Monthly Archives: April 2015

Japanese Men’s Pattern Book GIVEAWAY!

I’m very proud to offer you my first blog giveaway ever at Line of Selvage!

I’ve sort of known about Japanese pattern books for a while. Peter has mentioned them a few times at Male Pattern Boldness, and of course MainelyDad has created an entire blog inspired by them in the men’s sewing blogosphere. But the books I knew about didn’t catch my interest, and some (like the Pattern Magic series) looked too fiddly and “out there” for me.

Two things inspired me to look further.

Local blogger Chuleenan Svetvilas is the coordinator for the Bay Area Sewists meetup, and I follow her blog C Sews. She’s been doing some Japanese pattern book projects lately, and that woke me up to the idea that there is quite a lot of diversity in the kinds of projects you find in these books.

Secondly, reader Corey let me know there is a Japanese pattern book out there with men’s trouser patterns, including a pattern for selvedge denim jeans (a future project — I have a Pinterest board for planning here).

That was enough for me. I went to Kinokuniya Books in San Francisco on a sunny Saturday morning during the Cherry Blossom Festival, and scoured the shelves. They had dozens of pattern books with great looking projects — for women.

There were exactly three men’s pattern books on the shelf. Two were by the same author, Shimazaki Ryuichiro: Men’s Coat (scroll down the page after clicking the link) and Men’s Apron. The Men’s Coat book I knew of, having been the inspiration for the Japanese Pattern Challenge blog. The Men’s Apron book was an interesting curiosity, but I have no interest in sewing aprons.

I did, however, find this very interesting book of casual clothing patterns for men.

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Vogue 8940 Pants Fitting, Round 2

I’m inviting you to watch as I attempt, once again, to fit the pattern for Vogue 8940 mens trousers. You can see my previous article in this series here; I’m picking up where that article leaves off.

I will try to iterate through the process of making muslins until I get one that has good fit. My expectations are set that this could require several iterations. Unlike my disappointing experience with the Thread Theory Jedediah Pants pattern, I actually think I can get a working pattern out of Vogue 8940.

My Resource

Most of my guidance for this round of fitting has come from Sarah Veblen’s course on PatternReview, Fun with Fitting: Pants. I’ve also purchased Veblen’s fitting book, which has a chapter on pants fitting and supplements the course material.

The nice thing about the PatternReview course is that you can ask Ms. Veblen questions directly via the class forum. She doesn’t answer fitting questions specific to your situation, but she will answer general questions and anything about the class content.

I’m not going to repeat her course here, because I don’t want to give away other people’s content. But I will try to demonstrate how I attempt to use Veblen’s fitting methodology in my particular situation. Continue reading →

Review: “Pants Construction Techniques: In The Details” by David Page Coffin

I like to think of David Page Coffin as the “Alton Brown of Sewing”. The two have a lot in common, including attention to detail, commitment to a high-quality result, and the relentless search for best tools and techniques to achieve that result.

Being a big fan of Coffin’s books including Shirtmaking and Making Trousers, I was always hoping that he might offer a Craftsy course to better present his techniques. So I was really pleased to see his new course Pants Construction Techniques: In The Details appear on Craftsy.

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