a thousand words

I have heard it said by many that with the Japanese craft books you don't need to be able to read the Japanese because the pictures are clear enough and easy to follow. I concur but strongly recommend actually looking at the pictures. I just looked at the paper pattern, rued that it was unclear whether the seam allowance was included or not, sewed two very tight narrow seams (in white thread on white linen) and then looked at the pictures. Seam allowance of 15mm was included. Quick-unpick!

I had a search through the fabric stash last night to make the bias tape. I actually had a good idea of what I was searching for, there's only a sliver shown here because the rest is in the wash. Originally purchased to be the binding on my roses quilt I got the fabric home and realised that it was the wrong colour (or rather, not the colour I had intended to purchase). I did subsequently buy the intended colourway online and have had this slightly darker green ever since waiting for a purpose. It's just about the same green as the leaves in the screenprint - excellent. And fabulous thing about making bias tape with fabric that has a grid of small spots is that you have ready-made markers for where to cut on the diagonal. I was a little disappointed that I didn't get to go shopping for a matching blue fabric to make the bias tape but it is better to use from the stash. And I did get to buy a new spool of matching sewing thread - hooray!

This little top is a bit of a leap of faith (like most of my sewing!). As I have limited fabric I narrowed the hem width by a couple of centimetres and have no hem allowance (so that will need to be bound with bias tape as well). The front neckline is conveniently the selvedge of the fabric but I'm going to need to dream something up for the back neckline (where I also have no seam allowance). The pattern calls for putting in elastic but I'm wondering if a casing with ties would be sweeter?