Alteration Project : Down Jacket

As an apparel designer, being able to sew is blessing and cursing.

It's a blessing to be able to fix and alter any clothes and make it fit my taste, body.

But, it's a cursing when I can just look little longer, harder for right fit and taste, instead, I take less than perfect and spend all the time I have to fix. :(

But in this case, it was a blessing. I was looking for a black down jacket and I found one on sale, even better! except that it was fitting too tight around the hem. everywhere else was fitting perfectly.

so guess what? I bought the jacket knowing I need to fix it..

Here's the picture of the jacket, see how fitted it was when I purchased it.

tooooo tight.. I was barely able to put the zippers together..

so, here comes the alteration.

step 1. mark where you need expansion and pin the layers together on each sides of the seam.

because it's down jacket, if you don't pin the layers together, you will have down flying everywhere..

step 2. Take the binding off the seam.

Step 3. take the seam apart, notice the drawcord on each panels. it's not a problem, you just have to work around the toggle when you sew the seams together.

Step 4. Cut the material you want to piece in, in a pie shape (longer side on fold) + seam allowance (usually 1/2").

Step 5. Sandwich the left side of the opened jacket between the extension piece. butt the seam to the right edge. the folded edge will be on top of the hem.

(right side- the side you want to see when it is finished- of the fabric must face the right side of garment.)

sew the seam 1/2" away from the right edge.

Step 6. Flip the left edge of the extension piece over the right.

Step 6. Open the seam that was pined together on the right. insert the flap (both edges) between the layers (same layer as the down)

* since it was sewn before, it will have seam marked, fold in the allowance of the jacket edge.

Step 7. place the folded edge of the jacket 1/2" away from the left edge of the extension piece that is sandwiched.

Step 8. edge stitch the layers together.

Finished view from inside.

Finished view from outside

Finished jacket on me. notice the difference?

Here's the comparison

This Project was done last year. and this jacket had been my favorite Jacket ever since.

(during winter, of course.. )

So in this case, I'm glad I know how to sew! :)

Baby Shower : Diaper Cake

Baby Shower ! My friend and I were preparing a diaper cake for our dear friend for her baby shower tomorrow. after we bought all the supplies, we heard that her water broke and she will have baby soon.! ..

So, we won't be having baby shower tomorrow, but we'll see her baby soon. 

It was my first time making a diaper cake.. and we took some advise from our dear friend internet. 

The outcome was much better than what we thought it would be!!! so here we go. 

you can see how we made it! :)

This is how much we bought.. obviously, we didn't know how many diapers we needed.. :). 

1. we taped the core from paper towel to the pan to make the anchor. 

 2. Fill the cake pan and fan out the diapers all around.

 I had 2 different size pans so we made first and second layer out of biggest pan. 

this is how it looks like from the top. make it as even, and tight as possible. 

Go around the first layer with ribbon and and stabilize the diapers before you take the ring. 

3. fit the core around the anchor and remove pan.  

3. for the second layer, we had the "swaddle me" folded to the size of the diaper, 

and went around inside of the pan, before filling in with diaper.

 Because we wanted the size difference between bottom two layers, 

we took some diapers out and tighten the ribbon, and the fabric. 

Notice the size difference? 

4. Finish the cake with smallest layer on top. as you can see we started decorating the cake. 

5. After we were done with all three layers, we started filling in the gap on the pan with individually wrapped diapers and other baby goodies. 

6. then bells and whistles! ribbons, toys, blanket, baby powder, comb, baby oil,.. etc..

DONE!

and the protective layer! :) 

As I mentioned above, we bought way more diapers than we needed. 

We used 1 1/2 packs (50) of size 1 diaper. so we had 3 1/2 packs left.