I found this store completely by accident; I decided to walk down one side of the street rather than the other so as to stay in the shade, and, idly glancing through the shop windows, saw this:

Of course, agonizingly, the store wasn't open for another ten minutes. So I went and browsed through a children's clothes store across the street, afraid to roam further afield in case I lost my way and couldn't make it back. I did cleverly take this picture for directional reference (the shop is at the very corner of this street and the main Nippori drag):

When the shop finally did open (on the dot of 10 a.m., just as the sign said), I was the first one in the door — to look at this:

and this:

and this:

The gentleman who was running the store when I was there was very helpful — I asked permission to take these pictures, which was originally refused … until I whipped out my handy Dress A Day business cards, after which everything was copacetic. I tried to explain "blog", but since I often have a hard time explaining "blog" in English, my hand gestures were not up to the task. So when he said "Magazine?" I said "Yes, computer magazine," and left it at that.

I ended up buying three meters of this:

Here's the selvage:

I am thinking that some of these patterns are Japan-only … I haven't seen them anywhere else, not on Ebay.co.uk or on the new Liberty website. And it does say pretty clearly "Printed in Japan". Does anyone know for sure?

As Liberty goes, this wasn't hideously expensive — I think it was about 2900 yen/meter, so about $29. Cheaper than Liberty in the U.S., that's for sure — if you could even find it!

I accepted a business card but am unable to read it — am posting it here for any scanlation help:

This store is the one closest to the top edge of the card, on this little map (you can get your orientation from the train station). Worst-case, you could always print this image and give it to the hotel concierge or cab driver — that should get you to one of these stores!

Aside from Liberty, the store carried a lot of very high-end cottons — including that red and yellow French-provincial stuff that handbags are made from, whose name I always forget — and some wools and linens. I didn't spend a lot of time browsing other than among the Liberty, since I knew buying that piece of Liberty had already strained my fabric budget a bit …

While I was paying for my fabric, the clerk even offered me a piece of chocolate. This is my kind of fabric store, I tell you.

So, yes, I bought a little fabric in Japan. (I know you're all surprised by that.) Last Tuesday morning I went to Nippori Textile Town.

Small digression: I know it seems scary, the idea of running around a strange city, by yourself, not knowing a word of the language (okay, I can say "sugoy" which I *think* means "awesome!") — but, really: it's okay. It's exhilarating, even. When you're traveling somewhere familiar you don't notice even a tenth of what's going on, because you don't have to. But when everything's strange, everything is important, and you notice every detail. The colors matter, and the expressions on people's faces, and even the flow of the air around you — they're all clues as to where you are and what you should do. If traveling somewhere so different doesn't make you feel incredibly awake and alive, you're doing it wrong.

But: back to the fabric:

When you walk into Tomato in Nippori, the first thing you see is the half-wall of 100-yen fabrics, presided over by the winking Tomato. It's pretty crowded around that wall, as you might imagine. When I was there on a Tuesday morning, the crowd was split pretty evenly between younger, student-y looking women, and sweet-tiny-grandma-type women. (I was the only non-Japanese in the store that morning, as far as I could tell.)

There's a lot of other stuff on the first floor which I neglected to take pictures of; mostly linen-y things.

The second or third floor (I forget which) has silk:

Hilariously, each floor plays different music. The ground/first floor plays upbeat J-pop; the knits floor (which I also neglected to photograph) was playing some Justin Timberlake; but the silks floor was playing classic big-band jazz. Talk about setting the atmosphere!

I spent most of my time (and money) on the cotton-prints floor:

You have to pay for your purchases on each floor separately. It seemed to me as if they did take credit cards, but I had brought a lot of cash with me, so I used that, instead. (I like to leave a country with less than $20 of that country's currency on me. My bureau drawer is not an effective foreign-currency hedge.)

One nice touch was the display of completed projects and patterns that lined the stairwells and landings at each floor:

The store staff were very friendly, and, even though (as I said) I don't speak any Japanese, I managed to get by just fine with hand gestures and lots of smiling — even when I was trying to express tricky things like "I want all that's left on this bolt, please." (However, if you need more than ten fingers to express how many meters you want, I'm not sure I can help you — although I'm really impressed!)

So enough of the travelogue: what did I buy?

I finally found the elusive orange bandanna print; I think this was 300 yen/meter:

And some brown/red/teal heavier cotton, which will almost certainly become a skirt:

Some black floral/dot fabric, which is probably going to be a Duro Jr.:

And this orange leaf-and-stripe fabric, which is also going to be a Duro Jr. (Sorry, I'm obsessed.):

Lastly, I picked up about 8 meters of this stripey fabric for my friend Jilli, aka the "Lady of the Manners" at Gothic Charm School. Wondering why anyone would need 8 meters of black and white striped fabric? Go check out that site and not only will you know, you'll want some for yourself …

Tomorrow: directions and photographs of the store in Nippori that sells LIBERTY.

Vireya sent this link to me, from the opening of the Olympic Village … I really like the "fauxlero power!" hand gestures. Although I'm not exactly sure if these are fauxleros, or just extremely vestigial boleros. These may be the long-disputed missing link between the fauxlero and the bolero …

Check out picture #5 in the series, too, to see the Olympic-rings hairstyles in closeup.

Also: Sheila (of Out of the Ashes Collectibles) is having a vacation sale: she's on vacation until late August (but with a quick trip home to mail orders about about August 7 or 8) and she is offering 15% off all orders. So if you don't mind waiting until 8/7 or 8/8 or after that the first of September it's a good savings!

And yes, I'm still in Japan, and yes, I bought a lot of fabric in Tokyo … and if you want to know what brought me to Japan, it was giving this talk:

Yes, that first slide is blank. I should probably edit it to have my name or something on it, shouldn't I?

edited to add: Vireya found another photo, this one full-length:

Kristen is a very, very lucky person. First of all, she was lucky enough to find this fabric on eBay:

Then, she was lucky enough to go to Comic Con, which I have always wanted to do … not just for the comics, but for the clothes. I mean costumes. Whatever.

And finally, she (naturally) decided that a trip to Comic Con needed a new dress, and made this one:

Hmm, perhaps now that I think about this, it might not be luck — it's starting to look suspiciously like good planning and hard work … which is even more impressive!

You should totally go check out Kristen's blog) to see the side and back views and the awesome red shoes she chose to go with the dress, too.

Jim sent me this old fabric ad — and can we just all agree that it's awesome? Leaving aside the weird fringe trim? And possibly the color beige?

I am thinking I really need one of these multipocket skirts — especially the "hopscotch" version. I would like to make all the pockets close with contrasting bright plastic zippers (for just a tinch more security and a bit of extra wtf? sauce).

My favorite part of these old ads are the guarantees. This one states "GUARANTEE: 'If any article made principally of an Indian Head brand cotton fails to give proper service because of the fading or running of Indian Head colors, or if the fabric shrinks more than 1%, we will make good the total cost of the article.' Make sure the name INDIAN HEAD is on the selvage or hang tag."

I can't believe, though, that Indian Head cotton comes in 39 colors and BEIGE is the one they decided to feature. Beige. You know how they say the opposite of love is indifference? The opposite of color is not colorlessness, it's beige. I mean, I AM largely beige and I hate that color.

I should apologize for the spottiness of the "A Day" part of "Dress A Day" lately — lots of travel. (I'm typing this at 6 a.m. in an airport departure lounge, actually …) I'm on my way to Tokyo and Sapporo! Expect more Japanese fabric pictures and the concomitant Japanese fabric BUYING.

Here's the seersucker dress (the Duro Junior pattern again) I promised to post when I got back (and I did get back, despite my flight being canceled; I got the next-to-last seat in the last row of the flight that left before my flight, and ended up arriving half an hour later than my flight was supposed to — myriad and strange are the ways of airlines).

(The antepenultimate and ultimate seats on that flight — i.e., the two seats next to me — were occupied by Masters of The Universe who were swapping stories of the first-class seats they'd lost when their flights were canceled. Oh, woe!)

Anyway, I wasn't wearing this dress on the plane, although I did actually wash it during my trip so I could wear it twice! The weather was so horribly humid, and this dress is so cool, that it was a necessity. (Also, being seersucker, it dried in about twenty minutes after I hung it up.) I wished I had eleven of these so I could change into them twice a day.

At first I was a bit worried that this was too "swimsuit coverup," but after wearing it for a while that wore off.

There's a few more changes I want to make to this pattern: I want to make the pockets wider and deeper, and sew the top of them into the waistband for extra support. I need to lengthen the front bodice another half-inch; and alter the seam across the top of the shoulder so that it curves down a bit. (I like the sleeve to follow the arm, not stick straight out.) I lopped two inches off the skirt before I hemmed it, but it would be more efficient if I altered the pattern piece instead … and maybe make the skirt a teeny bit fuller, too, if only to better accommodate the bigger pockets.

Right now I want to make it in lemon-yellow linen with brown linen banding, dark gray poplin with red, a pink-and-maroon floral fabric (better than it sounds) … the list goes on. Maybe for my next trip I really will have eleven versions!

Oh, and maybe next time I'll match the stripes. But probably not:

And quickly: Jen at MOMSPatterns has started using "fauxlero" as a key word, meaning you can search for fauxleros on her site. AND she's running a 20% off sale from right now thru Sunday night, midnight EST with coupon code 'fauxlero'. (And there's a nice history of the word fauxlero and list of fauxlero patterns on the Vintage Pattern Wiki …)

I saw these shoes in a shop window a month or so ago, and they looked so cute. Then I saw them on the street, on a real person, and they were even cuter. So I went into the shop (Prada, a place where I don't remember ever going into before — what would be the point?), took this surreptitious picture, and am now posting it. I would link to them but I can't find an online seller.

They caught my eye, of course, because they are RICK-RACK SANDALS, and as such, absolutely gorgeous. They're also $495, which puts them WAY out of my budget (that is, if my budget were at the Equator, this pair of shoes would be at Alpha Centauri) which is sad.

My hope is that I can outlast everyone else — in six months, these shoes will be "so last-season," whereas my love for rick-rack knows no season. There will be pairs going begging, and I will snap them up, preferably on eBay. At least, that's my fantasy.

There's also a high-heel version, but I didn't bother taking a picture of those. (I was terrified of the salesladies, frankly.)

(If you look at the reflection in the chrome edging of the table, you can see my stripey seersucker dress. I'll try and post about that dress towards the end of the week.)

I got this great "guest rant" from a pattern seller (who will remain anonymous) and I thought it was worth posting.

[Although] I will note that no one's raised the issue of "How much did they pay people for the valuable vintage they are offering us" or "I bet they paid $5.00 for 20 patterns, how can they charge us $15.00 each for them??" (or significantly more, in some cases).

[It's] a very valid point and I don't want to ruin your comment section by addressing it … I have a good answer for how and why I price my offerings:

Yes I often buy boxes of old patterns for very little cost for the box. But I got up at 4:00AM to be first in line at the estate sale that I thought might possibly have vintage patterns. I stood in line for 2 hours and tried to be first in the door. When I got in the door I started pushing past people and heading for the garage or shed where the patterns usually are and lo and behold there are 2 boxes, rat pellets, roach carcasses and all …

I make my best deal and tote the smelly mess to my car. When I get them home I sit down and go through them to see if there are any beautiful finds that need my immediate attention. I sort by priority which goes first and which gets stored for another day. Then I start with the high priority ones and spread out and check to make sure all the pieces are there and cry when they aren't. I remove old pins (usually unless I miss one), I iron the envelope and the instructions so they are nice and readable.

Then I scan (or rather the DH scans) the envelope and sends it to me. I size it and clarify it a bit so it is readable. If I'm feeling creative I "clean" the front just for my files and cause I like 'em that way. Then it's time to write the listing. Gotta hold that pattern so I know the proper size and measurements … 'cause they're mostly different through the years.

Then I package the little beauty in a plastic bag and file it away until it goes to its new owner … by this time I've spent an average of 1-2 manhours, gasoline (at $4 a gallon) and we don't even count the time spent in line at the estate sale …

Now it's listing time … we all know that eBay doesn't do anything for free (and even website space costs) so I've got 1-2 hours time, a plastic bag, gas money, and then we add FEES. Take away everything else and the fees alone eat into the profit. If I manage to get $9.99 for a pattern and it better be a special one … I get to put $8.00 of that in my pocket. Take away a few cents for packaging and equipment (scanner, computer, iron) maintenance and we're down to $7.50 … O yeah, the 25 cents I paid for the pattern … we're at $7.25. IF THE PATTERN SELLS! Considering the 1-2 manhours involved … That's below minimum wage.

I thought this was worth posting because so many of us forget about the overhead and just plain TIME that's involved in running a small business, especially when you're doing everything yourself (or with the help of your spouse, who may or may not have another full-time job). Sure, I hear people say "I could buy that at the Salvation Army for a dollar," but I always want to ask them "Really? That exact pattern? You're sure it's there? When do they close, by the way?"

You're really paying for everything above, plus the luxury of choice — being able to select from the range of patterns in the seller's web store. And (at least for my advertisers) reassurance that all the pieces are there, and a good chance of a refund if they're not (try that with the Salvation Army …).

One last thing: if you do think vintage patterns are too expensive, you have a lot of options. You can not buy them, for one. Modern patterns are much, much cheaper (if you wait for the $1.99 pattern sales at the major fabric chains). You can set up a wait-for-it search on eBay and hope someone who doesn't know what they have will list it. And, of course, you can always draft your own.

That pattern up above? It's $75 (at The Blue Gardenia, sorry, there's not direct link to the pattern page). Unused, an in-demand bust size, a fancy pattern, and a great illustration. Is it worth $75? It is to somebody!

I think maybe two years ago I said I was going to organize my sewing room "soon" and show you all pictures. Ha. I managed to carve out a few hours a couple weekends ago and made a start, anyway. Here's a look at one of my bookcases o' sewing:

And yes, that is a large box labeled RICKRACK there on the lower left. The pattern pieces on the wall are held to a metal strip with magnets; the patterns in the boxes are ones I haven't filed yet.

Here's a closer-up view:

And these little trays? Are all full of bias tape, sorted by color:

I had this fantasy that I would sort everything out and have matching gorgeous boxes and pretty jars and so on and so forth, a sort of Martha Stewart organizational orgy, but then I realized that I liked the weirdness of all my leftover shoe boxes, file boxes, Mason jars, and candy tins. Some of the hardware boxes and cigar boxes were used by my husband's grandmother to keep HER sewing things in, which I like.

The bookcase itself is a leftover from our last apartment. (In our house, the sewing room is where furniture goes to die. "Should we toss this?" "Nah, just put it in the sewing room." I'm surprised there's not a saggy twin bed and two slightly wobbly dining room chairs in that room.)

I'm nowhere near done — there's still an entire closet that might as well be Fibber McGee's, and a couple of drawers I am hesitant to open, not to mention the fact that every time I move a box I find a couple more issues of Threads lurking behind it — but it's getting closer. Anyway, now I know where all my rickrack is. That's a start.

And speaking of Threads, I have three extra copies of the most recent issue, with my piece on fabric shopping in Tokyo in it. I was thinking — if there's interest — I'd auction off signed copies (with tape measures thrown in for good measure, ha ha) to benefit Homeless Women Veterans again. What do you all think?

Oh, and I keep meaning to tell you — Marge is having a sale at Born Too Late Vintage (the vintage Born Too Late, not the patterns Born Too Late): $10 off any item $50 or higher. It ends tomorrow, the 17th, so get clickin'!

Melissa has a question:

I also love the shirtdresses, but being fuller-bosomed, I have basically given up on owning anything that buttons down the front. Any tips to prevent gapping and preserve modesty?

First — did you make sure that the pattern you're making is the right cup size? As La Belladonna has often reminded us, patterns are intended for a B cup. If you're not a B cup (and it sounds like you aren't), you have to do something called a Full Bust Alteration (check out the Pattern Review boards or Stitches and Seams or this link for information about this).

Since I am not far enough away from a B to justify doing an FBA, I usually just make sure that the middle button is centered right between the two bust points.

Anyone else have suggestions?