Last updated: 07.30.2026
The first half of this month was dominated by skating activities, busy with my new job and as a skater because of the club's annual skating summit and a new summer ice show. I feel incredibly privileged to have been featured as a soloist in the show, with choreography from a very talented and kind and enthusiastic friend. Working with Chloe was a joy, and it was wonderful to chat with the actually-guest skaters (from outside the club) and I feel good about my performance despite being terrified for the entire week that I would be an embarrassment to the club. I'm very lucky to have been in the show as an experience. And skating for that many hours all week for the Summit was awesome for me; obviously not much of an insight that exercise is healthy for the body and mind, but it continues to be surprising just how clearly true it is when I experience it.
Then I started a new sewing project! I will soon be moving (possibly late August or early September), so I'm not sure how much progress I will make before being a bit stalled, but I'm excited to have something to chew on creatively.
I am working on Maomao from The Apothecary Diaries for K, and later I will start on Jinshi for me. Doing a little background research, it seems like Maomao wears 袄裙 aoqun, a top/skirt outfit consisting of:
I know very little about hanfu making and the history of Chinese dress so this was a great opportunity to learn some new techniques. I don't own anything that shares very much fashion DNA with aoqun, so I do not have the usual recourse to my own closet to see how things should look and fit, how things are finished, whether pattern shapes seem intuitively correct based on what I've seen before. My primary references for garments of this type are digitally mediated, and it's much more difficult to pick apart from pictures than from touching and handling and wearing something.
Inevitably I had to do a lot more basic research; in the course of study I found an excellent web resource for hanfu history and patterns and a reenactor making a mamianqun using historical techniques and another cosplayer making Maomao and (especially helpful!!) a hanfu historian showing details of the aoqun outfit.
I started with the 褶裙 zhequn, a half-pleated wrap skirt. (I finally took the time to learn how to use the edge-stitch foot on my sewing machine, which would've saved me a lot of headache on a lot of previous projects.) The pleats took some time to measure, arrange, and press, but it was overall a simple and satisfying project.
Next I started on the 中衣 zhongyi or wrap blouse, which is only visible as a narrow white collar most of the time, but we do see Maomao wearing it on its own (and sewing in a pocket for a warming pack at the outdoor garden party!) which is a helpful resource for what it should actually look like, and the fact that we see it entire makes me feel somewhat obligated to do it as correctly as possible. The first round I followed the process from YouTuber Angealy02 but the collar on mine didn't lay very nicely; I think I added too much curve to the neck piece, and I'd like it to hug the neck more closely when wrapped so that I know it will stand up over the outer collar. I redrafted using the NewHanfu resource, with a flat back for the collar rather than cutting a curve, and a shallower curve for the front collar attachment. I have yet to finish the seams but I basted it together and it does look closer to my intended shapes!
