Once again, we’re hitting the books. Or book, as it were.
I got this book in 2015
Garments of a Dignified Lady: Bunka (2014) by Koji Takiguchi
I have lost the will to participate in monthly challenges unless I’m already in and motivated. #sewyourbooks on IG in January wasn’t something I was worried about finishing, just finishing in time to make a timely post here.
I numbered the pieces to keep track. 4 and 6 tried to fool me. 2 and 5 succeeded (who the hell makes two different sleeve pieces?)
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| This is with the two sleeves of different lengths, and not adding the cool hem bands, which would put it in dress territory |
Most of the details on making this are in this post. Yes, 2015. One of my better pieces I think.
The post, not the shirt. The Joann’s bonded knit fabric was itchy and unpleasant.
The fit on most of these Japanese patterns is smaller than I am, with skinnier arms than I possess.
But I did like the style, and I knew that it was just a matter of taking the element I liked and grafting it to a similar pattern style that fit me already.
So I traced over an existing knit TNT and changed up the neckline. I decided to run the foldover collar all the way out to the sleevehead.
At the upper right, you can see where the original right shoulder seam was. I needed that placement to draft the long foldover collar so that it’s seam would meet on that shoulder seam angle.
It was a lot of erasing and folding and fudging, but it worked. And I didn’t forget the seam allowances. I’m looking for a shirt that I can use my enormous collection of tshirt bits on. This is more about wearing tangible love objects than upcycling or remaking, but it does serve the same reuse ends.
And old cotton shirts are super soft.
Auditioning pieces for the shirt by folding them up and laying them out. Didn’t go with the yellow sleeve.
Stitched them together with the help of Wonder Tape, here I’m trimming the excess from the seams. Yes, it is every bit as chaotic as that photo shows.
Putting the pattern piece over the sewn collage to trim it to size
Clearly we’ve skipped a few steps to the part where I’m sewing the collar to the front and back pieces (which are mirrors of each other) OVER THE PINS, yes, I know
It fits exactly right.
I would make this again, but there are a couple issues that complicate a real deep relationship.
I would not use a collar piece with one motif on it;either plain or all over print. That part looks off to me. Otherwise, I like the collage and the seams hold up just fine (I’m sure the fabrics will wear out sooner, being as preloved and thin as they are. I had to work around some holes from wear.)
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| This shows the collar construction as well as I can manage. |
The collar can only be so long, and so tall because of the other elements of the construction and the shirt. Only so much width to the shoulder seams is possible because geometry.
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The gap along the neckline shows my bra strap. I finally found a bra that I like and that fits me and I am just not going to buy another style because of the strap showing. That’s just how it is.
This is not my first Japanese pattern rodeo!
Another story from the House Of Dud
and this one proving my intentions
I could do this
But probably not before the end of the month.
In point of fact, the shirt pattern for this started with this dress from Kimono Remake
The conceit is that you can make all the things in the book from narrow repurposed kimono and yukata fabrics*
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| The secret sauce was, once again, the shorter sleeve cap and higher armholes |
*The kimono is constructed of mostly rectangular pieces of fabric, cut from a specific bolt of fabric known as a tanmono, which is between 38-42cm in width, and 12.5m in length – thanks Wikipedia
Ernie K Labs 
Hey, thanks for your kind ideas or thoughts. Spam, no.