Change(s) of my life

I have not been active on this blog or malmokkobags Facebook for a while. Not because I got exhausted, but because there were a lot of changes in my life.


1) My husband got his first job after graduation.

 He finally said good-bye to school life and started working as IT engineer.


2) I got a new job.

 I finally decided to slow down my career and changed my job. Bye bye to publishing and hello to the new world; secretary at a medical research institute.
 Many of my friends still wonder if I could be satisfied with the new job---they think I am too "control freaky" to be a secretary. I have worked here for over 5 weeks and I still like the job. I don't have to work 10 hours every day, have enough energy to cook dinner and prepare lunch box ( I never cooked when I worked as editor).  Even now I cannot believe that I may leave my office precisely at 17:45 pm!


3) I join sewing class

 One evening my husband took me to a local sushi bar near our apartment. It's a very small sushi bar and has only counter seats. A couple was next to us and we began talking together about our cat and job and it turned out that she is a professional dress maker. I asked her if she has sewing class. She did not, but she offered me a private lesson. I learn how to sew at her place twice a month. She teaches from how to choose fabric, adjust a pattern to our actual body size etc.


4) Rotteline became 1 year old.

 Our cat Rotteline became 1 year old in May. We will have a birthday party for her :)

Zipper panel on tote bags tutorial

As I live in Tokyo and take subways and trains to my office, I think all of my bags should have zippers. Even tote bags. But attaching zippers to tote bags can be difficult. At least for me, before I dicided to do this method it was difficult.

Here's a tutorial about how to attach zippers on tote bags. I think this is the easiest.(And sorry for my dirty iron board...)

1. Make a tote bag as usual. To have or not to have lining does not matter in this method.

2. Cut two pieces of fabric for zipper panel. They should be a bit shorter than the top of your tote bag, and the same width of your tote bag's deep. My bag's top measurement was 21.6 inches (55 cm) and depth was 5.9 inches (15 cm), so I had two pieces of 53 cm X 15 cm.

3.Fold the fabric half, then 0.4 inches (1 cm) each side (seam allowance). Press them neatly.
















4.Place a zipper in the middle of two pieces of fabric, as if the fabric "sandwitch" the zipper. It should look like this.

 5. Pin the fabric to zipper.
















6. Sew the fabric and zipper. First shorter side, then longer side. Remember to "sand-witch" the zipper with the fabric.





























7. This is how it looks after I have sewn two fabric pieces to a zipper.














8. Attach the zipper panel to a tote bag. Just bring a already-made-tote, and pin the zipper panel to the opening of the bag. Sew around the zipper panel.

Dada!

It is so easy and I think every person who can sew can do it. As this is my first tutorial, there must be a lot of unclear parts. Feel free to ask me anything, if you have questions!

March Revenue---Really bad...Plus 30% off sale.

I know that all business have ups and downs. I also started 0 sale for a month, then gradually my items have been picked up. In February 2014, I got over 600 USD revenue and I was quite happy.

But look at this...my revenue in March 2014 on Etsy shop.

I only got 4 orders ( and 4 sales), which was only 116 USD revenue!
Though I got 3 more sales on my shop at Iichi, the total revenue was far behind to February's.

The problem is not that I did not get so much revenue, but I did not sell so many bags, even though I got more views and favorites. I wonder why and am pretty discouraged right now.

But OK, I cannot cry all the time. I am going out now for fabric hunting at my local fabric shops and try to find pretty fabrics, so that I can list more items ;)

Oh, one more tihng.
April 3rd is my birthday and I would like to celebrate with as many people as I can. It means, all of my items at Etsy shop are 30% discount until 3rd April. Use coupon code "BIRTHDAY" when you check out :)

Marimekko projects

My mother in law knows that I sew and knit and have an Etsy shop. Actually, she is one of the best customer for me :)

She gave me som fabric from Marimekko as Christmas present last year. I was so happy. I always think Marimekko fabric is so pretty, but simply, I cannot afford to. 6300 JPY (about 63 US dollars) per meter is just too expensive for me.

What I got is three kind of fabric. Unikko, Keisarinna and bird pettern fabric (I don't know the name). I made a pensil skirt and tote bag with Unikko fabric. Well, I will change my job in April, so, they are gifts for me from me.

At first I wondered if the fabric could be used for cloths, but it turned out to be pretty good. The pattern is from Burda. I shortened the length, as Burda's normal size is 168 cm tall women (I am 162 cm tall ).

And the tote bag is designed by me. I like tote bags with outer pocket (s). I put the pocket on the slightly right side of the bag so that the pocket does not spoil Unikko pattern so much. This tote has zipper panel, as I will use this bag as work bag, which means I will bring it in very crowded trains and metro.

I found a really easy way to attach a zipper panel on tote bags. I will post a tutorial in the future :)

Semi Custom order Eco bag

I got semi-custom order made through my shop at Iichi (Japanese website). She wants this bag of smaller version and with snaps, so that she can fold the bag.

In Japan, it seems that every one has an eco bag (reusable shopping bag) in a bag. I also have one that I made from Shibori fabric and it's really useful. But I have never though about snaps.

She kindly sent me a picture of the bag with snaps so that I could "copy" it. Well, the size of each bag was completely different, so I got thinking.....


I tried with a ribbon and a sewing pin where I should have attached the ribbon. I decided that the best method was to attach it at the bottom of the bag, horizontally (See photo).







Then, fold the bag to 1/3 horizontally...                    

And fold to 1/4 vertically, then snaps.
Tadaa-!  35cm X 35 cm eco bag becomes this small (approx. 10 cm X 7 cm) !!

It's a very good idea actually. I think I can make some more eco bags with a snap ribbon!

Crazy quilting with Japanese vintage silk

It's been so slow at my Etsy shop in March, and I have much time to do something else. Plus I have a lot of scrap from fabric I used for bags. That leads me to .... Crazy quilting :)

Why crazy quilting? Because I have been a big fan of "Anne" series written by L. M. Montgomery and I know she did crazy quilt (though she found out it was not so pretty anyway). I have never experienced crazy quilting, but anyway, I tried.

I used Japanese vintage silk for my first crazy quilting. It's pretty difficult to assemble beautifully. It didn't turn out to be what I had expected. Besides, I still have to do some embroidery.

Maybe I can use this for something like pot holder...?

Japanese craft book (1) Flower Embroidery

I have been attracted by embroidery recently. (That's why I listed my constellation clutch.)  I'd love to learn some more techniques and bought a how-to book written by Ayako OTSUKA, a famous Japanese craftsman.

Flower Embroidery by Ayako OTSUKA

This is the book I bought ; Flower Embroidery by Ayako OTSUKA.
I bought this book because I wanted to learn how to make the flower petals on the cover. I found out she uses the method "raised fishbone stitch". She uses a sewing pin to make it easier and it's like enlightenment. I cannot show how she does it due to copyrights, but I found an online tutorial of raised fishbone stitch (they don't use a sewing pin, though). Here's the site.

This book has 38 different flower patterns. She uses very basic techniques like outline stitch, back stitch and french knot etc and still makes very beautiful embroidered flowers. It is written in Japanese, but if you have experienced embroidery, you will be able to understand it easily (I think).

It costs only 11 US dollars and really worth it. Recommended!