Monthly Archives

July 2012

Free Japanese Sewing Patterns Links Free Patterns

Free Japanese Sewing Pattern – Wildberry Shop

July 30, 2012

Did you have a good weekend? I did! My overlocker/serger arrived and I spent the weekend getting to know my new toy better. No it’s not a babylock so no fancy jet air threading system for me, so I spent quite a bit of time threading and re-threading, and now I know for sure, that sequence is VERY IMPORTANT when threading an overlocker. I also managed to go to the Kinokuniya sale which sadly was not that rewarding. I only bought two books, I had a list of books I wanted but most of them were not in stock. Anyway, I was looking for new books on knits since now I have an overlocker, I managed to buy one book on knits for kids, but nothing for myself. So I started looking for free patterns and look what I found!

Wildberry shop http://www.wildberry-shop.com/  is an online store selling fabrics and notions. Looks like it has a good range of knits fabrics. There are also patterns available for sale. The photos that you see above, however, are from their free patterns page.  (16 Sept 2013 – Edited to add: The free patterns page seem to have been taken offline, but I found some archived links from google. http://www.bbweb-arena.com/users/w-berry/flicepattern/flicepattern_003.htm + http://www.bbweb-arena.com/users/w-berry/flicepattern/flicepattern_004.htm 

Now we have to learn how to navigate. It may be quite challenging because the links are a little disorganized, let me show you why 🙂

For the first two projects, just click on the links below the picture. A PDF will be opened/downloaded. For the next project which is a turtleneck, when you click on the link, it will bring you to this page.

Follow the links above in the picture to get the pattern and instructions. There are step by step photo instructions for this shirt. You have to click on the blue star to see the page.

There is also a 3/4 sleeve shirt that you can add a hood to to make it a hooded tee, but note that the links are scattered throughout (see above on how to click). To get the hood’s pattern, you have to click on the picture of the hood. There are some other projects where the link is from the picture, or text links. I didn’t list down all the projects here, but if you are missing any bits to the pattern, just click around the pictures and mouse over to see if any links are available. There are some inconsistencies because some of the links go direct to PDFs, some others go to pages, and within the pages sometimes the links to the patterns are text links, whereas for others you need to click on the images. But once you get it all figured out, these are pretty good patterns to have for free! 😉

The PDFs are quite professionally drawn, and being adult size pattern, you will need to print them over multiple sheets of paper and piece them together. Quite easy because the diagrams are well labelled.

This is the instructions for the turtleneck shirt, but it is also useful to the basic construction of the tee shirt, just a different finishing of the neckline.

Time for experimenting knits with my new toy!

Book Reviews Japanese Sewing Books Ladies Sewing Patterns

Book Review – Easy wearing Clean-cut Ladies clothes

July 27, 2012

The title of today’s book review is ゆったりだけどすっきりシルエットの大人服 This was a tricky one. The direct translation on Google translate said “Loose but Clear Silhouette Adults Clothes”.  I take it as Loose = Easy fitting/easy to wear, Clear Silhouette = Well defined lines (despite it being loose?), Adult clothes (says adult, but there are only women’s patterns in here). So apparently readers may think loose = ill-fitting, therefore the emphasis on clear silhouette? 😉

This is another Pochee special from the Heart Warming Life Series, published by Nihon Vogue. There are 39 projects in all, with everything from outerwear to tops, dresses, skirts, leggings and even bags. Enough to sew up an entire wardrobe!

Here are some of the tops. As you can see, they are all loose fitting and easy to wear.  Continue Reading

Finished Projects

New Rucksack for School

July 26, 2012

The rucksack I made from the Kurai Muki Basic Bag making book last week. Followed the instructions to a tee following her youtube video (It’s a series of 6 videos, just follow the numbers to the next video. The only thing I should have done, is to add two pockets on the sides for her water bottle, which tends to leak. Oh well, not too bad for a first attempt. Oh, and my most successful attempt at sewing on laminated cotton yet! The fabric is a very nice denim blue with white polka dots. I can’t remember which brand it’s from and it wasn’t printed on the fabric selvedge. Anyway, it’s a nice laminated cotton which means everything just wipes off 🙂 Perfect for a primary school kid!

Probably can’t say the same about the straps, they are white. Nice when new. Let’s see in a few weeks time. 🙂

Used one of my owl fabrics that never looked quite right for a dress, too thin for a bag, and I never get around to making quilts anyway. Attempting to destash.
One side of the lining was sewn by machine, but the other had to be sewn by hand. Took me a good half an hour. But I’m pretty proud of how neat it turned out. 😛

New bag is super light and comfy to carry!

Free Japanese Sewing Patterns Links Free Patterns

Free Japanese Sewing Pattern – Kizuqueen

July 23, 2012

There are lots of free pattern resources out there, but there are also many with more text than pictorial instructions. Which makes it hard to understand given the way Google auto-translates, which tends to be inaccurate when the grammar pattern of the target language is not similar to English. So when I come across a site with good free patterns with lots of pictures, I just had to post it, even if there are only a few projects listed. 😛

Continue Reading