DIY Kimono using New Look 6217

“There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under the heavens:”

Ecclesiastes 3:1 (NIV)

Hello Lovelies!

I pray that everyone is safe and healthy. That seems to be the recurring message that i’ve been hearing just about everywhere that I go these days. The truth of the matter is that we are all handling quarantine life in our own unique ways. I’m a bit of an introvert myself and I actually enjoy being in my home, but even still I’ve had to make some adjustments to my schedule now that my kids are home with me during the day. It took me a couple of weeks to adjust to our current season, but, thankfully I finally settled into this quarantine life.

This week’s blog post is short and sweet. I didn’t think I was going to photograph this make. but I woke up this morning and the weather was a glorious 70 degrees today in Wisconsin and I couldn’t resist the temptation to play with my new camera. The camera was my Christmas gift to myself. I have been wanting to step up my blogging game with better quality photos and I researched all of the camera options out there. I knew I wanted a DSLR camera but didn’t really have the $400+ budget for the super fancy cameras that a lot of bloggers recommend. Instead I chose the Cannon Power shot SX530 HS it was half the price of the Cannon DSLR 6 but still had the kind of picture quality that I was looking for. I think its a higher quality point and shoot camera, that has includes some of the fancy features of the more expensive cameras. All of the reviews said that this was a nice entry level camera. Sometimes you have to give yourself room to upgrade.

So here is my kimono using New Look 6217. I’ve had this pattern and fabric in my stash for quite some time. My main inspiration for this make was about pushing myself to sew with more challenging fabrics. You know fabrics like silk, charmeuse, chiffon, etc. I liked the idea of a kimono as the silhouette was easy leaving me room to focus on properly handling the fabric. It was not hard at all. Especially using my industrial machine. I’ve been sewing with a Juki straight stitch machine since about 2015. I love! love! love! my sewing machine. She is my ride or die and outside of needing a serger for finishing and my home sewing machine for buttonholes and hemming my knit projects. She is all I need.

The pattern is straight forward to use and I chose to add a little extra flare by sewing a fringe trim at both the bottom and sleeve hem. The other thing that I did was to ditch the pattern facing in favor of creating a band to finish the front neckline using a silky black polyester fabric that I purchased from Joann fabric.

Initially, I didn’t think that this kimono was my style, but a quick trip to my closet and I had coordinated a couple of looks for both day and even a cute night look. You know for when we can go back to living a normal life. lol! The colors of the kimono even inspired me to create a make-up palette for the shoot.

This week’s photo shoot is courtesy of my beautiful daughter Princess Asabea. She turned 15 this year ya’ll. She is such a quiet and powerful force that God used me to birth into the universe. I’m grateful for her. She has so much patience for me ( I can be bossy at times).