My heart isn’t ready, but my little Sephira just turned 10 this week! I feel like it was yesterday that she was just a baby and then I blinked and she turned into this beautiful, magnificent young lady, right before my eyes! To say that I’m emotional about it would be a gross understatement! She’s the kindest, coolest, most loving, energetic, playful, intelligent 10 year old that’s out there and I’m pretty sure that’s not an exaggeration😌.

I started this blog in 2012 when she was only six months old, making her tons of colorful and crazy handmades along the way. You could say that this blog takes you through the entire journey of her evolution and shows you how she became who she is today.

10-Year-old Sephira’s Favorite Things

• Sketching/Drawing/Illustrating. She goes through an insane amount of sketchbooks (at least 1 a month) and is always drawing on my computer too!

• KPOP, specifically all things SHINee. Her original bias is Minho, but Taemin has also stolen her heart, as have the others! She is very vocal about how she wants me to make all the SHINee outfits (which would be impossible since they’ve been around since 2008!)

• Kawaii fashion aesthetic. She’s already raiding my closet for oversized sweaters but also her little sister’s closet for tight jeans 😂. She’s always game for anything black, striped, or colorful… particularly rainbow. Wonder where she gets it from…🤔😏

• Exercise/gymnastics/outdoorsy stuff. We all love a good hike in this family, but Sephira shares a love of being active more than her sisters. She’ll gladly put down her computer to go jump on the trampoline, play with her sisters, or exercise with me any day.

• Crafting and Moriah Elizabeth. She really is different from the other two (they would stay on a device all day if it never died and I allowed them to😂.) She’s always interested in trying new things and making things herself. She’s got us all looking forward to watching her favorite crafter, Moriah Elizabeth, on YouTube every Friday!

• Family. She is just the sweetest, most loving thing. She is always searching for cuddles because she misses me and prefers hanging out with me, playing board games, and watching Golden Girls rather than playing online with her friends. Sometimes, she’ll just curl up with a book in the corner of my sewing room, just so she’s next to me. She’s truly best friend material.

Almost every day, I look at her in amazement, wondering how I could have been so lucky to have her as a daughter. I’m not trying to be sappy or dramatic! I really do that all of the time. I am just so grateful to have those big blue eyes and adorable little disposition look back at me and call me “Mamma”.

Now! About that outfit…

Planning the Look

Disclaimer: this post contains affiliations for the patterns used.  While I did get the patterns for free, all the opinions are completely my own.

February 8th was the exact date the mood sampler teaser came out for Don’t Call Me and that was the day she picked her birthday outfit. As soon as we saw it, she screamed, I gasped, all of our eyes were as big as dinner plates. It was SO cool, and SO colorful, and Key looked mesmerizing in the all-too-fleeting clip. I couldn’t wait to see the look again! It didn’t happen when the music video came out, but it did come by way of the album photobook and a magnificent live stage performance. Actually, it was the live stage performance outfit that we based her outfit on!

Since it was going to be the middle of summer, we had to plan accordingly. I asked her if she wanted pants or a dress or skirt version. She paused, took a moment to think, then exclaimed, “SHORTS!” I was surprised but happy: it was something unexpected yet also seemed very “KEY”-like since he’s the one who’s always sporting shorts the most amongst the other members. I was going to make the whole thing from head to toe: the bucket hat, the coat, the button-down shirt, the shorts, the belt, and socks (ended up scraping making socks though). It was early March, I had all the ambition in the world, and this daunting project seemed so far away. I was nervous to start drafting…even more nervous to sew everything! I went on, making a different Don’t Call Me inspired duo of outfits, Easter outfits, and a lot of little projects here and there plus three added photoshoots/ blog posts (Criminal Take II, Holo Easter, Flame of Love/Sayonara Hitori. blogged about the Xmas Eve Hanbok) and spent more hours than I care to admit on Twitter, chatting with other shawols (SHINee fans).

Before I even drafted anything, I chose to plan out the fabric. In retrospect, just getting custom printed yardage would have cost about the same (maybe less!) and would have been waaaaaayyyyy less stressful but I didn’t have this realization until I was sewing LMAO. So I researched the original coat by designer WALTER VAN BEIRENDONCK to get all of the angles that I couldn’t get, but they were out of his particular short coat so it only helped a little. I did confirm that it was made out of felted wool and spent way too much time looking for useable felt in the colors I needed. At the end of that day I had an epiphany: stop trying to make a summer jacket in winter coat fabrics! Make it in linen! Will it be identical to Kibum’s (Key)? No. Will it still look good and wear more comfortably for the season I need it? 100% yes (fingers crossed it wouldn’t end up an epic fail!) So I bought various yards of colorful linens from Fabric.com which is something I haven’t done in years because how disenchanted I was with their customer service in the past. I also bought red corduroy (with a little stretch to it), red lining, red dye, red iron-on vinyl, and off-white grosgrain ribbon for the hat. I dyed the fabrics I needed (to make the marigold color, I darkened the yellow linen I currently had in my stash and made that tiny little pink half circle) and gathered the materials for the hat that I also already had in possession. The only thing I needed was the turtle shell-looking buttons and gold lining to match the inside of his coat which I got from Joann Fabrics.

It’s such a drag having to do research on this type of thing because it involves having to slow-mo and freeze-frame every second of their performance, staring and analyzing every single little aspect of the outfit 🙄. ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!?! THAT’S THE BEST PART!!!!! 😍Having an excuse to do that is, legit, one of the happiest moments of the whole process! I get sad when it’s over! 😂 I was indebted to the solo fan cams. Key is such a powerful dancer and performer that it was almost impossible to get shots of certain parts of his coat until the camera followed him to the wings of the stage where he turned around and stood still! I almost thought I wasn’t going to get a decent shot of the back until that part happened!

Drafting/Making the Outfit

I was scared to get started. To be honest, I was scared a lot of the way through this project… this was just the start of it! I went back and forth over what pattern to use for the jacket/coat. Would I redraft my Touka pattern to be a coat? Would I use a suit pattern? Oh wait- she’s outside of the sizing🤦🏻‍♀️. What am I going to do about those patterns on the coat: traditional or paper piecing? How did they do the detail on the shirt neckline? Wait-ARE.👏🏻THOSE.👏🏻PARTRIDGE.👏🏻PLEATS?😰 Not gonna lie, I was actively avoiding really starting this because of how nervous I was. So I did things a little differently than I usually do things: rather than cut everything out first then sew, I found myself cutting each element then going straight into sewing it and in this order below.

the bucket hat

I started with the hat because it seemed the safest. I found a free bucket hat pattern online and altered it to look like the JW ANDERSON one that Key wears. Super easy: I shortened the brim 1cm on one side and lengthened the other side 1 cm, plus split some pattern pieces in two that were supposed to be cut on the fold. I added ribbon as well, but first I had to add the iron-on vinyl (so grateful for my Cricut cutter. This would have been impossible to achieve otherwise). I found a font close to the one the designer used and chose to alter the W in SEW like the way the original looked. I love the way the ribbon text came out, even though it took like two hours to weed out all of the unusable parts. I’m used to watermarking or copywriting my images (which I still do the latter) but I found myself really happy to see my brand name actually on the garment other than the typical label!! It’s a great branding alternative and I liked not having to mark my images for this shoot since I felt my cute little watermark might take away from the pictures. I applied it with my new Cricut Easy Press 2 and it came out perfectly!!! The fit on the hat is a little too snug, but nothing too bad. If I had to make it again, I would grade it up. I finished it up with a little vinyl “SC” insignia on the front for Sew Chibi with the little anchor that the original had.

the button-down shirt

You know, the more you make something, the better you get at it. I know that sounds obvious but I really felt it when I made the Laramie Shirt Pattern (by Adrianna of Hey June Handmades). I’ve used it for the Easter outfit (but made it sleeveless) and for the chibi Taemin “Criminal” cosplay I made and literally more times than I care to count at this point, and I have always dreaded those sleeve plackets. But after the Criminal outfit, I took comments/notes on the pattern for my brain to comprehend more easily and it made those plackets a breeze. I remember it befuddling me all day the first time I made the pattern and now it’s like no big deal at all! That pattern is just one of my ultimate go-to patterns (besides my own patterns of course). Adrianna really makes the images and text easy to follow and she has my full trust in it fitting and sewing properly. The French seams around the armscye and side seams, the beautiful finish on the yolk and shoulder seams… the only thing I have really edited besides omitting the sleeves is to either pleat or omit the gather in the back. I just love having a garment that looks as beautiful on the inside as it does on the outside. It’s a good feeling.

This time I had to change a couple more things though: nix the collar, but keep the stand and add a partridge pleated ruffle (I honestly cursed at the screen when I noticed that that was what his ruffle was😂😳), and ruffle the sleeve cuffs instead. I have only done partridge pleating once before and it was like 5 years ago. The thing about partridge pleating that makes it tricky is that it has to be hand-stitched, and pleats have a tendency to want to pop up and all over out of place. By default, I also avoid a lot of hand-stitching so just pleating the ruffle for the collar, attaching it, then slip-stitching the collar stand lining down took like 4 hours or more. It looks fabulous though so great choice Key! The sleeve cuffs were weird because I had to sew them completely different from the instructions and, in a perfect world, I wouldn’t have been two or three buttons short (and Joann’s wouldn’t have been completely out of them everywhere). I feel like those cuffs are just begging for another button underneath the one that’s there 😂.

the shorts & the belt

You know, even if you’ve made something a bunch of times, it also doesn’t make you an expert😂. See, it wasn’t so much the process that befuddled me this time, it was the sizing. Despite my best efforts to prewash/dry all of my fabrics and my matching my kiddo’s size to the size chart, these just came out a little too tight (alright, a lot) and it’s a huge bummer. Luckily this girl likes tight clothes so she didn’t complain once, but I was furious when I went to fit them on her at the appropriate time and found that they were insanely tight. Here I was with shorts that were perfectly sewn and 90% done and i had to rip out all of the widthwise seams, and re-sew them with a 1/4” seam allowance to attempt to gain a slightly better fit. I’ve made the Morrocco Pants several times in the past, I love the look of them, but I guess I blocked out/forgot to ever note that the sizing is just too tight. I have some really skinny kiddos and I always check and size up when i sew for them (even if it means the fit is a little too big at first). I’ve used them recently and even now I’m remembering those were tight too (actually every time I’ve made them, now that I think about it). It’s my mistake for not noting this earlier (I added a note this time). I’m so drawn to the beautiful elements and professional finishes but I have to remember next time to size up accordingly. I love the look of welt pockets and zip flys, even though they’re a bit tricky to do well, I was pleased that those parts came out perfectly this time.

I also made a proper belt for this look! I bought a buckle kit and used sturdy webbing inside so that it feels like a decent belt. I love that Key wears a belt in the same materials as the pants he wears. It’s such a subtle detail but it looks really cool!

the coat (jacket)

Finally, the day came where I had to face the music and make the coat. I had already talked about her outfit a lot on various social media, so there was no going back😅. Do I usually do muslins (mock garments)? No. Did I make one for this? Come on, I had to. There was so much riding on this to come out looking great (it was her 10th birthday outfit after all!) and it was my first time ever making a Key look so I wanted the fit to be perfect.

I honestly thought I was going to paper piece it but my hands moved for the pencil instead and I found myself tackling this the way you would eat an elephant: a little at a time. I started with the straight pieces because they were the easiest. Then, I went at it one color piece of one pattern piece at a time. I had the design printed on the pattern piece itself, so I would take one color, add the seam allowance directly to the pattern piece, cut that out, re-taped the pattern, repeat the process for the adjacent color it attached to, pinned them together, then sewed. I just kept repeating that process (and boy were those curves and peaks a pain in the ***) until low and behold, it was done. The thing I was sweating bullets over for months, re-creating this masterpiece of a coat, the “hard part”, was just done… and it felt weird… and exciting… like I climbed the mountains of those pattern pieces and sewed my way across the terrain of all of those tricky elements and it was done. OH THE BEST PART: the pattern pieces didn’t warp or misshapen or basically not fit the original pattern pieces in the process!! I was so flipping happy. Now I just had to make the coat.

I used the Berlin Coat Pattern by Straightgrain and, obviously, heavily edited it. I changed the collar to a fold-over pointed collar (no stand, just like his), altered the openings to not be double-breasted but still button well, and took out a lot of the swoops on the sides, making a straighter silhouette. I also altered the back piece to accommodate the back pleat that I omitted and split, and altered the sleeve to make it a two-piece sleeve with that seam that his has. I made the pockets bigger, rounder at the bottoms, and sewed them right on top (well, just shy of) the side seams.

I made vinyl cut-outs of the “DEMAND” and “BEAUTY” and “W:A.R.” and applied them with the Easy Press and my iron because I’m still getting used to the Easy Press and those corners go on better with a pointed end. The only hiccup I had with this coat, albeit a very annoying one, was that I applied the “W:A.R.” to the center of the pattern piece… not centered between the fold and the seam allowance. I had to rip out, cut, print, and sew a new collar, then reattach it(which was so much harder after having clipped corners, etc.) In the end, it still looks pretty fantastic, I think. She’s so flipping happy and shocked (as am I) that this coat is hers. Key’s coat is in her closet!!!! Every time I finished piecing a side of the pattern or sewed parts together, I showed her because I couldn’t contain my emotions! I wanted it to be a surprise but I was so giddy along the way that I was showing its progress off every chance I got!

SHINee just had another new music video released a week ago called Superstar and in it, KEY IS SITTING IN FRONT OF A SEWING MACHINE AND THE DEMAND BEAUTY COAT IS IN THE CLOSET AND I LOST MY MIND. I’m so fascinated with him because he’s the fashion designer in the group (yes, they’re that multi-talented and that’s just the start of it!!!! Please DM me and let me tell you more all about them!) He’s been designing outfits for the group since 2015 and is respected as not only an idol but a fashion icon because of it. This is one of the reasons I stressed over getting this look right. I know, I know, he probably won’t ever see it… BUT WOULDN’T IT BE AMAZING IF HE DID?!😍 I love making things for my girls that show how much SHINee means to us. They are so truly different than any other K-POP group we just adore them (Jon too!) so much.

The Photoshoot

This is it, one last time, Kat, don’t mess this up! You can do this! You can take pictures that are as beautiful as your gorgeous girl in her amazing outfit! Fighting!

Sometimes I make things that I am so proud of and then I take pictures and the weather is not playing along nicely or the kiddos are just not in the mood or they’re all out of focus… whatever the case, I never take this part of the process lightly. While editing photos is a time-consuming blast (honestly, I love it), my hope is always that I did justice to the clothes, the kiddo, and the inspiration. We don’t have tons of pictures hung on our walls so this website is like my art gallery and my family photo album. I’ve come to terms with the fact that I am just flat out terrible at marketing but I guess that’s that INFJ personality in me that gets all introverted when it comes time to promote my work😅. The shawols on Twitter have been so incredibly supportive and kind and I only wish I would have started using that platform earlier on. I’m so grateful to them and to everyone who is always supporting me and giving me motivation outside of my kids’ smiles (which really is always the best part) to keep on creating and making new things.

Sephira is such a professional, I tell ya. When it comes to patience, makeup, mood, or just anything, she just turns on her modeling mode and works! Azriella loathes makeup but I remind her that the camera has a tendency to zap the color from your pretty little faces so sometimes it’s necessary. The other two love or at least tolerate makeup time (Akira loves it, lol) All of them are great at modeling, most of the time, since they’ve been doing it almost their entire lives for my blog shoots.

One of my favorite moments to capture are her cute little outtakes. She is so full of expression and it’s hilarious to watch her react to the things we say and do during photoshoots! She’s doing one of the main points of the choreography from the Don’t Call Me video in a couple of these shots.

See if you can spot our attempts at these Key poses! The above one is a lot creepier than Key’s 😅 whoops!😳

We started out near our house and then ventured down the street to this house that I have always admired because it is just so cute (it’s aqua and has the lushest garden) and there’s a walking trail next to it. BUT the real reason I wanted to photoshoot near there was the white picket fence and roses they have. It went so well with this one photocard I have of him. I was never gonna get too close, but then I saw Jon go over and chat with the owner who was clipping herbs for dinner, asking her if it was ok that we took pictures. I was mortified he was doing that but then kind of relieved that she said that it was ok!

We went home feeling great and then, right before bed, I realized it: I forgot to put the hat on🤦🏻‍♀️. The next day was her birthday (to which she requested to go walking around in a neighborhood we’d never been. We choose the Mississippi District because we’ve never actually traversed the area before! We found this bar called “Atlantis” and if you’re a shawol, you get why that was a memorable moment 😂.) I was really trying not to take pictures on her actual birthday, alas, there was no way around it and we ended up taking some pics while we walked around the Alberta district. We found this shop we affectionately dubbed “Shawol House” because it was pearl aqua green like the fandom color and it looked so good against her outfit. I couldn’t stop taking pictures of her. She’s so stunning to me. We kept her happy with craft/sketching supplies and ice cream from Salt and Straw🥰. It was a really lovely birthday!

I forgot to ask what you all think of Sephira’s new hair?! She requested Taemin’s hair from his most recent music video, ADVICE, for almost a solid month before I gave in. Speaking of Advice… that’s what’s next on the agenda for cosplay. This time Azriella is requesting the outfit! (Sephira was so miffed about it till we agreed her Halloween outfit will be a different look from the music video) and OMG it’s another killer look. I’m already anxiously attempting to draft the custom fabric design!

Thank you so much for reading this long post. It had a lot of heart go into it along with some blisters and sweat and tears, but it was all totally worth it for the look on her face and for this moment… the moment we get to share it with you all and the rest of the world. We hope you like it as much as we do! Please tell us what you think about it in the comment section below! Till next time, stay healthy and take care!