On tumblr is a #literally20dollarlolita challenge to create something for lolita fashion that is 20 USD or less started by 20dollarlolita. I happened to be watching youtube videos about people repurposing old clothes for the past several months which was why I made the post about the Barbie Shirley Temple skirt. And I do have a basket of scraps that are too small to make clothes out of but too big to use as rag stuffing, one of which was this realistic bread print synthetic fabric square from Daiso which I bought to make some pastry related items for a coord. In the end, I felt the print was not cutesy enough so I used other items for the coord instead. Since I still had the fabric lying around, I first made a scrunchie (to use up elastic bought for making masks), didn’t look great since the fabric wasn’t quite long enough but at least I made it. Then I figured surely there is a pattern in the sewing mooks that can make use of a square of fabric smaller than a fat quarter.
I ended up using the Angelic Pretty pouch pattern in the English Gothic and Lolita Bible, the wedding volume, shown in pink in the hands of the model, and I had enough scraps leftover to make a medium hairbow that I put on a clip. The lining was leftover embroidered fabric from a lace ruffle used in a cosplay. All in all, this cost me nothing to make since I had everything already, but the most expensive thing in the picture is probably the mook itself which is like 19.99 lol. The fabric, lace, elastic and zipper were from Daiso, the acorn charm I bought from an Etsy reseller of beads. If I had to put a price, each item from Daiso would be at most $2.50 plus tax and the charm is $2.99 plus shipping for a pack of 10, so $15 for the base price of materials plus the price of the mook. But in my mind, it’s free.99 haha
Some differences I made from the pattern: I didn’t want to make the fabric ruffle for the opening as I didn’t have enough fabric and it would be too thick and unwieldy to sew without basting and this fabric is too tightly woven for a needle to go through several layers. (My other option was ribbons or lace but nothing really matched or I didn’t have enough.) The only zipper I had was a few cm too short so there a slight lump in the silhouette but I figured it was fine and made the pouch look more like a bread roll anyway. I also didn’t make two pockets, just the one out of the bread print, and didn’t top stitch the base, just tacked it into place at two corners. My decoration, instead of an Angelic Pretty patch, was a beige lace ribbon bow and a tiny antique bronze acorn charm on the zipper which was supposed to have a country cottagecore vibe.
As you can see by the instructions on the bottom left corner, they were very brief, no pictures, and would require some sewing knowledge to understand what was going on. I’m not sure I followed the instructions perfectly myself. The process may seem easy, but the execution is difficult (well, I don’t have a zipper foot lol) and fiddly if you have big hands. I would say it took me a little over an hour including undoing some bad top stitching and just overall having trouble with sewing in a zipper, my most hated activity. If I could change one thing about the pattern, that would be to make the side pockets taller and sew them down to the lining so they could actually hold stuff bigger than a lip balm; as it is, the pocket is so shallow that anything placed in it would fall out. I don’t know if I misread the pattern, but the photo of the finished product in the mook also shows shallow pockets.
Here is the completed set! Would I actually wear this for a lolita coord? No, so it technically didn’t fit the theme lol, but it is lolita-adjacent and someone else could probably rock it. In case anyone has the English GLBs and like to see stuff actually made from them, I got you.