Bamboo shoot

18/11/2011 2:31 am \ 47 Comments \

…that is the name of this top; my latest foray into Pattern Magic, by Tomoko Nakamichi.
The folds/tucks on the front of the design are like the new shoots on bamboo, spraying out to each side in graduated offset arcs.
I chose to make this design into a little top with short cap sleeves, a buttoned up back, and a wide loose waist band; necessarily a shortish top because of the constraints of my fabric.  Yup, I was using up scraps, as per usual!  From this linen shirt I made for Craig… (I know it may seem like most of my clothes are made from scraps, and I have to admit a fair whack of them are!  The thing is, I loathe waste with a passion…  and have been known to hoard scraps for years…. hehe.  Some day I will have to round up in one post the projects I have made, purely from scraps)  
Anyhoo;
I like this style of blouse, it brings back strong memories to me of the blouses we used to wear in our winter school uniform, over our plaid wool skirts.  Except our school blouses had a collar and were buttoned up at the front, naturally.  This top is quite loose, so I can leave all the buttons done up except the top one and slip it over my head.  This means only the top button needs doing up behind my neck, which is good, since I discovered that doing up that middle button requires a solid command of yoga…  And about that; I’m thinking it is about time some new moves were introduced into the Yoga repertoire along with saluting the sun, and the down dog and all that; may I suggest “lady doing up her back buttons/zip”?  I think that would be a pretty useful new move, yes?
The  neckline is faced, the side and shoulder seams are flat-felled, and the armhole seam allowances are finished with HongKong seaming.  The buttons are the little shell buttons that I bought in Tokyo, whilst out shopping with Yoshimi, Novita and my daughter Cassie, so I felt it was quite right that I use Japanese buttons for a Japanese designed garment.  Fitting, yes?  The buttonholes on the button band are vertically aligned, whilst the buttonholes on the waist band are horizontally aligned, this is a little feature that I recalled from my old school blouses, and wanted to have it in this blouse too.
The darts/folds were a little tricky.  In the photograph in the book, it doesn’t look as if there is any stitching yet, but just folded in place.  When I first stitched mine in place they didn’t look nearly as nice… so I unpicked and re-stitched and pressed them one by one, slightly inside their seam allowance,  so the stitching is hidden just inside the fold, about 3mm.  This seemed to do the trick, and looks more like the picture in the book.

Details:
Top; based on the “bamboo shoot” design in Pattern Magic, by Tomoko Nakamichi, finished blouse of my own design, white linen
Skirt; skirt “m” from Unique Clothes Any Way You Like, by Natsuno Hiraiwa, pink linen/cotton, details here
Shoes; Bronx, from Zomp shoes

So, with regard to the Pattern Magic series, I have some further comments it might be worth noting here for others wishing to make use of these excellent and very innovative design books… I have made up a few designs from all three books now and in my opinion the third book has by far the easiest projects; being both very easy to fit (they’re all stretch-knit, and really, who can’t fudge fit a stretch?) and also that they are all in the form of complete and finished garments.
A lot of the designs in the first book are in the form of design concepts, a fabric manipulation “idea” that one can take and build on; apply to some nebulous garment, the exact form of which is entirely up to the individual.  I like this flexibility, but it does take extra thought and some dressmaking experience to self-draft those little extras that are needed to get yourself a finished and wearable item.  For example, take the sleeves on my new top here… the Pattern Magic book does have dimensions for a sleeve sloper to get you started.  I discovered in my very early experiments in this book that the sleeve needed tonnes of adjusting to make it work for me.  Eventually abandoned the given sloper and made my own (the one I used here) based on the measurements of my bodice sloper and partly on sleeves in patterns I already had.  I found that the one in the book had a very shallow sleeve cap, that was like a straitjacket on my ginormously hefty arms … Actually I’m joking there.  I’m not hefty by Australian standards at all, but when I am working with Japanese patterns I often feel a bit, er, well huge… by comparison.  Let me put it this way, when I am tracing the designs from Unique Clothes Any Way You Like, by Natsuno Hiraiwa, I use the largest size, whereas in Vogue patterns I am a 10, and even then I always take in several centimetres off the waist.
Don’t get me wrong, this is not a complaint about the books!  I love these Japanese pattern books with a passion, they are completely without parallel in the pattern world and I just wish more of our “ordinary” patterns would take note and branch out a bit.  Get out of that rut.  Just thought I would say more about my experiences here in the hope it helps anyone else wishing to make something out of these excellent books.

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Old things…

17/11/2011 8:13 am \ 18 Comments \

… this will be the very last of my “old things” posts.  I promise.
I’ve done a mammoth sort-through of the photos and I think this is it!  (heaves a sigh of relief…)

Firstly, since this is the only garment in this post still in our possession (apart from the Grim Reaper come burqa outfit, that is); a cardigan I knitted for Craig.  It is knitted in the fair isle method.  Above is a picture Craig took of me wearing his cardigan on a holiday last year (isn’t he sweet, giving his cold inadequately-dressed wife his nicely pre-warmed cardigan to wear, hmmm?  What a gentleman!)
And some close-ups of the cardigan I took today…
showing the right front, and at right the wrong side of the fair isle knitting… (as is correct, the yarn is carried over at the back with no weaving in, only if the distance is four stitches or less…)

Now, some costumes…
Sam as “Link”.  I thought he was so cute in this.  He loved this little outfit and often wore it just for everyday wear.  (if you would like to see what this cute little jigger looks like now, go here…)

Sam, as… guess who?  Hehe, the famous Harry Potter, natch, compete with broomstick and Hedwig the owl.  
On that note, a black cloak is such a useful thing to have in the dress-up box.  It can be the basis for so many costumes.

Here is the same robe again, worn by Cassie as Hermione, complete with Garfield Crookshanks the cat… I threw together the skirt and tie as well, but they do not bear close inspection…!)

(I’ve shown this picture before… but here it is again just to illustrate the versatility of the plain black robe as a costume), Tim and two of his mates as Grim Reapers.  I made all three of their costumes.

Tim’s same costume again, this time worn by me to an Arabian Nights party.  I didn’t want to hire an outfit and I didn’t want to make some bejewelled thing I would never wear again, and as every single female I have seen in the Arabian region is dressed something like this, so I was like, yeah this’ll do.  I naively assumed other girls would have the same idea…  As it turned out I was literally the only female dressed (I thought) anywhere near authentically!  Also the only one not heavily sequinned and baring plenty of belly-flesh…  I confess the costume was abandoned when we decided to start dancing!  Don’t worry I had a skirt and top on underneath…

So, away from costumes now, and a ball-gown of my own design that I made for balls in years gone by (Sorry for the headless shot but my face and my hair look awful in this picture…!)  It is silk organza, overlaying silk and silk jersey layers, three layers in all.  It had a beaded and embroidered neckpiece, both beaded and embroidered by me, that is…

A dress I made for Cassie for her graduation dance at the end of primary school.  It was a simple turquoise cotton halter neck dress, the fabric had metallic gold lines randomly strewn across.  I also made her jewellery, of turquoise glass fish beads and strands of gold wire.

Some rather lovely (if I say so myself) wide-legged white pants that she wore almost constantly for a summer, and a little white broderie anglaise blouse.  Both my own design.

Going way back, and this shirt is from a Vogue designer pattern that I believe my mother still has my copy…  I know I also made and am wearing here the small-waisted and very flared skirt from the same pattern too…

I made both the skirt and top and also my necklace here.  The top was an experiment, I flipped the shoulders out in a twist to get this cowl-like effect.  It used to get a lot of compliments, believe it or not! (my friends are very kind)  We are sitting on one of our sofas in its first slipcover, made by me too…  (now looks like this)

Some more dresses.  I really regret now I never got any good pictures of these two.  The white and red one was rather nice; it was a dress, but looked like a matching skirt and camisole when I was wearing it, as it had layers in several graduated lengths.  My own design.  The patchwork dress, also my own design, took lots of planning; I bought the fabrics separately and cut and pieced them together, then made the dress.  It has smaller squares at the top, graduating to larger squares around the midriff, and then down to the largest squares at the hemline.  It is all on the bias, with a handkerchief hem, and I loved it!

A drop waisted, handkerchief hemmed dress of white dotted swiss voile, pictured against a famous backdrop.  I still have this Vogue pattern too, actually…

And that should be all folks!
From now on, I will only be showing newly made stuff here….

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Khaki skinny jeans; 6 different ways

15/11/2011 5:39 am \ 27 Comments \

It’s hilarious to me now how when I had first set out to make these jeans I was slightly skeptical whether I would wear them much…  they have so become the backbone to so many outfits!  I think I was nervous about the skinniness of them; and whether I could even carry this look off.   But I came around!  I’ve worn them countless ways already on this blog… (I’ve just counted, they have appeared twelve times hehehe  :D, but trust me I’ve worn them stacks more!)  The firm but stretchy nature of the fabric make them comfortable and easy to wear, the very simple shape and the drab unobtrusiveness of the neutral colour mean they never steal the show, but just set off so much of what I’ve got, beautifully.  They have been incredibly useful in my wardrobe.
So for today I had a bit of a play at mixing them up a few more times…

Admittedly, during the winter I have worn them almost exclusively with my biker boots.  I really like the solidness of the boots visually counteracting the skinniness of the jeans above.  At left; air force blue along with the khaki, and my crochet scarf; at right, looking a bit more classic when worn with my Chanel-style jacket

The jeans are skinny enough to pass for tights when worn underneath my (current) favourite dress; at right and looking a bit smarter; for a splash of colour I’ve always loved the slightly military colour combination of red and khaki together.

At left; if I was heading out to a summery soiree the jeans set off an unusually styled little top and jewelled sandals; and more casually at right; I really like the simple contrast here, the sorta “modern-ness” of the plain jeans when worn with a romantically embroidered floaty ivory top.

Which outfit am I wearing today? well the weather is now delightfully warm and today might be their last gasp before the really hot weather hits, and I am wearing the last casual summery outfit with the ivory top.
Which look here do you like the best?

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Knot buttons; a tutorial

14/11/2011 6:30 am \ 20 Comments \

I made knotted buttons of self fabric for my Kelly-green cardi; and Gail asked for a how-to… well I had taken a few photos while I was making them but had sorta decided against posting a lengthy series of pictures in that post because I thought people might find it not interesting; so thank you Gail, for asking!
I saw this knot in a Vogue pattern (1107) and even though the Vogue instruction sheet has a nice computer-drawn set of diagrams, a lot cleaner and neater than my efforts here; I have re-drawn them because I’m not sure whether for me to photograph even one step from the Vogue pattern instruction sheet and put it here is trampling copyright (does anyone know??)  But just in case I am not going to even go there….!!  But I can’t see how a knot is “owned” by anyone so I did my own drawings and instructions and I hope they are clear enough.  It is not a particularly difficult knot.
Firstly I made two long spaghetti tubes of the fabric.  You make these by folding a 2.5cm (1″) x (roughly) 25cm (10″) long rectangle right sides together and sewing along one long edge in a narrow 6mm (1/4″) seam, cutting the two machine threads to be nice and long long long.  Trim the seam allowances of the tube and thread those long tail threads into a needle; and feed back through the tube to turn right side out (with the blunt end of the needle leading, for obvious reasons!)  to make a long narrow cord for knotting.

Now for the knot…
(Note: in each step; the new instruction is in bright green, with the previously executed steps in grey.)
Firstly hold the cord with your left hand with a short tail and loop the end over itself and to the right…

Then loop the long end back over the first loop again and under the first junction…

Thirdly; take that long end and weave it through the four loops of cord created in the first two steps; first over, then under, then over, and finally under and out…

Gradually tease closed and tighten the loops of the knot together to be a nice, firmly and evenly arranged knot.

One at a time, cut the ends, turn under and slipstitch the ends neatly and invisibly on the underneath of the knot.

Voila! C’est fini!

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A sleeveless top, con latte

12/11/2011 2:19 pm \ 46 Comments \

I’ve made a new top!
This is the little top from Vogue 1248, made of a light cotton voile the colour of pale milky coffee, and with miniature metallic silver polka-dots dotted sweetly all over like a starry starry sky…
the most interesting feature of this top is that it has a triple collar.  This, I love.  How cool and easy is this idea? so simple and so cute and yet you don’t see multiple collars very often, if at all.  When I was planning the top, I thought how wonderful it would be to make the collars in different colours to really show off this feature but couldn’t find matching weight fabrics in colours I liked, and I vetoed as being too wasteful the idea of dyeing tiny little collar-sized pieces of fabric.  So in the end I took the easy route of just using all one fabric.  Next time… and yup, I am already plotting a next time, mwahaha (watch this space!)
The top also has snap-opening plackets both front and back, and I chose silver snaps to match the tiny silver dots on the fabric.
I’m not thrilled with the snaps… because my fabric is very very light and just may be too fragile for snaps, yikes!  Undoing the snaps I am veeery carefully and slowly prising them apart, absolutely terrified of ripping the fabric.  But this is completely my fault for not putting in heavy-duty enough interfacing to stabilise the plackets enough, something to bear in mind.
Another unusual feature about this little top; the two fronts and the two backs just go into the collar; with no shoulder joining seams, or any shoulder at all, for that matter!  So really my calling it a sleeveless top is not going far enough; it is more specifically a shoulderless as well as a sleeveless top.  I just went with “sleeveless” because; well, “sleeveless and shoulderless top” up in the blog post title is not super-succinct but is a bit of a mouthful and would have just befuddled and confused and had y’all going, “wha’?? no sleeves and no shoulders, well how can there be any top even left?”…. but yeah, one’s shoulders are bare too.  This will a good feature for summer in a hot hot climate like ours; just as long as one remembers to slather on that suncream before heading out.
Following the “finishing off as well as I can” policy; the princess seams are flat-felled, the side seams are French seams, and the armhole facings are edged with self-fabric HongKong seaming but with the fabric reversed so as to have the silver dots hidden inside.
(left; inside the top and clockwise; HongKong seaming around the facing, flat-felled princess seaming, French side seaming: at right; that interesting triple collar)

Details:
Top; Vogue 1248, pale coffee cotton batiste with tiny silver polka-dots
Skirt; Burdastyle 10/2010, 136, made of black suiting, details and my pattern review here
Shoes; Misano, bought from Labels boutique

Pattern Description:
Top: fitted front and back snap closing
Pattern Sizing:
4-10 in this envelope, I made a straight size 10
Did it look like the photo/drawing on the pattern envelope once you had finished sewing it?
yes
Were the instructions easy to follow?
yes
What did you particularly like or dislike about the pattern?
I totally adore the triple collar feature!!  Sooo cute!  Will be doing this one again for sure, and using different coloured fabrics to highlight the three collars next time…
The length is a nice one which allows the top to look equally good out loose as well as tucked in.
Fabric Used:
very lightweight cotton batiste
Pattern alterations or any design changes you made:
I didn’t make any pattern alterations, but I did flat-felled seams on the princess seams, French seams at the side seams, and applied self-fabric HongKong seaming on the armhole facing edges.
Would you sew it again? Would you recommend it to others?
Yes, I am already planning my next version in multiple fabrics, to show off that adorable triple-collared feature…!  I do recommend this cute and slightly unusual little top pattern to others too.
Conclusion:
Initially I was a little skeptical about this top pattern, as I tend to shy away from clothes which require special undergarments, but well, logically if you own a halter neck bra then you should wear it at least once in a while, no?  And I do love this cute little top, I think the shape is flattering, feminine and quite unusual.  My husband likes my shoulders on show like this, and I think the high neckline still gives the top a modest flavour and doesn’t make me feel too exposed so it is a win all round!

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Kelly-green cardigan

10/11/2011 7:00 am \ 30 Comments \

Remember how I mentioned fashioning a little cardi out of the leftovers from the ponytail top?  Well, here ’tis!
If I say so myself this was a minor miracle in cutting out; why? Well I originally had bought this Kelly green jersey to make a St Patrick’s Day thingy which was actually cut out but not made up.  It struck me early on in the piece that the finished garment would be tres hideous and could never ever been worn without inviting well-deserved mockery, so it was abandoned before any actual sewing was done.   However, the perfectly-good-for-something-if-only-I could-work-out-what-it-was fabric was too good; a great colour (as long as it was separated from the St Patrick’s Day concept)  and there was too much of it to just ruthlessly toss out.  Luckily the pieces I had cut out were big enough to get the Pattern Magic ponytail top, and there were still some reasonably good sized pieces and scraps left after that, so I played with them.  This is the result of my “play”; at my kind of “Play-Station”, if you will, hehe.  The back of the cardigan is quite short and the two fronts are quite skinny and so give a rather sex-ay decolletage, but y’know what? I like that.  I feel like the unusual shape is happily avant-garde and cool.

Something that may not be immediately apparent on first sight, but which amused me while I was making the cardi is this: the whole cardigan is made of just one fabric, and thread, and that is all.  I used pieces of the same fabric for all the trims, and the buttons and closures are all made of the self-fabric also.  Interesting little factoid, yes?
The closure is with long strips of self-fabric that were laid horizontally and topstitched down on the front of the cardi… as they go off the front edge these are faced with the same fabric (for stability and to lessen stretching through use) to make ribbon ties at the front.  The front opening edges of the cardi were decoratively finished with two separate long strips; the underneath one is a wider straight cut strip, and then with a pinked narrower strip sewn on top.  I’m really happy with the look of this, it is an interesting edge but still a unobtrusive as it is of the same fabric.  The pinked edges remind me of banksia leaves…

The front lower edges are left raw, and the back lower edge of the cardi was finished with a strip like this:  (I did this because the lower back edge is subject to stretching, and so this strip is cut on the grain to stabilise and strengthen this area)

The sleeve tabs were made in the same way as the front opening edge trim and faced with self-fabric facing, and I made knot buttons of the same fabric to decorate…

While making the trims and buttons, I also amused myself by comparing what I was doing to Chanel’s jackets, which famously are often edged with trims made of the self fabric in various incarnations.  So my own secret joke is to think of this as a Chanel-inspired cardi.  Of course there is no quilted lining and the hemline is not weighted and therefore no real resemblance at all to a Chanel jacket…! but well, I did say “inspired” and one has to use one’s imagination here!   Another little fact about Chanel’s earlier work is this: at a time when such fabric was considered only suitable for men’s underwear, her clothing was made of knit jersey … another tenuous little link, no? 
But all the oddly shaped pieces and non-classic silhouette are very un Chanel!

Details:
Cardigan; my own design, Kelly-green cotton jersey
Dress; Simplicity 3745 modified, pink lace and beige border lace, details here (this is my other pink lace dress and not the one from yesterday’s post; embarrassing to admit I have two pink lace dresses but this is my more casual everyday one so that makes it alright, yes?)
Petticoat; Burda 8071, pink silk satin, details here
Shoes; Bronx, from Zomp shoes

(it’s hard to know where to put your arms when you’re trying to show a side view, isn’t it?)
LATER EDIT: I got bored with the colour and dyed it brown… voila!
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In the pink; a cocktail dress

09/11/2011 1:48 am \ 32 Comments \

I came across this old thing when I was cleaning out my wardrobe…

hehehe
Well truthfully, it is a bit of an old thing, but obviously when I made it I put considerable time and effort into it (OK, I hope that that is obvious anyway 😀 ) … plus it is made of the very luxe-est fabrics that were jolly expensive!  I haven’t even worn it for a couple of years and can count on the fingers of one hand the functions we go to per year that are snazzy enough for it anyway!  Also feel like possibly it is a tad too… well… young? for me  :(( so sad to have to say that!  But I am happy to have moved on sartorially to a more sophisticated style now… but of course I am not tossing the dress out on to the Good Sammy’s pile!  Banish that thought!  Cassie might want to wear it one day.  Anyhoo since I haven’t put it up here on the blog yet then here it is having its turn.

(Later edit: I should have mentioned that this was made around 7-8 years ago now…)
Details:
Dress; partly Burda 8071, overdress of my own design, silk taffeta with embroidered and sequinned net overlay, and lined
Sandals; Sachi, bought from some little boutique in Melbourne

So; the nitty gritty…
The base dress was made using Burda 8071, of creamy/pale-pink silk taffeta.  Then an embroidered and sequinned pink net fabric was carefully cut and fitted to be an attached overlay dress. The embroidered and sequinned motifs on the pink net were lined up as to be exactly centred but offset on the front and back of the dress; so, the front has two motifs at the waist, whilst the back has one, and so on.  (I can remember this taking quite a bit of careful measuring) The net dress (being sheer) has French seams and is sandwiched between the dress and its lining at the neckline. (the lining is also Burda 8071, with the same silk taffeta bodice and a polyacetate skirt section).  The heavily and beautifully embroidered and sequinned border was left just as it is to form the lower edge of the overlay dress.
The bodice facing is part of a full dress lining, meaning the dress has three complete layers…  The dress has an invisible zip at the left side seam for closure, and the net overlay dress was hand-stitched inside the zip seam and the dress lining was turned under and slip stitched to the zip tape.  All the seams inside are turned inside the layers and there are no raw or seam edges visible inside the dress.  The hem of the base dress is hand slip-stitched, and the lining is machine stitched.
Once the dress and the overlay dress were finished; motifs from the remainder of the embroidered and sequinned overlay fabric were carefully snipped and hand-stitched together and to finish the front and back  bodice edges.  More of the net fabric was fashioned into sheer sleeves (also with French seams) and hand-stitched to the dress straps.  These themselves were then covered with more embroidered and sequinned motifs that were also arranged on the skinny straps and hand-stitched in place to hide it as much as possible.

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Thoughts on weeding out…

07/11/2011 10:37 am \ 15 Comments \

I did a big clean-out of my wardrobe on the weekend.   
Sounds silly, but cleaning out one’s wardrobe is an occasion accompanied by soul-searching.  We identify so much with our clothes; throwing out old garments is often throwing out memories and little bits of yourself, cathartic but a wee bit gut-wrenching.  I ended up transferring to the Good Sammy’s pile quite a lot; gone are the garments that I am feeling half-hearted about; or that only look OK if worn underneath something to hide a hole; or are shabby and worn; or were half of a set of which the other half has long gone and so is now a wardrobe “orphan”… I now have left only things that I really like and that make me feel great when I am wearing them.  
Sounds good.  At times like this I get all excited that I will end up with an Officially Co-ordinating and Cohesive Wardrobe.  A manageably small number of (well-made, but of course) garments: Co-ordinating, in that they all go together in a planned, but still interesting and visually pleasing colour scheme and Cohesive, in that they have a definite style that is recognisably “me” and that I am comfortable in.  
I know…  (in sing song) day-dreaming!  I did not…  I suspect like a lot of women, my wardrobe and tastes are utterly all over the shop.  I still have a little bit of this and a little bit of that.  Precious little of which is particularly co-ordinating OR cohesive.
Er, doesn’t sound so good…
 So, do I have a schizophrenic wardrobe?  And if so, could it be because I have a schizophrenic approach to my own wardrobe?   I want to be “individual”, but not ridiculous nor outdated.  I would like to look “with-it”, but the thought that I might look identical to everyone else is a stiflingly depressing one… yowza, no wonder my wardrobe is dichotomous!
Or I should look at this positively; it is diverse.  I have a flexible wardrobe.  I do have a smaller number of clothes, but still something for every occasion (mostly)  And (if you have been with me for a while you will have noticed this) my dressmaking policy has been changing over the past year or so… I am concentrating more and more on quality, not quantity.  When I make something it is going to be as well-made as I am capable; even it this means taking twice as long.  I don’t want to settle for imperfect.
So I still have a solid little collection of garments in neutral earthy shades and in a simple relaxed-fit style.  And, today being a windy and overcast day it felt right to throw together for myself this colonial “Out of Africa”-style outfit.  I do feel very “safe” in looks like this, and it also felt comfy and weather appropriate.

 However…. on my weekend trip to the fabric store to get a single reel of cotton I do confess a small length of shocking pink linen has now somehow joined my stash too… oops!  (she said innocently) I can’t imagine how that got in there!  So the summery brights continue to sneak in…
Details:
Shirt; Burda 7767 modified, of olive green linen, details here
Skirt; skirt “d” from Unique Clothes Any Way You Like by Natsuno Hiraiwa, of silver grey crepe, details here, and see this skirt styled in 6 different ways here
Quadruple wrapped skinny belt; had for years
Shoes; Bronx, from Zomp shoes
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