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how to make

Free Japanese Sewing Patterns Links Free Patterns

Free Japanese Patterns – Clover

March 5, 2012

Good Monday morning! Time to chase away those morning blues by indulging in some new free patterns I’ve discovered 🙂

Note that I did not specify sewing patterns. That’s because, the site I am recommending today has lots more to offer than just sewing patterns. In fact, there are so many patterns I’m having a hard time deciding which to feature.

First of all, the site I’m talking about is Clover’s Japanese site. Most of you would have heard of Clover, which is a big Japanese brand selling all kinds of handicraft tools, knitting, crochet, sewing notions. If you have ever visited their English site, you may have come across their free patterns page. But have you visited their Japanese site? If you got lost visiting their homepage, click here for the direct link to their patterns page.

There are 4 categories, あみもの (Knitting)、手芸 (Handicraft),　ソーイング (Sewing)，パッチワーク (Patchwork). Here are some of the projects. There must be hundreds of them, too many to list here!

To navigate, click on the tabs as shown below.

Within each category, you will see the different projects and the links to download the patterns + directions. All the patterns are PDF downloads, even the adult garments, some of them may require you to piece the pattern together since most of us print in A4 size paper.

The knitting and crochet patterns are pretty straightforward diagrams, and do not need much translation as long as you can read a knitting/crochet pattern. There are so many knitting and crochet patterns, from cute little toys to accessories like hair scrunchies, hats, necklaces, scarves, cowl, bedroom slippers, I wish it snowed in Singapore! 🙂

Some patterns only come with a how-to-make + diagrams, but these are usually the ones that you can construct yourself, such as this.

Have fun sewing/knitting/crocheting!

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Free Japanese Sewing Patterns Links Free Patterns

Free Japanese Sewing Patterns – Bee Factory

February 27, 2012

How many bags does a girl need? How many bags does a girl want? How many bags have I made?

Not enough 😉 Today’s free pattern link is from Bee Factory.

There are lots of free patterns out there for little items like bags and pouches but not many with such detailed photographs and diagrams. Just the thing if you can’t understand the instructions. Here’s an excerpt of the photo instructions.

And here is an example of the free pdf patterns you can download. Looks a little bit more complicated when it’s reduced in size to fit the screen 🙂 but its basically rectangles with dimensions and markings.

Have fun making your own bags and pouches!

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Free Japanese Sewing Patterns Links Free Patterns

Free Japanese Sewing Patterns – Studio Clip

February 13, 2012

Studio Clip is a company selling zakka and clothings. They have both an online store as well as physical stores in Japan. Today I discovered one of their blogs – which is a huge library of “how to make” patterns for zakka goods!

To date (it was last updated early Feb), there are 116 patterns available. The zakka goods include bags (all kinds and for both adults and kids), pouches, cozies, baby goods, placemats, aprons, tissue box covers… whatever you can think of!

Most of the site is in Japanese, and if you use Chrome or any browser which does auto-translate, it should be possible to understand the important points such as what supplies are needed and how much fabric to use. At the end of each post there will be a PDF file (look for the words “PDF” in the link. That will be the pattern you need. Below is an excerpt from one of the patterns. Most of the “how-to-make”s are in diagram form so it is pretty easy to understand.

So what are you waiting for? There are 116 projects to browse, lots of ideas for making your own zakka goods. Have fun!

Here’s the link! http://www.apalog.com/studio-clip_craft/

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Free Japanese Sewing Patterns Links Free Patterns

Free Japanese Sewing Patterns – fil e-book

February 6, 2012

Today’s link is a really amazing find. I stumbled upon this website from a list of links on a Japanese site, so it was really a by-chance thing and not directly from any search engine.

This website is by the company Fujix Ltd which apparently is a sewing thread company. Makes sense doesn’t it? 🙂

The subsidiary site  and the name on its banner is called sewing.com (translated) but this is not the domain name. The real link is http://www.fjx.co.jp/sewingcom/filcatalog/index.html 

Basically it displays all the e-books which are called called fil – Enjoy Sewing.

To view each e-book, you can either click on the thumbnails, which will bring you to the flash e-book reader. Below is an example of a page in the e-book.


The pictures and “how to make” sections (with diagrams) are within the e-book. There are two ways to download the patterns for each project.

1. Click on the link in the e-book. (See the link below)

2. Alternatively, from the main page, click on the purple button (see below). This will bring you to the “more details” page of that particular issue.

On the details of the e-book, you can click on thumbnail to view individual projects, and most importantly, there is a little greenish button beside each project with the words 型紙 which means pattern paper. This is where you will click to download the pattern.

Again, Flash is needed. A full page view of the pattern is seen (shown by the left hand photo below), click on any part of the image, and the PDF piece (A4 size) will be loaded (see example on bottom right). You will need to print the different pieces and piece them together. A little work. but it’s all free! 🙂

 

Even if you don’t make anything or find the pattern downloading too troublesome, just browsing the free e-books is really inspiring. As usual, beautiful Japanese styled photographs, cute projects, it’s a fabulous site to check out!

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Guides Translations and Help with Patterns

Understanding the instructions – working example

January 27, 2012

It’s been a quiet week on the blog, because we are celebrating Chinese New Year over here in Singapore. Only two days of public holidays but many people have taken leave because there is so much partying to do. 🙂 Will be back in full force next week.

In the meantime, one of my friends needed help translating a pattern. She borrowed a book which doesn’t provide step by step photographs, but do not be afraid of buying these books, especially if you really like the patterns in it. I’m going to show you how to understand the instructions, simply by using key words from the dictionary of sewing terms

The pattern is from this book called Girly style wardrobe.

The instructions included the material list as well as the list of steps on how to make, seems like not quite enough information when you are just given the following.

So I asked her to look for the words 作り方 (How to make) which is always usually under the 材料 (Materials) list.

Note that the instructions usually consist of nouns and verbs. If you can make sense of these, everything is easy peasy 🙂

So the english translation for this pattern is

  1. Sew shoulder seams
  2. Sew side seams
  3. Make frill (for sleeve) and attach
  4. Cover raw edges of armhole with bias fabric
  5. Sew side seams of skirt
  6. Sew bodice and skirt together
  7. Sew the back middle portion, attach the fastener (zip)
  8. Cover collar with bias fabric
  9. Make the frill for the hem and attach.
  10. Attach the loops for the belt cord
  11. Attach hook and eye loop for back of dress
  12. Make cord and pull through loops.

* For instructions on covering armhole, refer to pg. 50 (garment “h”),
For attachment of fastener (zip) pg 80 (garment “s),
For attachment of cord loops, refer to pg 56 (garment “k”)

 

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