Winner of Mother’s Day Book Giveaway

First of all, I would like to thank everyone who participated in the giveaway. The winner of the first book giveaway is Sumi! Sumi, I will be contacting you via email soon 🙂 For those of you who didn’t win, there will be more giveaways throughout the year so remember to check the site often.

I will now try to answer some of your questions.

Sew along /Tutorial
Yes I do think a sew along will be up next. The big question is, should I do an adult pattern or kid’s pattern? Should I use one of the free patterns or use one from a book? If I use one from a book will it be useful to those who do not have the same book? I am thinking that I should stick to a book since the detailed process of deciphering the Japanese sewing pattern is the whole point of this website, but will it help you if you don’t have the exact same book/pattern? What do you think?

Flickr  account
I just started a Flickr group called Japanese sewing books and have been trying to take photos of the books that I have as well as the completed projects. You can see some of the photos on the sidebar. Some of the dresses have already been grown out of, or forgotten 😉 So I have to dig through and identify the book/pattern it came from. It’s a public group, so feel free to add on your own book collection or completed projects there.

My own completed projects
I have another blog called Cotton Candy where I post all of my completed work for my kids. But it includes other projects made from other books/patterns/tutorials and sometimes just out of my head 😉 I do try to post pictures of the projects together with the book reviews, they are included in some of the blog posts. 🙂

Book suggestions
Sewing books for older girls – There are books for older kids, except that I have not started buying them yet because my oldest is still <130cm. But I will definitely be exploring it soon.

Sewing books for boys – If I come across any, I will definitely post links to them, one of the magazines I buy frequently is the Cucito magazine which is published quarterly and includes patterns for both boys and girls as well. The graphics are very clear and there are some step by step photographs for certain techniques. I think it’s due for a review soon!

Sewing books for winter coat patterns – There are some winter coat patterns in magazines like Cotton Friend or Cucito as these are published based on the four seasons. So if you get the Winter edition there will be padded coats for winter. There are also books that teach you how to make coats and jackets but may not be waterproof or thick enough for winter. So it depends on how cold winter is for you, and if you have to deal with snow, you may have to make certain modifications. For example, using a standard pants pattern from a Japanese book, I actually made my own snow pants with ripstop nylon exterior and fleece interior, and the kids played in the snow for hours wearing that.

 I’ll be looking forward to hearing your suggestions for a sew-along! As soon as we decide on a pattern, we can get started! 🙂