Tag Archives: cotton

14 06 2020

Embroidered Face Masks

Hello, I am still alive. I hope you are doing okay too. I have mainly been busy doing translation work and games testing, and also made my first desktop PC, but I have done some crafting too.

I have designed a set of face masks for my friend who wanted a set of two, each of them embroidered with my frequently used sentences, ‘Are you okay?’ and ‘I will be fine.’ She wanted them to be large, in pleated style(not in shaped style), pale coloured, and didn’t want the elastics to be too tight. I had a look through my fabrics and chose light weight lemon colour cotton and pastel orange cotton because I thought those colours are not associated with the medical envoriment. I chose fluorescent pink for the embroidered text so it stands out and completes the citrus/candy colour combination.

I’ve done some research on the internet and tried out with pieces of paper and came out with the sizing of 21cm acrross, 16cm top to bottom, which is probably one of the largest you’ll find. I noticed some masks have a pocket to insert a filter so I thought I’d add that too. I used two layers of the front side fabric so the inside fabric doesn’t show through and used three layers of double layer gauze for the inside so the back side of the embroidery won’t show from either side. So, it’s eight layers in total like this:

embroidered text on top

2 layers of front side fabric

1 layer of double layer gauze

back side of embroidery (It must not be seen. Hide this!)

1 layer of double layer gauze

pocket opening

1 layer of double layer gauze

The result is soft and fluffy… The top and bottom seams are turned to the back side, stitched down, and pressed, so the gauze fabric won’t peak from the front side. The sides are bound with separate fabric (pastel orange) to create a loop for the elastics with no visible stitches on the front side of the masks. The design and those processes use more material and make the whole production time much longer, but it’s worth it. And I know that some people will notice the difference.

I’ve also made a few in navy for some people who prefer, or I thought might prefer, darker colour. I still haven’t made one for myself but maybe I will when I run out of my disposable ones that I had already as a typical Japanese. Stay safe and take care!

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31 07 2019

Button Front Skirt

Sometimes, it’s fun to be inspired by the fabric to make something instead of buying fabrics for specific projects. I went fabric shopping the other day and found this lovely cotton linen fabric in the sale section by chance. It has large irregular dots in navy and flying birds in silver on a teal base. I later learnt that the fabric was designed by cocca, a Japanese textile label, and had to admit that I’m undeniably Japanese after all.

I had only bought a meter since it was still not the cheapest fabric so the design had some limitations. I couldn’t incorporate pleats or deep scoop pockets as I wanted and had to go with gathers and in-seam pockets but I’m happy with the result. I suppose it was better in the end since the pattern would be less broken up this way. While making, I realised that I have to take into consideration how the patterns would be placed when working with bold prints. Large dots clashing at the seams would be undesirable in this case. I’ve used mirrored plastic buttons that I had at home as I thought the shape and colour would match the print.

I don’t wear bold prints much and I’m not too keen on having animal motifs on my clothes but I fell in love with the colour combination and the hand drawn design. Somebody else chose the Mina Perhonen for Tokyo Skytree T-shirt for me when I was back in Japan. Of course, I had to pair the very few clothing items with animals on them.

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