Monthly Archives

May 2012

Translations and Help with Patterns

Translation Wednesdays

May 30, 2012

No translation requests today, so I found more sewing terms to translate!

用尺 - measure of cloth required when sewing

合印 – match marks (matching marks on pattern)

わ – fold-line

縫い代 – seam allowance

中表 – right sides of fabric facing each other

外表 – wrong sides of fabric facing each other

割る- slit / open up from two sides of seam allowance

倒す – After sewing seam, press seam allowance to one side

返し口 – opening for turning out

粗目のミシン – long machine stitch (for basting or gathering)

しつけ  – basting/temporary hand stitching to keep in place before machine sewing

I’ve added these to the Dictionary of sewing terms.

Happy Sewing!

Free Japanese Sewing Patterns Links Free Patterns

Free Japanese Sewing Patterns – Handmade SunMoon

May 28, 2012

It’s the beginning of the school holidays here and it’s hard trying to put a blog post together with the kids asking me questions every few minutes! Lol…

Anyhow, today’s link to free patterns is a website called Handmade SunMoon. She does not have many projects yet but there are some interesting ones which I think will be very useful… or just interesting to make!

Check out the baby carrier on the top right. I’ve  seen many Japanese ladies carry their babies in this and the babies look so comfortable in it. On the bottom left is toilet paper cover. I know it sounds weird but yes it is meant to keep your spare toilet rolls clean and pretty in the bathroom. The bottom right is a toilet roll dispenser cover (the pink one below is to keep your spare roll when the one in the dispenser runs out. There is also a diaper change pouch for those of you with babies.

Some of the instructions are entirely in Japanese, so you might need to use translation tools to make sense. But some of the projects have step by step photographs like this so it is very easy to follow.

As most of the patterns are made from simple shapes, there is not much pattern tracing, just remember everything is in cm!

Note that on her homepage, there is also a message from the blogger on the terms of use of her free patterns. It is ok to sell projects made from her patterns, but do credit her website http://handmade-sunmoon.com if you do so. Also, resale of her patterns are strictly not allowed.

Alright, have fun browsing her site and happy sewing!

Book Reviews Japanese Sewing Books Kids Sewing Patterns

Book Review – All your kids need Part 2 of 2

May 25, 2012

Today we will look at the rest of the book – All your kids need (read part 1 here)

Some more sewing projects. The title says it’s formal wear for school entrance ceremony which apparently is a big thing at the beginning of the school term. But you can adapt it and use it for any other formal occasion.

Formal wear patterns for mum as well!

I’m not quite following in the order of the book, because I wanted to cover the sewing patterns first. So now we can move on to the accessories. This book as a lot of handicraft ideas, all for school going children age. Some are related to school and some are just for fun. Like accessories!

Crochet projects

Knitting projects with is that what you call a mini-knitter? (with step by step photographs at the bottom of the page)

Oh this reminds me of Mr Bean’s bear! 🙂

And check out these beads dolls. Looks complicated but there are clear instructions below.

Wire fram holder/hooks. Looks easy in the pictures but I bet it takes some skill and practice to make the words or animals recognizable!

Stencils – how to color them and apply them on various medium, as well as ideas on where you can use them.

One of my favourite crafts. Rubber stamping. The book includes ideas and templates for you to create your own.

The book includes step by step instructions of course. But in case you can’t wait to pick up the book, you can check out the free tutorial that I created
(and was featured on the Mollie Makes blog last year)

This is what you can do with the stamps. Labels for your own sewing creations, labels for your child’s belongings. There are so many things that need labelling!

You can stamp on canvas shoes too! Remember to get the right type of stamp pad for the medium you are using.

Back to more school related crafts. Lunch bags. Lots of options. All cute! I love that stripey nautical one (k) with the rainbow motif. And bag (a) which is a tie-top.

More lunch bags and accessories.

Customized elastic bands for your bento boxes. I made two for my kids and it can double up as a hair scrunchy!

Have you seen how well decorated Japanese bentos are? Unbelievable. I need more arms and legs and time in the morning to get this ready.
Unfortunately the recipes are all in Japanese, but well, I just get inspired by the pictures.

Ideas for a birthday party. Japanese style. I just love the styling and presentation. Makes everything look yummy.

If you would like to get this book, take note of the sewing pattern sizes. This book is for kids 100-130cm and the Mum patterns only come in M and L sizes (table shows bust/waist/hip measurements in that order). So if you want to get this book for the sewing patterns make sure this is what you need.

An example of the instructions.

There are no step by step photographs for the sewing projects, but there are diagrams such as this.

This is the pattern piece. I guess because they needed to cover so many projects, it is quite hard to fit everything in so it is considerably a lot more mind boggling than the other books I have come across. But have no fear! 🙂 The projects are listed around the edge of the paper, so follow the line carefully and you should be able to find them.

Happy sewing!

Title : All your kids need
ISBN no. : 9784579111336
Publisher : 文化出版局
Pages : 187

Next week I will be featuring the new Drape Drape book in english. I know it’s not strictly a Japanese sewing book, but I think there are not many reviews on the english version yet. So come back next week!

Translations and Help with Patterns

Translation Requests

May 24, 2012

Today’s question was more like a sewing pattern help than a real request for translation, but it’s still important.

BK cut out the pieces to this shirt from one of the books that I happen to have and reviewed about . Simple+one by Kurai Muki. But she noticed that the pattern piece for facings (not sure if this is the correct English term for  it! the inner lining part of the shirt where the buttons and buttonholes lie) was missing.

I checked the instructions, there was no mention on that. So I took a closer look at the cutting diagram.

The greyed out areas of the front and back bodice indicates the size and placement of interfacing pieces to be cut out. So looked at the pattern sheet.

見返し – the term for facings.

There you go! To save paper, only the bodice was drawn.  So after tracing the bodice,  you would need to trace another piece following the mid-line and the neck-hole, halfway down the shoulder, then down this dotted-dashed line to the bottom of the shirt, along the base of the shirt back towards the midline. That will be the facing pattern piece.

Then using this piece, you flip it horizontally so that the midline of the shirt joins up (as showin in the cutting layout diagram)

Free Japanese Sewing Patterns Links Free Patterns

Free Japanese Sewing Patterns – pigeon.info

May 21, 2012

Pigeon is a big baby products brand in Japan. It is very popular in Singapore as well. When my babies were little, we used alot of Pigeon stuff, from baby wipes to teething rings, even my favorite nail clipper is actually a Pigeon baby nail clipper.

I had some questions from readers about baby patterns, so I thought I would make a search for some free baby sewing patterns. And I found them in Pigeon’s Japanese website! The problem is, if you go to the main home page, it is impossible to find the link to the free patterns because it is so full of all information. I actually discovered this through a list of links from another website.

Some of the projects you can make from this website. There are only 11 projects altogether, but what I like is that they have downloadable PDF templates and easy to follow diagrams.   Most of the projects are quite manageable with hand sewing if you don’t have a machine, since they are tiny (and so cute!)

This is what you will see when you click on the link to the free patterns page. http://pigeon.info/advice/category.cgi?category_id=276

Yes, there are no pictures, I would never guess that it is a list of free patterns. But to see what projects are available, click on the thumbnail below for the English translations. If you have Google translate on your browser, it will automatically translate them for you. The translations are quite alright this time except for one or two strange sounding ones, but generally you get the idea what the idea is about.

Translated

Here is an example of the “how-to-make” from a jacket+pants set. Love the hand drawn illustrations 🙂

Some of the patterns (for example the scarf) do not require templates since it is just a straight rectangle. For those that require tracing of patterns, the patterns look like this.

Make this for your baby! Or for a friend expecting one 🙂 Happy Sewing!