A Scot-Jap stylee shirt

I had another go at the Kwik Sew shirt this time using quite a bit of the information in D.P.Coffin's Shirtmaking book.

It is Scot-Jap because the collar and general style is taken from James' fave (but defunct) shirt bought in Ayr, Scotland, but the fabric, being lightweight silk from Keitoya in Kamakura is not something I think you could ever wear down a wind-swept Ayr high street. Well, maybe if global warming _really_ kicks in...

You can read all the details of the alterations I made on my review. The bit I remain unsure about is how wide the sleeves should be. I did not alter this aspect significantly in my alterations and I wonder if they are a bit loose. As DPC explains in his book, if you increase the sleeve cap height you make the sleeve point more down towards the ground and decrease the width of the sleeve. I couldn't experiment with this here because needle holes show in this silk and with that and the 1/4" seam allowances I think putting in a new sleeve would have caused rather a mess. Next time maybe...

James always has problems finding long sleeve shirts that fit because they were always too short and fat. But for short sleeve shirts, he just buys UK medium sized because they fit he body. Initially I was very confused when I saw how looong the sleeves were on this shirt. Then I looked up some shirt shops on the interweb and found lots of pics of men in short sleeve shirts with hems falling at about the elbow. What a revelation!

Sewing machine notes:
Used a size 10 microtex needle, because it was the one that didn't go "thunk thunk thunk" as it stitched this fine fabric, and #90 thread. Finished raw edges with a 3 step zig-zag using edge finishing foot.

Marfy rugby shirt - 1493

I guess the Italian women's rugby team don't really dress like this on the field, but this is like a mix of a blouse and a rugby shirt with the addition of trendy empire waist and feature pleating. Actually I am not sure that every place Marfy write "pleat" on the pattern they mean it - I think sometimes they might mean "gather". Like on the back of this top, I think you are supposed to gather the top into the bottom. I sewed pleats and James thinks they are "a bit funny".

It is all a bit funny really, but since Marfy patterns are well-known to be "fashion-forward", this means that everyone else in the world will be wearing this style soon even though they don't realise it yet. Until then I will just have to put up with the funny looks. Actually I think "fashion-forward" might really mean "daft and will never catch on but if I call it 'forward' you fools will buy it anyway".

Actually I love this top. I made it from some super 4-way stretch tencel knit found in Yuzawaya, Kamata for 3300¥/m. Splutter. The fabric is light yet cosy. Nice for this time of year when it is still hot but a little cooler than scorching and yet shops and can be a shade cool with the aircon still going.

This is the second pattern in my size included in the Marfy Autumn-Winter 2007/2008 catalogue. I cut a size 42 with confidence even though the bust measurement of the pattern is a little small for me, because I knew the stretchy fabric would give me extra to play with. I ended up sewing 3/8" inside the Marfy sewing lines for the sides and arm seams.

I've only done 2 Marfy patterns but found them such fun that I have now placed an order for several more. Stupidly I like the no-instructions style. It is stupid because a sensible person could have as much fun throwing away the instructions on other patterns, but it doesn't seem to work like that. If they are there I have to follow them, because I am a good girl! I like that the patterns come with lots of little pieces (easier to cut out accurately) that you have to work out how to put it all together. In one way it is like an exam - you have to remember what techniques to use, or at least where to look them up. On the other hand it is kind of liberating because you get to decide where you think it is OK to take shortcuts without having to feel like you cheated. Well the really cool thing about the patterns is the way the seams of all the little pieces slide together like magic into such interesting shapes.

review

Marfy Catalogue

Recently I ordered the Marfy Catalogue for autumn/winter 2007-2008. Unlike most magazines which make you wait 15 weeks for their editions by which time they would be completely out of season (although perhaps it makes sense for Australians) they actually shipped it by airmail and it arrived in a week or so.

Included in the catalogue are 6 actual patterns as well as lots of piccies of other patterns. Although they are multi-size the included patterns cover different ranges and actually only 3 of them include my size, a skirt, a top and an odd cape thing. When you order the individual patterns they come in only one size I think the idea is probably supposed to be that you test out your size on the included patterns and then order with confidence.

I started with the skirt pattern since I had some cheap heavy denim hanging around waiting to be used up. The mistake I made was that I cut a 44 instead of a 42, although I didn't realise this until the end. Having worked this out I now feel quite confident that 42 is the best size for my lower half at least. The pattern has 8 quite small pattern pieces which makes for easy work cutting out, since I don't really have room on my little kitchen floor for laying out huge amounts of fabric all at once.

Since the denim was quite thick and the start of the catalogue swore that frayed edges are way-cool :-o , I adopted flat construction techniques and so with the aid of some fancy stitches on my machine to stop fraying beyond the decorative I slapped the skirt together in a day. Even though I had to take it in rather a lot (due to cutting the wrong size) I really like the shaping of the skirt. James thinks the details (like the pocket and my top-stitching) are weird but I quite like them, even though people do keep telling me they are "cute".

The really cool thing about Marfy patterns is that they have no instructions beyond a few labels written on the pattern. I thought this might be a hindrance to construction but turns out that it enabled me to make a skirt in only a day! No pattern instructions would ever have allowed me to make this skirt the way I did. Maybe it will fall apart in a year but by then frayed edges will probably be well-uncool so it will probably be for the best... The word "couture" is all over the Marfy website, which is quite funny - I don't think this skirt could have been made any less couture...

review

An American Shirt

Kwik Sew 2777. Some barrel scraping conveners at the AGU have asked James to submit an abstract to their session, so for the first time we might be attending the "Fall" AGU meeting in San Francisco. How exciting! Taking place in mid-December this meeting really does coincide with the time the leaves are falling in Kamakura, while British people are more likely to consider mid-December to be mid-winter. I wonder what it is like San Francisco in December - don't they have summer all year?

Anyway, of course James will seek to blend in with the locals so what better than an American shirt? Question is what makes it look so American? The consensus of the comments on my review on PR seem to think it is the extra (muffin and steak?) space in the body and arms and the sloppy off the shoulder fit (for putting your muscles in from working out at the gym?). But I think there is summat funny about the collar. I think British collars are more square...? Of course it is not fully American because it does not contain a pocket to fill with leaky biros and notepads which, at least when I used to visit labs in the US with my Pa when I were a little girl, is a vital accessory for all American scientists.

In reality, this is a practice at men's shirt making using some incredibly cheap (100¥/m) and less than lovely fabric. It doesn't drape well which I think may make it look even baggier than it is. The real reason for making it is to see if I can make James some shirts which fit. All his long-sleeve shirts are too short in arms and body and too wide.

I've got the length sussed at least. I made size M adding several inches to body and arms to make the equivalent of XL lengths. I had some fun practicing some shirtmaking techniques. It is hard to keep edgestitching neat on such inordinately huge lengths (much easier on tiny blouses for jules). I had one or two other problems, getting the machine stuck on the collar points and finding that the top cuttonhole was in the wrong place. The are discussed further in my review on PR.

I have David Page Coffin's famous shirtmaking book. When I read his book I can't get the image of the pedantic and murderous George from Desperate Housewives out of my mind.... Anyway this time I followed only a few of his simplest suggestions - how to turn collars and how to roll-hem the hem. Next time I will probably try and incorporporate more of his clever techniques but this time I thought I'd try the pattern instructions - which seemed good enough for a practice.

I have now adjusted the pattern a bit, taking 1.5cm width out of left and right body and yolk pieces. Then I took 0.5cm off front and back at the edge and so 0.5cm off the edge of each sleeve top tapering to nothing the cuff. I also very slightly reshaped the back armscye moving it in 0.5cm at the base of the yolk. I wonder if that will mess everything up and mean poor James can't wave his arms, but that part really did seem like it had loads of extra fabric.

summer top thing

This top is based on Burda 8361. When I compared the pattern pieces to my own t-shirt pattern they were so radically different that I thought this was a chance to have some fun attempting to transfer the pattern details onto my own pattern.

I started by finding the height on the back to chop the t-shirt pattern in half horizonatally. Then I cut the front in half but with a curve like on the Burda pattern. The v of the neckline seemed low (why should become apparent later in this story) so I added a short CF seam to raise it a bit. After that it was just a case of swivelling the bust dart to the horizontal seam and drafting the pseudo-arms, which are just extensions of the shoulder.

The mistake I made was failing to realise that the shoulder to tit distance of the Burda pattern was too long for lil me. As a consequence the bustline was too low. Of course I only realised this after cutting out the fabric and basting the top together to try it on. To compensate I raised the shoulders an inch but of course this means the top is now a bit tight round the ribs and also it meant that I had to do the view with the unstitched arm-shoulder seam, since the arms would now be rather tight stitched up.

The top came out fine really and I have been wearing this quite a bit in the hot summer. Made of "onionskin" knit it is slightly sheer and feels best with a lightweight vest worn underneath. The vest is silk and I think the onionskin is polyester so that might be why it feels so much better with the underlayer.

This pattern used so little fabric (<1m) that I have enough left over to make a repeat. It is for fun since I rather enjoy the pattern-geometry stuff. I've already drafted a hopefully improved pattern so now just need time to stitch it and see if I've made things better or worse.

review

blousey

Burda 7942, from the burdamode website:

"Sewing level: easy. Burda sizes 36, 38, 40, 42, 44 The latest version of a classic - a blouse with a lapel/revers collar, section seams and fashionable gathering: view A with long cuffed sleeves, view B with short, gathered sleeves. Recommended fabric: Light-weight poplin, linen blends, cotton fabrics"

I bought the pattern because of the front styling. I do still quite like that. What I didn't like was the sizing. I think it is a bit big. I cut 38/12, a size smaller than my bust measurement suggested, but since I was using a stretch fabric, and the actual bust "finished garment" measurement written on the pattern said 39" for size 38, and my bust is 36"... it seemed like it should be OK. I suspect it is the usual problem of allowing the same actual ease in the smaller sizes as the bigger ones. However, I can't check this since somehow I have mislaid the part of the pattern where the finished garment sizes were printed. I also didn't find the pattern piece for the ties, but it must have been a small piece - I guess I threw it out by mistake!

I used a lightweight cotton shirting bought over the interweb from Emma One Sock. It's quite strange. Kind of cobwebby. Ms. One Sock herself told me it was "fashion forward" when I whinged about it to her. So that explains everything... It has a lot of stretch perpendicular to the stripe but none at all along the stripes. This made easing the back and front together quite tricky because I cut the front piece so that the stripes run across the shoulders. You can see the way the stripes run in this closeup. This is not the same grain direction as on the pattern but it seemed the only way to combine the stripes and the gathering at the front without getting very weirdie weirdie.

I couldn't really see how to make size adjustments in the gathered part, so after sewing the front and side-front together (ie sewing in the gathers - I tried out something called Seam Saver to bind the edge of the seam. It seems very nice and lightweight.), I pinned the body of the shirt together and then adjsuted it to fit. As well as taking in the waist and hips which I had thought I might need to do given my shape (1 size smaller below rib cage than above), I also adjusted the shape of the CB seam, taking in more at the waist. I also did think I had to bring the princess seams in a bit so I changed the button position and CF position to cope with this. I suppose this is probably the wrong thing to do, but with the curved shape of the front piece it seems to have worked out OK. I'm not sure it I like the non-collar stand style of this shirt. I realise now that all of the shirts in my wardrobe (except one) are not of this style.

There seemed a lot of sleeve to stuff into the armhole. I tried it and basted but then was quite relieved to find that the sleeves were really to wide for me, so I took out about a cm. This not only made it fit better but decreased the amount of extra fabric and made it possible to bring sleeve cap and armhole together.

I wouldn't really call this pattern "easy", because some fairly accurate stitching is required - for example in sewing the gathers neatly and attaching the casings for the ties. The result of the cotton cobweb fabric is surprisingly pleasant - being thin yet stretchy it is very comfortable for hot weather.

review

T time for James

James and I ride a tandem. We ride it off road and on road to and from work. Sometimes we take the bike travelling. At the weekend we do a big food shop with Mountain Expedition panniers filled up with beer, beans and baps. The disadvantage of having a great weather shield on the front of your tandem is the front view, which tends to be a bit dull.

Not anymore! Now at weekends I have romantic european cafe-life views to enjoy. I just finished the third T-shirt I have made for James. What I have realised through the two other attempts is that tighter fitting shirts don't look that great on tall men, so I added about 4cm ease to the pattern. Here are some more pics: side, back.

The fabric was the interesting part of this exercise:

It was so expensive that I have forgotton how much it cost - a bad memory is the only way to make cutting into such things a possibility - but I know it was so much that I only bought a metre. I bought it from a lovely shop called "Elegance" in Nippori. It seems to sell only incredibly expensive beautiful fabrics! So I laid out the front and back of the shirt on the fabric and then realised there was no way to get even a single whole sleeve out of the remainder. I think the fabric was 150cm wide but James being so tall, there was just no way of getting it to work given the fact that the print on the fabric has a right way up. So that's when I started stitching little rectangles of fabric together. Each sleeve is of about 5 pieces and the neckline band is made from 3 pieces. The delightful part is that it really doesn't look any the worse for the patchwork effect, and I still managed to get a cute little velo at about the same place on each sleeve. So now I feel like I didn't waste quite so much money on the fabric - I had only a handful of tiny scraps left over after cutting out!

The fabric is a cotton knit, light-mid-weight and soft. It feels really lovely. It was a total pain because the edges curl. At the last minute, I doubled the seam allowances when cutting out (they were 0.25"), by drawing a new cutting line straight onto the fabric in chalk. I think it would have been hard work without this extra SA. The other problem was that the fabric did not always start the seam being fed through the sewing machine properly and had a habit of staying put and the machine then stitched a big knot instead of a nice neat row of stitches. The Janome Acufeed food helped but did not always irradicate this problem. On the other-hand the fabric has great stretch recovery which saved the fabric in these situations and also none of my seams of hems appeared at all stretched after steaming, which is unusual.

Other than the fabric adventures I didn't have problems constructing the shirt since I have done it twice before. Really I just wanted to share the nice pattern with you, to encourage you all to save up your money and then come shopping in Tokyo (although I think the fabric is a European import).

review

shorts in summer

I think it is in the name of fashion but in Tokyo the girls like to wear shorts in mid-winter and long johns or (and?) thick denim jeans under their dresses in summer. I don't have a photo of the latter but here is one of the former. I am more traditional and prefer to wear as little as possible in hot weather and as much as possible in the cold.

Summer is coming so I made a shorts version of Vogue 7481 previously used to make some lightweight blue jeans and some mid-weight black jeans.

First of all I altered the pattern a bit with the aim of improving fit compared to the previous version. This mean adding about a cm to the front crotch. I also slightly altered the shape of the front crotch and reshaped the inside leg and outside leg seams a bit so that the backs and fronts fitted together more perfectly. The waist band was redrafted to make into a smooth curve.




























I chose a somewhat looser fit for the relaxed-style shorts, so I added to the side seams a bit - about a cm to each side seam at the hems tapering to nothing at the waistband. View C of this pattern does not have pockets or a yoke so I used the pattern pieces from View B as a guide to draft these onto my View C pattern which I have been adjusting for fit each time I make the trousers. Actually there are no rear pockets in any of the views so I took those from from View B for Vogue 8202. I used my RTW jeans as a guide for sewing the front pockets, sewing a full lining to the back of the pocket. What I did wrong was stitch the inner pocket on sideways. Rather than rip it out I opted to rotate the pocket piece by 90 degrees. This resulted in a pocket that was a cm or so shorter than it should have been. The rear pockets are also quite small so it doesn' t balance so badly!

The fabric is a fairly lightweight stretch denim but it is seemed very dense. I used size #30 thread rather than "jeans stitch" thread for the top stitching (size #60 in the bobbin), and used a lot of different needles, ranging from size 12 microtex, several sizes of denim needles to size 16 denim twin needles, depending which thread I was using and how many layers I was stitching through. Since I wanted a comfortable fit I interfaced the waistband with fusible tricot to keep the stretch. Partly because of this I also added belt loops - just in case the shorts decide to fall down.

They may look sloppy but I really like these shorts....

review

Waterproof overtrousers for J

In the beginning there were Pertex overtrousers but, as it turned out, Pertex doesn't really have what it takes to keep out Japanese rain, so, in January I bought some Paclite Goretex from a shop called Rocky Woods. I also got Textile Outfitters to convert my prize into 7m of iron-on seam sealer, only I made the mistake of thinking James' inside leg measurement was his outside leg measurement so there wasn't enough sealer to tape the hems or waistband.

There is something that I have realised that I really like about sewing functional clothing. With normal clothes there is always the worry of "do I look awful in this?", but with functional clothes the question is "does it work?" and if it does work then its a success and that's it!

This is the same pattern as last time. The only difference is that this time, armed with seam sealer to seal the extra seams, I made a gusset at the leg zip area. I hope they still fit over hiking boots. The previous version just had a zipper guard sewn to the zipper tape. The other difference is sewing Goretex rather than Pertex. It was actually much easier, although time consuming. You just sew the seam, trim the seam allowances and then iron on the seam sealer. It is the ironing that takes all the time. You can pin in seam allowances (especially those you will cut off), but mostly I used basting glue (washed off afterwards with a sponge and water). I also used steam-a-seam to help secure the hems. I read somewhere that as well as mircotex needles a long stitch length is the way to go for waterproof fabrics. The idea is to make as few holes in the fabric and to make them small. With my new machine I can change stitch length so I used lengths of between 3.5mm and 4mm.

The first torrential rain of rainy season was last night. James says the new trews are "great". I think they are relatively sexy too - for waterproof trousers.

review

Frock meets royal

I have to give a special mention to the colourful frock which was lucky enough to meet Prince Andrew a few weeks ago. Although all the men wore gay ties, colourful frock was, by sheer acreage, the brightest thing in the room.

Story of the full diplomatic incident on James' blog.

Tshirt festival

Recently I have at last got round to working on my T-shirt pattern. My strategy was to construct each shirt, alter it to fit a bit better and then adjust the pattern for next time. I'm not sure how well it has worked out since with 3 shirts done the fit is still not quite right. Probably it would have been better to make a single, trashable, test version but the problem is that I wanted something wearable to result from each one, and none of the fabrics were ones where unpicking a stretch stitch would not have left marks. One additional tricky part is that each fabric is a bit different, so perhaps that also changes the fit. Nevertheless I think things have improved a bit along the way and I have had my first successful twin-stitching experiences. While taking the Tshirt class last year I tried twin needling on my old sewing machine and managed to sew through my finger, nail and all, twice. The subsequent pulling out of broken bits of needle with pliers was sufficiently distressing that I didn't dare try again until well practised with my new machine.

T-shirt 1 - Black 4-way stretch cotton and lycra.
The fabric was a remnant from a frock I made. It is 4-way stretch but quite firm, so probably better for the frock than a T-shirt which tends to be somewhat looser fitting. I started with the princess seam pattern (drafted for the vest top) and made cap sleeves and a self-bound neckline. When it was finished I had to take up the shoulders, because it was too baggy. I altered the pattern accordingly. I twin needled the hems and the neckline. No pic yet since this top is at work.

T-shirt 2 - dark green lightweight knit cotton
This fabric was also a remnant, from James' green T-shirt. It is really quite lightweight and shiny on the right side. I now think this fabric is probably a bit too lightweight for a manly man's T-shirt. The sleeves were going to be long but I ran out of fabric so instead I am starting a new fashion by having my sleeve stop at the elbow...hmmm. I moved from using the princess seam design to using single pieced fronts and back with eased darts. This inevitably ends up with creases atthe back around the waistline because there is no back seam to adjust.

This time I discovered that I needed to change the slope of the shoulders - I suspect my previous adjustment had messed them up. I also had to take a seam at the back of the neckline - perhaps I stretched the neckline, but I was also getting extra fabric at the front around the arms so adjusted the garment (after basting together) and the pattern to take out a bit of width at the upper chest. I should also have smoothed off the armhole shape on the pattern - I could see it was not the right shape anymore - nevertheless I headed on to T-shirt 3.

T-shirt 3 - patterned lightweight cotton knit
The previous 2 versions seemed to have slightly stretched necklines. This time I did not twin needle the neckline and I also cut the binding shorter - so it was 2-3 inches shorter than the neckline. This did seem to work much better. With the shorter binding I may again try the twin needle another time. In this version I also had to take in the sides around the bust level, more at the front than the back. I now see lines on the picture which may indicate I have brough the armhole in(up?) too far. I'll have to think about that but it feels more like extra fabric remains on the lower part of the upper chest (that I should have got rid of by shaping the armhole nicely!). If I pull my shoulders back the lines disappear.

That is as far as I have got - I don't have much knit fabric left to carry on this rather more tricky than expected project! My first test a year ago made from and old tshirt and including a bust dart seemed better than these, although I never finished the neckline. So I remain a bit uncertain about the whole easing of darts idea - perhaps I should try an uneased version to see if it is actually helpful - I wonder if these eased darts may be adding to the extra fabric at the armhole problem.

sewing machine
foot pressure - 0!
top tension 5.5
bobbin - loose for twin needle (half-turn left), normal position for stretch stitch.

fabric shoppin'

For the last rather a long time I have been not buying any fabric and not many patterns in order to complete the things I had in mind. There are now not so many things outstanding, and no very expensive fabric sitting unused; only moderately expensive fabric. The thing I have to try to do is complete some Goretex trews for James before rainy season, and I also want to sew some more T-shirts, which I have fabric for - but apart from that....

...well this weekend I went looking for for fun fabric. I started off in bed, online at the fabric stores on Saturday morning, but of course that stuff hasn't arrived yet. The photo above is the results of a 1.5 hour shopping expedition in our home town of Kamakura. There are two fabric store companies in Kamakura but that comprises 5 shops. Wimmin's work seems very much alive and well in the 12th Century capitol of Japan!

Swany - 3 shops. This being an old-fashioned world it is closed on Sundays and all national holidays. Of course most Kamakura wimmin can shop during the weekdays so no problem there. :-) Actually the shop is packed with wimmin on Saturday and merely busy the rest of the week. It has floors spread throughout its 3 shops dedicated to, in no particular order:

a. notions, buttons, ribbon, beads and bag-making essentials. Bag making does seem very popular.
b. quilting cotton and quilting notions
c. cotton and linen
d. home dec fabrics and notions
e. clothing fabrics with a particular emphasis on knits, and including some lining and interfacing fabrics.

You can buy examples of pretty much anything you can imagine although there is not a large range of some things. The emphasis is on cheaper things, and you don't find many very striking things or designer fabrics here.

Sometimes (and at present) it has a relatively large amount of denim in stock. I got the lovely and unusual ripped denim for the jeans I made here, as well as the infamous stretched denim for the second pair. On Saturday I bought a dark blue very lightweight stretch denim (I thought I might make some shorts) and a guaranteed uncolour-fast denim both for under 500¥/m. The non-colourfast one just seemed interesting - it was wrapped on the bolt inside out so that the indigo didn't get on everything! I suppose it will make the whole house blue.

Then I was determined to choose something from their large wall of knit prints. The problem I have is that almost all seem to have a pale yellow-green cast and I look really quite ill in pale yellow, pale green and pale orange. I guess these colours suit the average Japanese complexion well. Anyway I found one rather striking thing - a buttermilk stripey number for a little over 500¥/m. It isn't a print, though, but a "real" stripe of dyed threads. It is bright, has a sheen to it and if it is too yellow for me, it looks like it will be super on James.

Next, on to Keitoya - 2 shops. Basically they have one shop concentrating on cheaper fabrics and the second one focusses on the hyper-expensive designer shit, and stuff. The first shop is currently flogging all its huge stock for almost nothing. Whether, when it is all over, they will re-stock or close down from too much competition from Swany I don't know. The overall effect walking in to the stores is that colours in both the stores tend to be brighter than those in Swany. However, looking back through my blog I see that although I visit the cheap Keitoya often, I buy far more often in Swany. Perhaps the best thing I bought in Keitoya was the fabric for the trench coat. I also quite regularly buy practice fabric, or fabric to use as interfacing in their 100-200¥/m section.

Still a closeout sale is not to be missed. I want to attempt to make a proper shirt for James so here is some practice fabric - 100¥/m really quite nice shirting cotton (as far as I can tell at this stage) brown and light brown with thin gold stripes.

Next a real find. Well I've seen it here before but not for 500¥/m! Usually it is more like the 3000¥/m I paid for similar in Yuzawaya. It is the wool with 40% angora knit. This one is very thick so definitely will make a winter jumper for James.

From the sublime to the ridiculous. This is 1.5m of velvet knit. I think it is the stuff that is variously called panne velvet and crushed velvet. Anyway this is remarkable variagated gold, and almost as interesting on the back as the front. 500¥/m. Maybe it's just for looking at?! It is rather more "interesting" in real life than in this photo. One could make some weekend trews out of it if one dared to cut it up.

Finally - hyper-Keitoya - which was the place that had preciptated the shoppin' trip. I've only lived here 6 years and so it was only last week when I realise that the stuff in hyper-Keitoya was not _quite_ as expensive as I had thought. Much of the fabric is sold in cut lengths and the price tags are for the whole length rather than per m! Having said that they do have astonishing fabric at extraordinary prices ( 480,000¥/m?!). Hyper-Keitoya is probably the only place in town where you might find cashmere coating or suiting fabric. Last weekend I picked up two pieces of matt finish very lightweight, but not sheer, silk, for, erm, some money. Suitable for shirts or blouses, here they are:

While there last week I spotted these rather extraordinary prints: so extraordinary that I left it a whole week before buying (a dangerous ploy in the Kamakura fabric buying business where the good stuff usually sells out very fast). The first is a 4-way stretch woven, which will make a lovely revolting pair of trousers. In the shop they assured me that despite being made in Japan, this print is of the Italian style. Being of the Italian style seems to be quite important in hyper-Keitoya. They confidently informed me I'd only need 1.2m for a pair of trouser but I can't imagine that working out so I went for 1.5m. Hope it is enough. The price was: more money.

Finally, near to the stretch woven was this knit. I'm not really into flowers, but this one seemed very nice. I suppose the reason is that it is not a regular pattern. It also cost some money. I was doing so well, having spent less than 10,000¥ until I got to hyper-Keitoya...