Tuesday, January 26, 2010

My first Japanese patterns (I am so excited!)

I finally got my scanner to cooperate with me, so I thought I would share some pictures from the beautiful patterns I bought. 

The first is a simple pattern for baby britches.  I have seen Japanese babies wearing these and thought they were just adorable.  The cool thing about the pattern is that it is an iron-on.  It is printed on what feels like freezer paper- you just cut out and iron on to the fabric.  It probably would be a little difficult with darker colors, but it is nifty nevertheless.  Notice it says Simplicity on the back?



The second is a pattern book.  The little girl in the pictures totally sold it for me.  Isn't she beautiful?  I love the outfits- they are simple and feminine.  I didn't realize until I got home that the book also includes patterns for mom too.  Bonus!



The third is another pattern book.  This one is for me.  There are some cute summery outfits in there (the second one I must make), perfect for the hot humid summer here in Japan.  It also has a recipe for the cookies as well.  I can follow the patterns ok, but I will have to have the recipe translated for me if I want to be able to use it.  I did decipher the sizes and measurements- using my Hiragana workbook and my Japanese-English dictionary.  I need to study up more on the Japanese characters, I am starting to recognize a few though!


I ordered some dotted swiss fabric from fabric.com- I think they will be perfect for some of these patterns!  The only drawback here is that now I need to trace the patterns- they have printed the patterns full size- but on both sides of the paper.  So I need to trace my size out and add the seam allowance.  I am not looking forward to THAT part. I'll keep you posted! *smile*

3 comments:

  1. Hello Nancy,
    Thanks for leaving your lovely comments on my blog posts! I've been thinking to give you a tiny information about Nippori fabric town, but I couldn't find a way to send you a personal message. Please contact me if you have a plan to go there and would like to know my humble opinion!
    yoshicomo at gmail dot com

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  2. You are so lucky to live in Japan and have easy access to all the Japanese patterns and fabrics! You'll have to stock up before you move back to the US because they're not that easy to get here. I buy them from a Japanese ebay seller. I'll check back to see what you make. And thanks for dropping my my little sewing blog too!

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  3. Thank you Yoshimi for the shopping advice!

    Rebecca- I had no idea that Japan made cool sewing patterns until I moved here and found them by accident. I do plan on stocking up- they are very reasonably priced. I am going to have withdrawals once we move back stateside!

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