I'm back!

The good times in the snow are all over and we're back to green and luscious Auckland in the middle of a hot summer. It's taking some getting used to! I'd have more photos to show you but they're on a DVD and my laptop's disk reader has finally died after hinting at it for a couple years so I'm now pondering a new computer or fixing this old one! Either option is expensive.

Hazel and I came back with 4 pieces of luggage, most of which were her Christmas presents, but they did contain quite a lot of fabric and lots of books - some of which were craft-related! "Oh how surprising" you say.

I thought I'd show you a few bits and pieces from them all, especially the Japanese books and the delightful "All You Can Sew For Children" books I and II which date from 1972 and 1973. I stole them from mum and had a great time going through having flashbacks to clothes she'd made for me from them. Some of the photos of clothes are wonderful (in an unintentionally hilarious way sometimes) and I'm hoping to make a few of them up and see how they translate to modern sensibilities.

I bought the Japanese books from Yes Asia and they were meant to take a month to arrive but they actually beat me home (and no I suppose they weren't in my luggage then were they...) in less than 2 weeks! On the left: Innocent and lovely girls' wear by Mano Akiko, ISBN 457911194X, and on the right: Dressy Little Girl -From one piece dress to coat (Onnanoko no oshare fuku) by Araki Yuki, ISBN 4529045269 / 9784529045261.



These are the Yes Asia translations, I think I've seen them called different names elsewhere, so if you were looking for them I'd go on the ISBN. Dressy Little Girl is probably the most accessible of the two and I discovered I already have an earlier book by the same author.

The buttons down the back of this are gorgeous.

Oh my goodness I love this navy knit dress but Hazel hates high necks so I'd have to adapt it and the buttons wouldn't be as lovely. She'd like the skirt though.

The top is from the same pattern as above. The skirt has these cute little kick pleats at the back.


This is such a cute jacket, but I was just thinking it would make a great dressing gown too.


I'll take a few photos from the other book tomorrow!

Sewing from a Japanese craft book: Step-by-step

Since I'm about to make the 'Lola Dress' for Hazel from a Japanese craft book I thought that I'd document the process for anyone out there who is wanting to give it a go themselves. I should preface this by saying that I'm not especially brave, or an incredibly experienced seamstress, or a whizz at diagrams, nor do I read a skerrick of Japanese. So if I can do it so can you!  If you click through to the pictures on Flickr you'll find lots of notes that get specific about various parts of the pattern.

Well first off you need your book. Mine is Clothes for Girls, ISBN 4529044378 / 9784529044370 and I'm making Dress O

On the page opposite it says (in English) that the instructions are on p.58

So here we have the technical drawing of the dress, as well as the pattern layout which doubles as the list of pattern pieces you need.  The two books I have come with giant fold-out pieces of paper with all the pattern pieces on them a la Burda Style or Ottobre.

Eeep! I hear you say. Oh yeah, I still feel that way when I open them out. Nothing like lots of lines and Japanese characters to freak your brain out :)  If you'd like to understand the characters better I highly recommend the .pdf from Batty Chan which explains heaps.  But do not panic!  The little legend at the top of sheet B tells me that the pieces for O are in here somewhere

so I look for the English characters and eventually I see them.  It seems that patterns G, I and O are fairly similar and on on the same pieces so that's what I focus in on.   They're circled in red.  Often they'll be roughly grouped together and in a slightly different colour than other pieces.  It still takes some looking though!  You know what pieces you need from the pattern layout diagram, and how many.

Here are the front and back a bit closer up. You can see that it's really quite easy to distinguish the various pieces once you know where they are. If you use Burda or Ottobre you'll be a pro at this already!  In this picture I've noted some of the common symbols. Click over to Flickr to see them and more in note form.

Here are my pattern pieces, minus the collar, front band and cuffs because I misplaced them!  You can see I've done them with newsprint. Not ideal but I could just see the lines through it.  I used to have a big roll of Swedish tracing paper and if I'd known that Spotlight was going to stop carrying it I'd have bought 10!  Anyways, newsprint was what I had at the time and it did the job.

Like Burda and Ottobre, there aren't seam allowances included on these patterns so you'll need to leave space around the pieces to add that.  We'll cover that in the next post but generally it's 1 to 1.5cm and up to 3cm for hems.  You can see it added in on mine.  Remember to include all the little markings from the pattern, sometimes there can be quite a few depending on what you're making.  I've also marked on the grain and where the pieces are cut on the fold (using more standard notation). I also include the letter and the size its for.