in the Nagano region
Hello! We recently spent nearly a month overseas in east Asia, specifically South Korea and Japan. I’ll write a bit more about our trip in a future travel wardrobe post, but for now I’ll just be focusing on the two new things I made to wear for our holiday…
First up! a new mini skirt. I find a little stretchy fabric mini skirt to be an extremely comfortable and practical garment for hiking in a winter environment… which is why I make a new one practically every year, ahem. I’ve actually promised to myself to branch out into different patterns this year but that promise was made after I’d made this, honestly. Because yes, it’s yet another old favourite that pops up here with mind-numbing regularity, the Paprika patterns Jade mini skirt pattern.
I used a bright pink jersey that had been given to me by my friend N when she cleaned out her own stash. I actually already have a pink mini skirt from last year that’s still in very good condition, so I made this new one with a view to dyeing it immediately afterwards. I’d decided upon purple, thus the decision to use a purple zip which I happened to have in my stash too. I’m pretty happy with the very good colour match after the dye-job!
btw, I don’t always put a zip in the Jade but it’s usually a good idea. Also, I always have to substantially change the shape in the fitting stage, bringing in the waist by a good 15cm or so, which necessitated a redrafting of the waistband. Over numerous iterations of this skirt, I have found it a good idea to line/interface the waistband with a non-stretch material for longevity, since otherwise it will eventually stretch out.
looks lumpy here but that’s because of the shaped waistband, which won’t sit flat nicely
I added a cotton pocket inside the skirt, this cut from an old worn out shirt of Sam’s. I’ve found some sort of pocket a useful addition to the skirt pattern previously although I haven’t used this one yet, in spite of wearing the skirt quite a lot already. As it turns out I always wore it with other garments with it that had more convenient pockets so didn’t need it. The Jade pattern is not ideal for pocket addition at all, but I’ve still tried to force one upon it a few times now. I’m confident that it will prove useful in future wears, though.
The other new garment is a T-shirt, made from a blue and white striped jersey also from N. You may recognise it from G’s T-shirt in my previous post. For mine, I used our own Carolyn & Cassie Pinjarra pattern, sizing up because the fabric doesn’t have much stretch. I actually didn’t have much opportunity to take a photo of the T-shirt on our trip because it was rarely warm enough to wear it by itself! plus for some reason taking pictures of my outfits didn’t take a lot of priority in my mind. Is this a good sign? Am I maybe getting more mature?! All pictures featuring the Tshirt are pretty ordinary quality, haha…
Anyway, both these pieces are obviously comfortable and nice to wear, and feel like really good new basics for my wardrobe.
Taking off all those long (long) lengths of bias cut channelling took quite a long time, made even more painful with the memory of how carefully I had stitched them on in the first place to perfectly line up the channels with the lines of checks, as well as switching up threads depending on whether I was stitching on a black row or a cream row, this additionally making it more difficult to see the stitches I was unpicking. I know, I wonder about my own sanity too, sometimes…
Anyway. Iteration Number Two was essentially the same dress sans the elasticated channels. I reused the same shoulder straps to be a halter neckline and allowed the otherwise unaltered dress to hang like so. I actually quite liked it like this and wore it with a little T-shirt underneath a few times.
In the end, Iteration Number Three, the final iteration, was very straightforward to achieve. I settled upon a modified version of a dress from the Japanese pattern book Stylish Dress Book by Yoshiko Tsukiori, specifically dress R. My final version is more narrowed at the top end, and with the yoke also narrowed in width and the neckline substantially more “filled in”. I also left off the sleeves through having absolutely no more of the check fabric anyway, and finished the armscyes with self-made black bias binding. I removed the original inseam pockets – and a big thank you to past me for overlocking all the raw edges separately from each other! – and repositioned them appropriately for the dress’s slightly new form. The yoke is black cotton denim, cut from the leftovers from my wide-leg jeans from last year, and lined with plain black poplin. I did decorative white topstitching just for fun, and added a completely frivolous and not-useful-at-all coin pocket to the front yoke, also for fun. I also reused the “made in 2024” tag that it had from its inception.
please excuse the totally gratuitous Clara pic…
how beautiful is this fabric?! My daughter Cassie designed this very pretty, inviting and perfectly summery scene and of course her proud mother had to buy some. The name of the print is “public pool”, available in 
I finally decided on a little skirt and naturally chose 
I used the very last of my “made in 2024” tags in the little breast pocket. Honestly, the dress was actually cut out in and partially made in 2024. So, 2024 or 2025? It’s kind of a “saddle” project really, spreading itself from last year to this one. I think I can use the tag with a clear conscience. 🙂
I laid the dress pieces on the cross, and the front overlay on the bias, and used some of the leftover bits to cut extensions to the front overlay so the ties are a bit longer, about 10cm or so. I really like them this longer length.
As per our pattern, I flat felled the side seams, which I always think looks really nice. You can see here that I used red thread to sew the dress up; this is because it was in my stash already and I didn’t want to buy new thread. I thought this would be fine, and it is really. I hand-stitched the hem.
A casual passerby would never see any of the bias binding finishes on the inside of the dress, but these give me a lot of joy too. I bias-bound the pocket edges, and the back neckline and armhole edges are bound according to the pattern. Gingham makes the prettiest bias binding! Because of this I actually cut up the entirety of the leftovers and made it into bias binding that I can use on a future project, so please look out for that!
It was hideously windy on the beach this morning which makes the above pictures a realistic portrayal of my day, however it does make everything look a little wild. Thus, a still picture where the dress is not being blasted to bits. Honestly, the things I do…
Firstly, some new trousers. I used a new pattern, the Fibremood Lux trousers. Lately I’m more interested in trousers/jeans etc with a flat front and no pleats… and so the pattern piqued my interest immediately. I also liked the sleek, menswear vibe that the top part gave, even if the patch pockets at the back and the flared legs didn’t quite fit that vibe. Easily sorted!
I cut mine with straighter legs… partly to fit the pattern better on my fabric too! and decided to put single welt pockets on the back in place of the big patch pockets. There are nice slanted front hip pockets as well, and I cut mine a good inch bigger all the way around, to better accomodate my own big flippers…
There’s not really much more to say about the pattern, it’s a kinda basic pattern really; classic and a bit plain but we all need patterns like this in our lives too, hmmm? The belt loops at the centre are stitched in an “M” arrangement, a subtle detail that is different enough to draw the eye without being too much.
The fabric is a deep chocolate; cottony-sort of stuff; I’ve had it in my stash for so long I cannot even remember how or where I got it from, let alone the content of it. It has a very crisp “snappy” hand to it and literally crackles while you walk. It does crush a little, but irons beautifully, and putting in those welt pockets was a dream! It is just slightly water resistant, and dries very quickly, so I think it might be a technical fabric of some kind. Meaning I can wear them hiking if need be … and that need will probably come up next year, at least once!
I also have my knitting project for the month to show… I made a couple more cushions. I know, sorta boring? and a bit crazy too, if that makes sense. But since I’m using otherwise discarded materials and spending nothing, making stuff like this makes me feel virtuous and thrifty and therefore very happy, so it’s all a good thing! I needed a smaller project this month after a couple of months of knitting full jumpers/cardigans. I’m hoping to go back a more substantial project for next month!
The hem of the skirt is the original hem of the jeans shorts, and I unpicked a little to sew the side seams, before resewing the original hem in place. The original topstitching on the jeans shorts was a mixture of navy blue and a kind of dull, mustard-y orange, but all my new topstitching is quite a brighter orange.
It’s a bit daggy, let’s be real, but I guess I’m an 80’s girl at heart really so daggy is set in stone into my DNA. I’ll happily wear it as a knockabout skirt on the weekend and when I just feel like slouching around. It’s fun, very comfy, and I often kinda like that scruffy vibe anyway, hehe.
