Everytime I go fabric shopping in Japan, I stay on the lookout for one of my favourite brands – Koizumi fabrics. In particular, they have a lot of Scandinavian inspired designs that I love. These fabrics are usually sold in the domestic market only and I can usually buy it only from Rakuten. My last shopping trip was in November last year and I was particularly taken to this design called Flower Bouquet. All the colors were soooo pretty I took a really long time to choose.
This series is actually from Le Depart under Koizumi Lifetex – the same fabric range I made my cube bag with.
As I was busy sewing new clothes for the New Year, I hardly did any sprucing up of the house, so I did the fastest thing I can think off that will instantaneously update the look of the living room. New cushions! I used the yellow fabric from above , matched with a geometric triangle print and a featured piece Koizumi Scandinavian Bird Forest Barkcloth
The yellow fabric is actually listed in Japanese sites as a sharkskin fabric. I don’t know what it really means because searching this term in English yields very different results when searching in Japanese. But take my word that it is nothing to do with sharks, it is actually a type of fabric that is more like canvas, so it’s great for upholstery.
The Bird forest fabric is bark cloth, which is a slightly thick and textured fabric as you can see from the lines in the close up shot below. It is also great for upholstery and cushions!
The triangle print below is a cotton fabric that comes in the following colorways. I chose the green,yellow and light grey fabric because it matches the bird fabric accents perfectly! But my favourite color combination is still the pink/blue/yellow one. I had a very much loved sweater in that exact color combi when I was 13! I still remember it 😛
So I had to make something with it. I needed something to keep my drafting tools and rulers neatly, so I made myself a zip-around case. It’s interfaced with fusible foam (ByAnnie’s Soft and Stable) so it is nice and spongy, like a laptop case. It’s long because I had to fit in the rulers.
For the lining, I used remnants of the yellow Flower bouquet fabric that I used for the cushions. Then I used vinyl for the pockets so that I can see where everything is. On the right are two compartments and I used this really cute Free Style Fastener that I bought from Japan (made by a company called Nippon Chuko) The zip pulls were bought separately and they were made by YKK. Love how everything came together!
