Sew-along Sewing Tutorials Sewing Videos

Sew Along with A Year of Sewing with Nani Iro – Part 1 of 4

August 6, 2022



Welcome to the part 1 of the Sew-along! I’m sure you are as excited as I am! This sew-along is brought to you by Zakka Workshop. Zakka Workshop is a publisher of distinctive craft books, patterns, and kits inspired by fresh, contemporary Japanese design. They have lots of interesting craft books so do check them out at ZakkaWorkshop.com!

The Sew-along will be broken down into the follow sections.  The videos and blog posts will be published every Saturday night at 9pm Singapore time (GMT +8) so be sure to look out for it if you can! No worries if you are unable to sew on Saturday itself because you will have the whole week to catch up. The entire process is divided into easily manageable chunks that you should be able to complete within a week. Here’s a quick summary of what we will be covering.

Part 1 (6 Aug) – How to use the book, locating the patterns on the pattern sheet, tracing and adding seam allowances.
Part 2 (13 Aug) –  Cutting out your fabric pieces, preparing the pieces for sewing, steps 1 (front to front yoke) and 2 (making the placket)
Part 3 (20 Aug) – Step 3 (Back to back yoke), Step 4 (Sewing front and back yokes together), Step 5 (Attaching the tie collar)
Part 4 (27 Aug) – Step 6 (Finish armholes), Step 7 (Pockets and side seams, Step 8 (Hemming)

Without further ado, here is today’s sew-along video

Some notes about today’s sew-along and for fabric / materials purchase.

Dress length adjustments
I traced the patterns as-is and did not make any adjustments. I am 160cm tall and the dress is 123cm long. The dress ends at the ankle for me which is perfect. To adjust the length if you are shorter/taller than me, you can adjust the length by varying the width of the hem than the 7cm hem as instructed, or just add/substract directly from the bottom edge of the pattern to your desired length since the side seams of the front and back pieces are straight lines from armhole to hem.

Fabric requirements
I know we didn’t cut any fabric in this video, but since many of you might need to order fabric for this project, I thought I should mention that I actually used a 3m cut of fabric even though the instructions asked for 3.9m. I realized that for M size, even with the standard width of 110cm (or was it 104cm?) I was actually able to fit the yokes side by side, and the pockets were also cut in a row instead of staggered like in the pattern layout diagram. I also saved on some fabric by cutting the tie collar along the long scraps left from cutting the front and back pieces. I’m not sure if this will apply for sizes larger than M though, plus I’m short, so it’s best you finish today’s video and with the actual pattern pieces (including length adjustments if any), you can test out the placement on your fabrics before deciding how much fabric you might actually need.

Bias Tape requirements
The materials list states 1m of 1.2cm wide single fold bias tape. This was not included in the pattern layout so I am assuming they mean store bought tape. This is for finishing the armholes. You can use store bought tape of course, but because I was using thin linen, and I didn’t like the difference in weight of cotton bias tape vs thin linen, so I decided to make my own.  As the bias tapes will not be seen from the outside, you can use any fabric strips of similar weight and color for bias tape. If you want to make them using the exact same fabric as the dress, then please use the recommended fabric required as that will safely allow you to cut extra for bias tape. I only manage to squeeze it out of 3m by not cutting it at 45deg. It’s unorthodox but it worked because the armholes for this dress is not extremely curved and is for the most part, straight lines so I managed to get away with it. But it’s entirely up to you if you want to do the same, and this is based on M size so the scraps I had left could accommodate this.

Where to buy (aff links)
A Year of Sewing with Nani Iro – https://amzn.to/3Jw73Ml
Clover curve rulers with seam allowances https://amzn.to/3oWnHen
Clover long ruler (50cm) https://amzn.to/3zE5szh
Staedtler 9mm mechanical pencil  https://amzn.to/3JGkycs
The tracing paper I use is from Taobao so it’s probably not useful to link it here but there are lots of options on amazon and online for rolls of tracing paper.

And that’s it for today! I hope the video wasn’t too fast and the notes were clear enough. See you next week for part 2 where we will start cutting out fabric!

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...

You Might Also Like

No Comments

Leave a Reply