Sweet Dove Grey Jacket
Jade, from the wonderful My Art Is My Outlet, made this super sweet little jacket for her daughter out of Tessuti’s 70% Wool 20% Polyamide and 10% Cashmere Coating in ‘Dove Grey’. It has been finished to perfection with a cream crochet trim and bone buttons from Tessuti’s button range. Via her blog, take a peek at the contrast lining and the lovely gathered cuffs….. oh so gorgeous!
Jade found this wonderful pattern in this great Japanese craft book.
You can also find a range of these sewing pattern books at Kinokuniya in the CBD – The Galleries Victoria, Level 2, 500 George St, Sydney, NSW – opp the QVB Building.
Since Jade popped in to show me some of her wonderful Japanese craft books, I’ve been hankering to get my hands on this stylish dress book with 26 swoon-worthy patterns inside.
Have you ever made a garment from a Japanese pattern? Please share your experiences if you have. Heaven knows, sometimes the plain English ones are a nightmare to follow so I’m curious to know the difficulty level of a pattern that comes in a foreign language.
xx
Colette and Lisa collaborate to bring you this here Tessuti blog. Follow us to keep your finger on the pulse of new pattern releases, reviews, tips, techniques and a healthy dose of love and appreciation for all things fabric and sewing!
I made a skirt from Machiko Kayaki’s Skirt A La Carte, and it wasn’t too difficult – clear diagrams it it was fairly obvious what needed to happen.
The only problem I had was the sizing – Japanese patterns have to be traced off a master sheet and are drafted without seam allowances, so picking the correct size was difficult.
there’s a good glossary of Japanese sewing terms here
Shinta at patternreview has made a few lovely Japanese tops…elegant in their simplicity and I have seen some lovely children’s clothes made from Japanese patterns lately…I’ve been thinking about buying one of the books from Ebay myself.
http://sewing.patternreview.com/cgi-bin/readreview.pl?readreview=1&reviewnum=28170
Thanks for the shout out, Colette! By the way, My Little Mochi has a downloadable guide on how to read some of the japanese characters in these craft books. I use it a lot. Here’s the link:
http://mylittlemochi.typepad.com/my_little_mochi/japanese_craftbook_help/index.html
And there’s this really good resource via Craftlog, too.
http://huangfamily.com/craftingjapanese/archives/help/
A big thankyou to everyone for these handy links.
I sometimes find Japanese patterns easier than ones in English – the diagrams are really clear. I’ll bring a couple of books in next time I visit Tessuti 🙂
suzy / http://www.floatingworldviews.com
I’ve used Gosu Rori (Gothic Loli) and found it quite liberating to sew from.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v440/KiwiW/ACG%20Events/gr7_171819.jpg
I already had a basic semi-fitted pattern (close to a personalised block) and used it to draft from the schematic pictures rather than use the pattern sheets that are in this magazine.
There’s an ebay retailer that sells a huge range of japanese sewing & craft magazines, I lurk there quite a lot
http://stores.ebay.com.au/Simply-Pretty-Japanese-Beads-Books
Just made my first – a dress for a 3 year old – and other than spending about 20 minutes trying to work out what one of the diagrams meant, it was surprisingly easy for a novice like me. Hoping the rest will be just as easy!