Piano Recital Dress

Recently my girl had a piano recital at the Esplanade Library.  She was super excited and asked me to make her a dress.

The pattern is from this Japanese sewing book called "Recital dress for Girls".

She wanted an exact same dress in dark navy blue.  So I bought a dark blue stretch gabardine and a lining from Spotlight.  Can't remember what's the lining called but it was tagged as Japanese lining which is quite expensive but the drape was excellent and felt so smooth and cool against my skin.

Here's my take of the dress. I followed quite closely to the instruction  and cutting layout which is very useful. I adjusted the strap by 4" because it was quite long.  I love the wide swingy skirt.

It was hard to photograph the dark colour dress so I have over exposed the photo to show the dress here. The previous photo is more of the true colour. The dress fits here very well and even my family didn't realised that I made the dress.

One of my favourite part of the dress is the big ribbon bow at the back.  The construction of the bow is very special. It is constructed with 5 pieces - 2 bow pieces, 2 ribbon pieces and 1 bow loop. The bow is then threaded through the self-made belt.

The big bow really enhanced the dress. I think it is especially important to have a big bow behind the dress as that's what people will see when you are playing on the piano.  But because the bow is quite big and heavy, it drag on the belt and make it sag a bit.

And because the dress is quite heavy with the lining, I sew on 2 ribbons just below the arm hole side seams to reduce the stress on the strap when I hang the dress.

It was a good experience and I really enjoyed the learning journey of sewing a formal dress.  If you are interested to sew one, you can find the book at Kinokuniya under the Japanese book section.

Sailboat Ruffle Dress

This is one of my favourite dress that I've made for my girl.  One of the reasons is of course the use of my favourite Out to Sea fabric by Sarah Jane.

I used a pattern from this Japanese Book.

The pattern is without lining but I added lining because the fabric is a bit sheer.  And the lining really make the dress full and fluffy because of the gathers.


I fussy cut the front yoke with the sailboat on the left shoulder and make sure the sailboats are on the hem of the skirt.  I love the sailboat on the yoke and the seawater makes it looks really special.

Here's the back view of the dress.  I also fussy cut the cloud to be on the back yoke portion but it is not so clear in the photo.

The ruffle is also very pretty and add just the right girly factor to the dress.

Alas, I've only bought 1.5 yard and I was greedy to try to squeeze a dress and a skirt so the back and front is not match nicely : (

But it is still a cute dress and I'm so happy the way it turns out.  I'm so happy that I will photo bomb my girl in her dress..hehehe... I'm a proud mama!

EDIT TO ADD: March 30/14
I’m linking up to this Link Party.

Japanese Book Review - Wearable Dresses

I have a new favorite book.  It's a Japanese sewing book that loosely translated as "Handmade dresses that you love to wear". It's from Boutique Sha. It's a new book so I don't think it is available in English yet. I bought it from Kinokuniya.

I've already bookmarked some of the patterns in the book. Here are some of my favourites.

This dress is very easy with only 2 pattern pieces - front and back. Should be easy but afraid that it will be too baggy?

Colour block dress

 This one looks so comfy. But the shape may not be suitable for me?

knit dress

 Smock dress with ties.

smock dress

And, this is my favorite. It's a wrap dress. Looks so sweet and pretty.  I've already cut out the fabric for this one using some very light weight cotton have on hand. It's a bit sheer so I'll wear a slip under it. Can't wait to sew it up.

I love this one that is a front button dress that double up as a light jacket.

This one is shorter with buttons on the bodice and gathered skirt.

Another of my favorite. Peplum style dress. It looks like 2 piece but in actual fact, it is a dress with elastic waist.

Dress no. 27 is using the same pattern piece as no. 25 above. So, if you cut out this pattern pieces, you can make 2 dresses!  Instead of a peplum, you make a ruffle at the skirt hem and a self-fabric ties.  I've also cut out the fabric for this one so let's see how it goes.

Most of the patterns for the 27 dresses are using common pieces so you can make different style with the same pieces, save time in cutting the pieces! But like all japanese pattern book, you need to trace carefully over the different color codes. This one has few pattern pieces so the lines don't overlapped as much.

I like that the style of this book is very wearable and not too boxy like most japanese sewing pattern book.  So, hopefully I will be able to sew them up over the next few weekends and post them on the blog.