Been feeling down with winter blues, snow, and my tendency of slow learning.
Somehow, I’ve been having some hard time learning/memorizing/deciding things recently. Even learning a new sewing tutorial was quite burdensome and even though I tried, most of the time I ended up in fiasco.
This week, I was about to waste one of the fabric I cherished the most.
I fell in love with this fabric last summer.
The motif is the Japanese woodblock prints of Edo Era (called ukiyo-e). Ukiyo means “actual world” in old Japanese (well, people use this term occasionally in this century also), and “e” means “picture”. It began as series of pictures depicting commoners’ lives in Kyoto at the latter half of 16th century. The pictures became part of Japan’s pop culture during the 18th century due to improvement of woodblock print technology, adoption of familiar motifs such as Kabuki actors, and wide acceptance of easy-reading books among common people. Most of ukiyo-e artists began their career as illustrators of such readings. (Facts excerpted from Web Japan)
In this fabric, the cats vividly express the ordinary lives of the era.
Some hawk fresh fishes (bonitos?),
Others greet and have some conversation,
One is deeply immersed in thought while traveling,
A pair carries their customer by kago (basket to transport people, in this case, another cat!)
I was particularly attracted by this solitary cat that runs from something (Rain? Snow?) with a straw-rain cape.
It is cute, but at the same time, its stooped posture and its quiet-looking expression arouses a melancholic feeling and a desire to protect.
Yet! I made some grave mistakes while cutting to make a summer dress! “Maybe I should stop sewing for a while”, another me within whispered to me, and I was about to do so, ditching the cloth crammed with ukiyo-e cats…until I came across a wonderful refashioning tutorial (how to make a cap sleeve maxi dress in 30 minutes) by Autumn-san@itsalwaysautumn.com. The article was simple yet informative with photographs. It was easy to understand even for me, whose native language is not English.
I picked up Uniqlo’s tight cotton oatmeal tee to go with this fabric. I knew shades of wheat, midnight blue, and dark red on the fabric would mix well with the neutral color of the tee.
As for gathering the skirt, I used a process in dressmaking tutorial book as reference, since I am not experienced.
I quadrisected the top seam of skirt and the bottom seam of the tee and marked each points.
Then I combined the skirt (inside out) and the bottom part of the tee (right side out) according to those points with needles and gathered the skirt.
This way, I was able to shirr the fabric evenly.
What was most helpful of the tutorial was the last part, where she guides to sew elastic band. It was my first try, but the photograph and the explanation were precise.
Later I found many dressmaking tutorials in English were adopting the same way. I have never seen a Japanese tutorial teaching to sew an elastic band directly onto the seam. Every tutorial I’ve read in Japanese advised to pierce the band through yoke(s). Don’t take me wrong, I am not discussing superiority/inferiority. Just a bit of culture shock, so to say.
Speaking about culture shock, I was also surprised that many dressmakers of the West were aggressive in refashioning/upcycling. When you say dressmaking in Japan, the majority will think about making a clothing from scratch. Not many Japanese blogs/websites regarding sewing mention about refashioning ready-made goods.
When I saw rich ideas of creating so-called "knockoffs" presented by creative ladies with sewing machines online, I felt the concept of frugality in fashion is treated differently between Japan and the West. Most of us think "knockoffs" are things to buy at cheaper brands such as Uniqlo/Shimamura, whereas the overseas ladies regard them as something to be adjusted by their own hands. Again, I am not discussing superiority/inferiority of any sort. Having said that, I am becoming to feel refashioning/upcycling fun.
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