Blouse in translation

Feeling ambitious, I requested a pattern book for my birthday that's written entirely in Japanese. Thanks to my mother-in-law for indulging this silliness! I immediately learned a few important things about Japanese sewing techniques when the book arrived (some of which you can find on this blog or this one):

1. Japanese pattern pieces are all printed on top of one another, in a crazy overlapping map of lines. For a book with 20+ patterns, there's just one page of pattern pieces. You have to recopy each piece onto tissue paper so that you can use it. Oh, and don't forget to add your own seam allowances!

2. Japanese sizes are very different from U.S. ones (no big surprise here). A size L fits me well. In America, though, I'm an S.

3. Only a few steps are illustrated in the pattern directions. The rest is left up the imagination. Rather like French cookbooks...

Feeling thoroughly intimidated, I decided to start with the simplest pattern in the book - a long-sleeve shirt with only three pieces. How hard could this really be, people?!

I spent an afternoon cutting out the three pattern pieces. Working with tracing paper and a good quality eraser reminded me of a particularly hellish 8th grade social studies project I once completed.

I learned to make my own bias tape from various web tutorials. I can't tell if this is what the pattern intended, however. Perhaps you could just use ribbon.

The only difficult thing about assembling the blouse was mitering the bias tape in different angles to accommodate the asymmetrical neckline and hem. This added quite a challenge, in my opinion.

I made this blouse out of white polka dotted cotton from JoAnn's (ick, I know). The trim is a conversion of our old kitchen curtains, which I got from Reprodepot a while back.