Suzuran no-waste kimono jacket pattern review

The Suzuran No-Waste Kimono Jacket pattern: a French-designed, Japanese-style spring kimono, perfect for warm weather. The best part? The unique pattern design uses every bit of a rectangle of fabric with no remaining scraps! A review by www.cucicucicoo.com

The Suzuran No-Waste Kimono Jacket pattern: a French-designed, Japanese-style spring kimono, perfect for warm weather. The best part? The unique pattern design uses every bit of a rectangle of fabric with no remaining scraps! A review by www.cucicucicoo.com

You may have noticed in my Me-Made-May 2015 documentation last week that there was one day that I was dressed considerably more fancy than usual, and that the me-made item had still not been blogged about. It was a special pattern that I had tested for a fellow designer, Julia from Tites Mains, and that pattern has now been released! (With a special discount code! Read on to find out more!) So I present to you the Suzuran No-Waste Kimono Jacket pattern!

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Cecilia Puff Tee free pattern by OUSM

A review of the Cecilia Puff Tee free pattern by Once Upon a Sewing Machine. A sweet and easy t-shirt with puffed shoulders | www.cucicucicoo.com

A couple of weeks ago I had the fun experience of testing Once Upon a Sewing Machine’s new pattern, the Cecilia Puff Tee. A few months ago I sewed OUSM’s Grown Up Thumbs Up shirt/dress, and I loved the pattern so much that I made …

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Grown Up Thumbs Up pattern by OUSM

Grown Up Thumbs Up pattern by OUSM: a jersey shirt or tunic with thumbhole cuffs, long or short sleeves, regular or funnel neck, optional bands for sleeve and bottom hems, and maternity option. A pattern review by www.cucicucicoo.com

Grown Up Thumbs Up pattern by OUSM: a jersey shirt or tunic with thumbhole cuffs, long or short sleeves, regular or funnel neck, optional bands for sleeve and bottom hems, and maternity option. A pattern review by www.cucicucicoo.com

If you follow me on Instagram or Facebook, you might remember this picture. I was so excited while sewing these cuffs with thumbholes, that I couldn’t resist taking a hand-selfie. This amazing bit of sewing origami made no sense at all to me, yet they came out perfectly.

Grown Up Thumbs Up pattern by OUSM: a jersey shirt or tunic with thumbhole cuffs, long or short sleeves, regular or funnel neck, optional bands for sleeve and bottom hems, and maternity option. A pattern review by www.cucicucicoo.com

This awesomeness was part of a pattern I was testing, Once Upon a Sewing Machine’s Grown Up Thumbs Up shirt and tunic. This mother-daughter team had already created this pattern for kids, and was adapting it to fit women.

Grown Up Thumbs Up pattern by OUSM: a jersey shirt or tunic with thumbhole cuffs, long or short sleeves, regular or funnel neck, optional bands for sleeve and bottom hems, and maternity option. A pattern review by www.cucicucicoo.com

And what an amazing job they did! And so many options! Sizes XS to XXL. Shirt or tunic/dress lengths. Short or long sleeves. Regular cuff or cuff with thumbhole. Standard neck or cowl/funnel neck. Optional bands for the sleeves and hem. Maternity option. Wow! And color-blocking is part of the design, making it more fun. So, of course, with all these options, I had to make three of them. Oh yes… I’m a little obsessed!

Grown Up Thumbs Up pattern by OUSM: a jersey shirt or tunic with thumbhole cuffs, long or short sleeves, regular or funnel neck, optional bands for sleeve and bottom hems, and maternity option. A pattern review by www.cucicucicoo.com

Aren’t those thumb holes cool? Love ’em! (Don’t mind the wet sleeves. It was raining!)

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Finger Pocket Fish: a toy fish pattern review

Finger Pocket Fish: a review of the softie toy pattern by Just Bananas over Soft Toys

As much as I love sewing, I really don’t have a ton of experience sewing softie toys, otherwise known as stuffed animals. I sewed a little boy doll a few years back as a remembrance to a miscarried baby and some soft bones for my …

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Big Girl Briefs: sew underwear from t-shirts!

Big Girl Briefs: sewing underwear from t-shirts! Serger Pepper #biggirlbriefs pattern review

I sometimes feel like I talk about underwear a lot! At first I just used underwear to make things, like my stain-covering ruffle shirt and quick lavender sachets. Then I moved on to making underwear from old t-shirts, first with my own size 2T girl …

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Sticker Kid custom name tags – Exclusive discount code!

Sticker Kid etichette personalizzate - Codice sconto esclusivo!

I was recently contacted by Sticker Kid, a Swiss-based company working in countries all over the world, about their personalized custom name tags. They are extremely high quality adhesive stickers available in various formats as well as iron-on labels for clothing. My kids are constantly …

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Hands free asymmetrical bag: a Serger Pepper pattern

Hands free asymmetrical bag: a Serger Pepper pattern

I was really excited to be one of the testers of my friend Irene from Serger Pepper‘s latest pattern, the hands-free asymmetrical bag.* I’ve been using this Colombian mochila for nearly five years and it’s starting to fall apart. Plus the wool strap bothers my …

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Butterfly sleeve flower girl dress: McCall’s M6690

Butterfly sleeve flower girl dress: McCall's M6690

On Monday a good friend of ours got married and we were honored to participate as a family in the civil ceremony. Italian weddings don’t have the same traditional roles for other people to participate in. My husband and I were the Italian version of …

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Serger Pepper’s Basic Leggings: Pattern Review

Serger Pepper's Basic Leggings: Pattern Review

Any of you who know me in real life and have seen me any time since high school will know that I just love tights. The more colorful, the better. I love wearing them under skirts, matching colors and designs or completely mixing them up. …

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What to do with old records: bowls and jewelry

make DIY record bowls

I love that records are coming back into style. Besides the fact that their sound is just so full and amazing and the cover and insert art is often so elaborate (and the larger format makes it much easier to appreciate it), I just love …

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Turn Old T Shirts into Boys’ Underwear

Turn old t shirts into boys' underwear

In Italy young children can start public preschool if they will have turned three by the following May. Which means that some kids start when they are only 2 1/2, like my little Nicky did (toting along with his special backpack, of course). And of …

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Make shorts from bed sheet scraps

Sew shorts from upcycled materials

One of my favorite blogs is MADE. Dana makes beautiful and professional-looking clothes and other things. Her photographs are gorgeous and her tutorials and very detailed and easy to follow. I’ve already written about how to make your own leggings or pants pattern, but when …

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living in 5 with 5 euros per day

no, i’m not talking about myself, but the book by stefania rossini, aka stefy of naturalmente stefy. i had the pleasure of meeting her virtually a couple of months ago and i was immediately drawn to her book, which is about degrowth and how to …

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confessions of a refashionista + t(ie)-shirt cardigan

cardigan from tshirt and tie

alternate title: “good things come to those who wait.” that’s how it went with the book “confessions of a refashionista: life on the zig zag.” i’d wanted to read it since discovering sheri from awesomesauce & asshattery, but she was getting the new edition ready, …

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Ecological Creativity from Elisa Nicoli

questo libro è un abat jour

when elisa nicoli let me know that one of her books could be of interest to me, i immediately went looking for it and found that there are also two other of her books (published by altreconomia) that also look very interesting. she proposed a …

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awesomesauce-y!

about a month ago, when sheri from awesomesauce & asshattery and i were flattering each other’s work, we decided to do a little swap: i’d make her a t-shirt skirt and she’d make me an apron top. good times! not only because of what we …

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Vinegar and baking soda

i’ve been reading recently about ways to clean the house and do lots of other things without using cleaning products from the supermarket, full of chemical ingredients with names i can’t pronounce. my mother has always remedied a blocked sink drain with baking soda, vinegar …

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A bit about ecological craft books

first of all, i’d like to send all my best wishes to all you mammas out there! i know i’m a bit late, but my gift to myself yesterday was to not do anything, so no work, a bit of crafting and a lot of …

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Ecological Internet surfing: Ecosia

i’d never thought about polluting with internet or search engines. then i saw one of my facebook friends had posted a link to ecosia. every search made on this search engine saves about 2 square meters of rainforest. how does it work? i’ll let them …

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