A few weeks ago, I was on a routine shopping trip in midtown Manhattan, and I popped into Kinokuniya on a whim. It’s a large Japanese book store. At the Manhattan location, the basement level is full of magazines, craft books, planners and journals, pens, and enough kawaii trinkets to blow your mind. I made a beeline for the sewing and pattern books.

I love the simple, clean aesthetic of Japanese sewing books, but usually the styles are not how I prefer to dress myself. The garments always include thoughtful details and are meant to be wearable wardrobe basics, but they have a lot of ease in them, and I don’t like everything I wear to be super voluminous. But, as soon as I opened this book, I knew I had to have it. This is a book of clean, classic coat pattern blocks, with tons of awesome variations.

This book is by Yuko Katayama, a “sewing teaching specialist”. She really is! This book is bursting with information; even if you don’t speak Japanese, you can follow along. There are sections showing photos of all finished projects, color photos of techniques used across patterns (such as single and double welt pockets, bagging a lining, and attaching a collar). Additionally, some steps have a QR code. If you take a photograph of it with your phone, it will connect you to a short YouTube clip of that step being executed.

The book includes basic patterns A, B, C, D, and E. Each pattern has 2-4 variations, totalling 18 distinct coats. You can mix and match from there to create even more variations (as I chose to do; I made coat B-1 with the collar from B-2).

I studied this book for about 2 weeks before starting my project. Though I can’t read Japanese, the visual information was far more than you get from a typical envelope sewing pattern. The details in each pattern are thoughtful, practical, and built to last.

As with Burda magazine, you trace your pattern from large overlapping sheets. Some pattern pieces have seam allowance already, while others do not. In the case of pattern B, which I traced and sewed up, all pockets included 3/8” (1cm) seam allowances. The other pieces do not include seam allowance, so I added 1/2” after tracing the pattern. I learned this about seam allowance, because I couldn’t figure out why some pieces fit together, and others didn’t. I was able to text Jason’s mom some photos of the book; she is Japanese, and a professional translator. She let me know that the large pattern sheets say, “some pieces include allowance, and others do not.” So, Put on your thinking cap! *and walk all your seams, just to be safe.

The illustrated cutting diagrams show which pieces require interfacing, and clearly illustrate (with measurements) how to draft your own interfacing pieces. The cutting diagrams also show you the seam allowance amount you should add to your traced pattern pieces, and different amounts (1cm or 1.5cm) are indicated in various places.

I highly recommend this book! You will have the most success if you have made a coat before, and are comfortable tracing a pattern, and drafting a few additional pattern pieces by following the included measurements. You will also want to be comfortable tackling some of the techniques used for most of these coats, such as: single or double welt pockets, bound buttonholes, Hong Kong finished seams, bagged linings, hoods, and fully reversible garments (the techniques for these are pretty cool). If, like me, you cannot read the patterns, spend some time with the book, and with your traced off pattern, to make sure everything looks right. I also made a quick muslin just to double check my work.

I’ll post about the coat soon!