to sew things in. The seams were finished with the swishes methods I could manage (French seams of beauty!) Magically, I didn't sew any parts backwards, despite the "right side" and "wrong side" of the fabric being indistinguishable. 

Her only negative feedback was that I could have made the pockets bigger. 

I sewed it pretty early in the term. I think I didn't want to accidentally leave it too late and then have an enormous panic while I was in the midst of reports. Also, I was just enjoying getting to make something so beautiful for my daughter. Since I made it early enough, it was ready for Steve's 40th, which meant she could take it for a test run, though under some very strict instructions about being careful with food and no rolling around on the grass. 

Sophie looks like an absolute rock star in this outfit. She is so comfortable, everything fits where it should and the fabric is soft. I don't think I even noticed the time it took to sew. And, she did get her hair cut. I did it the morning of graduation day. Graduation was a success, and she's planning on wearing it for Christmas. I'm glad, because as I look back at the photos, I think she's grown in the six weeks since I first made it for her... 

Sashiko Progress

At the start of the year I prepped a bunch of fabrics to sew with sashiko stitching on them. The intent for these was that one day there would be enough to be a set of classroom white board cleaners. I had patterns drawn on a bunch of red and blue ones to stitch at church in Japan, which I did. 

Rachel even asked to do one while she sat in church next to me one morning. Can you tell which is hers? 

We did however, find that going to church was quite a mission in Japan. For a number of reasons, so for the latter half of our stay, we did home church as a family. This was actually great for us, but not so great for the sashiko progress. 

Since coming back I've finished off the ones I had drawn patterns for. I've got 20 finished now, which is almost a class set! 

The remaining fabrics are a lot of blue, which I'm worried slightly about how to trace patterns on to, since it's on the darker side. But I'll give it a go none the less. There are definitely patterns that I want to try again - mostly with better thread colour choices (not like the purple set), so they should be pretty easy to follow even if the lines are hard to see. 

The other thing I did work on in Japan was this cross stitch. 

Bad night time photo of the finished work, unframed 
"Touching the Autumn Sky"

I packed it because it had was the project that would take the smallest amount of space and yet give the largest amount of sewing time. It was a thing I had started over ten years ago, after Sophie was born, or maybe was 1? I don't know. I've never been taught cross stitch properly, and when I started I made lots of mistakes. But the friend who gave it to me had really good intentions. I figured if I was ever going to get it done, it was in Japan or not at all. 

I did get most of it done in Japan (progress shot here), but doing so also gave me a huge shoulder injury from excessive stitching. Also, even though I've finished it and it looks beautiful, it's also kinda useless. Cross stitch is definitely not my thing. Time to give away all of the other ones I've got in a box (not bought, just gifted over the years). I'm ready to face the reality that I'll never willingly stitch those and they are better off going to someone who will.