Posts Tagged ‘etsy’

interview with yasuko from dans la lune

Yasuko is a children’s wear designer out of Hong Kong. She makes lovely patterns for girls and boys (sometimes those poor boys get forgotten) and sells them from her etsy shop, Dans La Lune. This is my last interview for the week. KCWC starts on Monday! I hope you learned about some new designers and maybe even got some patterns for next week. Do you have a list yet? Be bold and tell everyone what it is (on flickr or your blog). And I’ll see you here on Monday!

dans la lune

1. When did you start sewing kid’s clothes?
About 10 years ago I got interested in making bags out of Kimono fabrics. Then after my first child was born, I started to sew more baby clothes. I was in London at the time and I could not find anything original for boys that didn’t cost a fortune. That’s why I tried to make them by myself.

2. How did you get into designing patterns?
It’s quite simple: I just thought if I can make my own design of kids clothes, it would be twice the fun. Also I enjoy so much the combination of many kinds of fabric. That’s what I really like.

dans la lune PDF e Pattern - Bermuda Shorts Pants

3. Do you have a specific kind of child in mind when you are working on your designs?
There are lots of cute clothes for girls, but maybe not so much for boys. So I want to try and focus on unisex designs. But I also really enjoy making cute dresses for girls whenever I find a beautiful fabric.

4. How do you think children should dress?
Surely I believe children should wear comfort clothes because they are very active, they need to jump and run around all day long! Then on top of it if we can make the clothes out of our own taste’s fabric, we can enjoy much more putting them to our children.

dans la lune

5. Do you think what you wear influences how you dress your kids or design your patterns?
No hesitation: Yes. For example when I wear my favorite dresses, I imagine if I could have a same dress for a little one.  Then I try to find a really original fabric for children as they can wear anything so well!

6. Do you also sew clothes for yourself?
I used to do it before but not recently.

dans la lune monkey pants

7. What children’s clothes designers do you admire?
I like Agnes b. because her design is very simple yet original. I also love Anna Sui. I saw some girls dresses the other day again, they are so pretty. I am just a big fan of her colour choices.

Thank you Yasuko! Check out her etsy shop for all the patterns show here and more!

little shop update

just a quick note to say there are new bags in the shop! and two bears too.

have a great weekend!

spring shop update

I have stocked my little shop in quite some time, but I’m trying to make it look presentable again. There are four new kiddy messenger bags in some pretty fantastic prints: Heather Ross (who I hear won’t be designing fabric for a while–damn!), Alexander Henry, and the Japanese line Kokka, most of them lined with vintage gingham.  I also made the little bear from that awesome Kokka forest print. His name is Julien and he is the first bear of mine stuffed with 100% wool. I need to look around a bit more for wool stuffing, because damn it’s expensive, but so much nicer to work with than sucky poly fil (anyone have a good wool hook up?).  I’m moving to use only natural materials for the stuff I sell. The bags are now lined with cotton twill, because interfacing is weird and god only knows what it’s made of. I switched to using  cotton thread a while ago, mostly because it just sews so much nicer than polyester thread. And now the stuffing is wool, but I do use foam for my diggers and tugboats and I just don’t know what natural material could give them that same structure.  Anyone have any ideas? I will always use vintage and thrifted fabric even though I’m sure most have some polyester in them, but their coolness factor makes up for that. right?

mobiles and bears and wolves

All the mobile swap partners have been sent out, so if you signed up be sure to check your email (if you didn’t get one look in your spam folder before you freak out and email me, but do email me if you didn’t get a partner).  The swap is just as big as last year, so it should be a lot of fun to watch. And I am just watching this year. There is just too much going on for me to sign up for something else–even if it is my own swap. I will be posting pictures here through the month as people finish their mobiles (and next month I’ll post the procrastinator’s mobiles).

The little bear up there is Adele and she’s for sale in my shop. She’s made from this ridiculously cool fabric a friend gave me and a felted wool sweater. I think she’s my favorite of all the bears I’ve made so far. The post needed a picture and my shop needed some shameless promotion. So there. And speaking of etsy (and shameless promotion) my friend’s shop tenfinger workshop has some pretty fantastic things in it these days. Little valentine guys, a sweet and modern dollhouse, and (my favorite) little red ridinghood. So go check it out!

kiddy messenger bags

I’ve made up a new batch of kiddy messenger bags for my shop, but the one you see above (on my cute little girl) can be yours for free! Cassie at the awesome Crafty Crow is giving it away and you still have time to put your name in the hat.  Just in case you don’t win (I never do) you can hop over to the shop and take your pick.

and remember there are only a couple more days left to sign up for mobile swap 2009!