Dog and Fabric

床に布を置くと、すぐ犬が乗るのよね。
ちなみにこの布はニットで、マキシスカートを作ろうかと思って買ってみました。

The moment the fabric hits the floor, the dog thinks it's her nest.
I am planning to make a maxi skirt with this jersey.

Summer Shirt: Jalie 3130

深南部の夏は、うだるぐらい蒸し暑い。5月からずっと。砂漠に10年、イギリスに2年で、こんな汗かく夏は久しぶり。ポリエステルの服とか、触りたくもないぐらい。
なので夏らしいコットンのシャツを作りました。シャツ作るの、結構好き。

Summer in the Deep South is quite sweaty. Too sweaty that I don't even want to touch some of my short sleeve shirts made out of poly knit/ITY knit. So I made a cotton shirt.

The pattern is Jalie 3130. This is a 3/4 sleeve shirt with sleeve tab option. It has breast pockets and waist darts at front and back.

The fabric is a 100% cotton oxford shirting. Supposedly J Crew fabric according to Fabric Mart. I'm glad that I was able to use this fabric that I bought 4 years ago.

The buttons are from MOTH's dress shirt. When his shirts get tattered, I salvage the buttons. The non-descriptive white shirt buttons are very handy.

I cut a size S and modified as follows:

• Shortened the bodice 1.5": 3/4" at the lengthen/shorten line above bust and another 3/4" at the waist (I'm 5/3");
• Tapered the side seams from waist to hip by 5/8" at the hem; and
• Raised the button placement for the sleeve tab by 1".

The pattern called for interfacing on the collar pieces only but I also added interfacing for center front, cuff and pocket flap as well.

I wanted the shirt to be elbow length when rolled up. I don't intend to wear this cool color in winter so I rolled the cuff up 3 times. When I did that, the sleeve tabs were too long and that's why I had to raise the button placement up by 1". I need to shorten the tabs by 2" in the future.

This pattern was surprisingly very curvy for Jalie in my opinion. It's pretty looser fit but nips at the waist. I may go down a size and let out the waist darts (because I'm rectangular) or keep this size and take in the side seams above the waist next time.

There is a glaring fit issue that did not show up on the photo: there is a pool of fabric at the back neck. I either need to do a square shoulder or forward shoulder adjustment, but I don't know how to do that with a yoke going over the shoulder.

I also think my pocket placement needs to be a little bit toward the center. By the way, this pattern has only 1 pocket size for all sizes.

So can I say this is a J Crew shirt?

Worn with Ginger Jeans.

D20 Dice Bag

一か月ぶりにミシン使いました。
義弟の誕生日に、サイコロ袋を作りました。卓上ゲームで使うサイコロを入れる袋です。
20面サイコロがモチーフのパッチと内布に、もう残り少なくなった（鞄で使った残り）スエード調のビニール布を合わせてみました。
オットには評判悪かったです。ガックリ。ま、プレゼントは気持ちで勝負よね。

I had abandoned my sewing machine for a month but finally got back to it to make a dice bag for my brother-in-law who plays Dungeons & Dragons.

I know nothing about D&D and I really don't understand what they do with the game master narrating the battle behind the cardboard. (You know, the S1E1 of Stranger Things.) But I know the 20-sided dice is the thing for D&D... right?

I somehow encountered this 20-sided dice printed fabric on Spoonflower, and it was green, and it reminded me of my brother-in-law (he wears a lot of green) so I got really excited and decided to make a dice bag.

This was my very first purchase from Spoonflower. It was kind of interesting to receive a piece of fabric with white border all around it (because it's on-demand printing, only the requested length is printed). I got it printed on a regular cotton fabric. The ink definitely makes the fabric stiffer/thicker compared to the white border. I pre-washed the fabric to soften it a bit but still pretty stiff.

I used the leftover faux suede vinyl (same vinyl that I used for my Clematis wristlet and Boronia bowler bag) for the main exterior. The top half of the exterior is Kona cotton so that the bag can be cinched tightly. The hot pink fabric you can see in the photo above is a scrap fleece used as an interfacing for the bottom.

There are 6 pockets inside.
I also bought a d20 patch on Etsy in green to match the d20 fabric. It was bigger than I wanted but oh well. (No fault on the Etsy seller; the size was clearly listed but I just wished it was smaller.)

The finished bag looks exactly how I imagined (well, except for the patch being bigger than I wanted) and I'm really happy with it. But when I showed it to MOTH, he immediately gave me a funny look. He did not like it. Oh well. I enjoyed making it and I'm giving it to my brother-in-law.

Japan Trip

えんま市に里帰りしました。
地元には金曜の夜について月曜の朝には出発したので約丸二日。
そのあとは金沢に2泊、東京に4泊でした。
どこもびっくりするぐらい中国系の団体旅行客でいっぱいでびっくりしました。

MOTH and I went to Japan last month. We visited my family for a couple of days, went to Kanazawa, then to Tokyo. It had been 6 years since MOTH and I traveled in Japan last time (I went back 4 years ago for a class reunion but stayed in my hometown so I did not travel), and this time we were surprised by the number of Chinese tourists. All the touristy places were so crowded everywhere that I was glad I decided against going to Japan in 2020 (Olympics in Tokyo).

Kanazawa: I had a soft serve ice cream with gold leaf. I forgot to check if the gold came out shiny in my poo.

Odaiba, Tokyo: Ginormous Gundam was very impressive. It actually transforms, too. This is what I like about Japanese people: the fact that it's totally normal for them to build a life size robot (well, it's actually a "mobile suit") in front of a mall.

Kabukicho, Tokyo: Again, it's totally normal for Japanese people to have a giant Godzilla head sticking out of a building.

Kamakura: The big Buddha was made in the 13th century and you can walk inside it too.

Yokohama: We went to China Town and did not even eat a single bao. What is wrong with me?

Kichijoji, Tokyo: Unfortunately we got rained on at the Ghibli Museum, but while we were at the station avoiding the rain, we were lucky to see an Awa Odori dance performance by Takarabune. Their performance was so great I almost cried, seriously.