Waiting Patiently

So I decided on my fabrics, but unfortunately, the website ran out of the knit fabric I wanted. I settled for cotton and the other knit, which is thicker and the ink doesn’t saturate as well. I made my order since April 1st and would like to receive them like NOW. In the meantime, I’ve been trying to get rid of my fabrics. I’m getting married! and will be moving at the end of May. I want to use up as much fabrics as possible to lighten my moving load. I love collecting fabrics and am kind of having a hard time using them because they are all so beautiful. All the “sample” items I will be making will be fairly cheap; probably half of the price I would charge for a made to order item. Below are the items I made in the past week/weekend.
The last photo is just a belt I made for myself because I threw away all my belts when I moved last time. The 2nd to the last photo is just a shawl my sister put on my dressform and I decided to put the belt on it.

Revived Fashion Show II 2012

I want to thank the Revived Fashion Show members and participants for allowing me to be part of the show and making it happen. It was a great experience and am looking forward to next year. I had 10 dresses, but only 9 models showed up, which was a little disappointed. I should’ve and could’ve looked or called someone to model it, but it’s too late at this point.
I’m not much of a photo taking person, therefore, I DO NOT have any photos of the models in the dresses. Luckily, my sister Yergie, which was my wonderful wonderful dresser who helped me SOOO much during the show, took the photo above.

Hmong Inspired Peter Pan Collars

Hmong and Thai inspired Peter Pan collar necklaces. Will be posting on my etsy soon. Please keep update! :D

Tragic Mountains

I started to read this book back in 2002 but stopped because there were too many names and villages. I didn’t want to continue reading if I was not able to picture the people and locations of the places where the events took place. I’m desperately bored at work and decided to have the librarian deliver this book to my office. We’ll see how it goes this time.

Beautiful Weather, Beautiful One Shoulder Dress

Gosh, such beautiful weather this weekend; wish my boyfriend and I were more outdoor people. Besides, he has reeeaaalllly bad allergies during this time of the year so there’s no way we can enjoy the beautiful weather together.

This past Friday was very unproductive. I anticipated at least some sewing after work, but as soon as I got home, I wanted to lie under the blanket for a few minutes. Of course, I fell asleep and didn’t get up til 3am. By that time, I didn’t want to start on any sewing because if I start, I would’ve worked all the way through the morning and slept all afternoon. I did some cleaning and went back to bed at around 5. Let me tell you, I can sleep forever. I do notice a sleep pattern though. I’ve been sleeping late on workdays and sleeping early on weekends. Don’t know what’s up with me, but I need to do some kind of reverse psychology on myself that way I can sleep early on weekdays and late on weekends like everyone else.

Anyway, yesterday, I decided to use the lace knit I bought a few weeks ago. I have always love lace. I remembered years ago a few friends and I went to a Jessica McClintock store in SF to try on some dresses. A friend needed a dress for her cousin’s wedding so we planned the whole day in SF just dress shopping. One of my friends that were there commented that I picked out all the dresses that no one would like or wear, which was obviously her opinion because she doesn’t like lace! And, all the lace dresses I tried on were oh so beautiful; too bad I didn’t have any special occasion to attend to or I would’ve bought a few.

Well, I’m not sure about other Jo-Ann fabric stores, but the ones nearby do not carry a variety of lace so as soon as I found the lace knit above, I had to get it. At that time, I wasn’t sure what to do with it. Yesterday, I just sort of stared at the fabric for a while and decided to do a summer romantic dress. I wanted to incorporate the one should bodice because currently I have a feel for it (All the Thai fabrics I have laying around makes me thought of Thai inspired looks). I wanted a one shoulder dress that will guarantee a nice fit so I didn’t sew the shoulder together. Sometimes the shoulder doesn’t fit well because of the bias cut making is loose. I made the shoulder tie long enough so there is options of tying it into a bow or leaving it hang down. The skirt part was the hardest to decide on. I wanted a fitted bottom like a pencil skirt, but I’m really not feeling it. I wanted a full length skirt or a 2 or 3 tier skirt, but I didn’t have enough fabric. I spent a long time debating and decided on a basic full skirt because of the shoulder tie. I wanted the focus to stay on the shoulder so I left the skirt plain. The fabric color is ivory of off-white, which I love. I don’t like the color white too much because it’s too plain and simple for me. I think this dress would be perfect for a summer romantic destination dress or a bridesmaid dress. This dress is posted on my etsy shop (Xweets)!

Today, I think will be an unproductive day. The weather is too nice and I think I’ll spend some time sunbathing.

Wrap Dress

I am super excited to show off the sweetheart wrap dress I made yesterday night. Ever since I started on my Thai inspired clothing items, I’ve been wanting to make a wrap dress, similar to the traditional Thai wrap skirt. I didn’t want it to make it exactly like the Thai wrap skirt because then it’ll be too simple and there’s no point. My passion and goal is to modernize anything Hmong, not make exact copies. I loved vintage clothing items as well so I came up with this design a while ago (only in my mind because I can’t draw). The dress has been itching to get out of my mind and into reality, but I just couldn’t find the perfect fabric. Brocades would be great for the dress, but it’d be too bright and flashy; Thai fabrics would be perfect, but it’s too precious and expensive to use it as a sample piece. With nothing to do, I decided to work on the dress and just grab whatever fabric I have. I used this leopard print knit fabric, which turned out great because it hugs the body and gives stretch to wherever it needs. It’s not a true wrap dress, because the “wrap” cannot be undone like the original wrap dress or skirt. It has the overlap in the front, but it’s sewn attached to the top on the waist. The real test now, is to make it with non-stretch fabric. The hunt for the perfect fabric for this dress starts this weekend!

I’m also thinking how I can incorporate Hmong fabrics into this dress as well…

OH! a friend of mine is making bridesmaid dresses… I’m thinking this would be perfect for a summery bridesmaid dress, or a beach wedding dress… I’m thinking too much! need to relax and look for fabrics. The excitement could be that I just finish drinking a cup of coffee. :D

04.02.12

It was a pretty unproductive this past Friday and Saturday. I just wanted to lie down and watch TV all day. On Sunday, I decided to sew and whipped out a jacket and a full skirt. I was a little disappointed because it took me longer than I anticipated. I tore down my living room and bedroom looking for trims for the jacket. I couldn’t find anything to match with the fuchsia brocade so I settled with black and gold.